Bright Now

On the eve of the ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies shareholder meetings, Christian climate campaigners held a prayer vigil outside Church House in central London – the Church of England’s headquarters – to pray for the Church of England to divest from fossil fuels.

In an open letter published in today’s Church Times, six bishops and 130 clergy including Rt Revd Dr Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Revd Dr Sam Wells, Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, and Revd Lucy Winkett, Rector of St James’s Church, Piccadilly, have called on the Church of England’s Church Commissioners to divest immediately from oil giant ExxonMobil.

The Church Commissioners, one of the three Church of England National Investing Bodies (NIBs), have decided to continue investing in ExxonMobil, despite the NIBs having put Exxon on a list of ‘restricted’ companies.

The Church of England’s governing body, General Synod, voted overwhelmingly on Sunday to divest by 2023 from oil and gas companies not on track to meet the Paris Agreement target of limiting global average temperature rise to well below 2°C.

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13 Anglican bishops and 78 clergy have signed a letter calling on the Church of England’s General Synod to support an amendment on fossil fuel divestment set to be tabled by the Diocese of Oxford today during a debate on the Church’s approach to tackling climate change.

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On Tuesday 12 December, ExxonMobil finally responded to shareholder pressure following a resolution passed at the company’s AGM in May 2017, announcing that it would report on the impact of climate policies on its business operations.

The announcement came on the second anniversary of the Paris Agreement, which the company publicly supports, although its actions have suggested otherwise. Read more