Bright Now

Revd John Howard, former Chair of the Methodist Church’s Joint Advisory Council on the Ethics of Investment (JACEI) from 2008-2016, seconded a motion on fossil fuel divestment at the Methodist Conference last month. In this guest blog, he offers reflections on the 2020 Conference and the important decisions to be made at Methodist Council this autumn.

The Methodist Conference, which is meeting virtually this year, debated divestment from fossil fuel companies on Tuesday.

Conference members voted to support an amended motion and referred the decision on divestment to the Methodist Council, a smaller representative body, in the autumn.

A group of 260 Methodists, including 114 ministers and 146 lay people, have signed a letter calling on the Central Finance Board of the Methodist Church to complete divestment from fossil fuels.

Yesterday, the Central Finance Board of the Methodist Church announced that it had divested its shares in the major oil companies BP and Total. This is a welcome step forward, but does not go far enough in implementing the motion on divestment passed at Methodist Conference in 2017.

Our new Bright Now report, ‘Church investments in major oil companies: Paris compliant or Paris defiant?’, calls on Churches to urgently divest from fossil fuels in response to the climate emergency. The report shows the gap between the business plans of major oil companies and the Paris Agreement targets.

Download the report
Download the Executive Summary

Lancaster Methodist Church, Stroud Methodist Church and Banner Cross Methodist Church in Sheffield have decided to end their investments in fossil fuel companies.

In making this decision, the three churches involved have demonstrated prophetic leadership on the climate crisis. They also called on the Central Finance Board of the Methodist Church to complete divestment from fossil fuels this year.