The Commonwealth Conversation

Mark Dowd talks Climate Change, God and the Commonwealth

Mark Dowd is a dedicated environmental activist for the organisation Operation Noah, the first Christian campaign focused exclusively on climate change. The former Roman Catholic priest talks to the RCS about climate change, God and the Commonwealth.

Transcript:

Can I ask you firstly, what does the Commonwealth mean to you?

The Commonwealth really doesn’t mean an awful lot to me, to be honest. I’ve studied a lot about international politics and I’ve got vague, hazy memories of long historical associations with colonialism, because of Britain’s role in expanding the Empire. In this day and age, we have sovereign states that are equal, and much more emphasis on the family of nations. I think really it’s more of a sense of the lasting presence of Britain’s association with its old empire, but trying to bring together this notion of family and shared values, and of course what you do have is common linguistic ties and cultural ties. But, beyond that, not an awful lot.

You personally are a passionate environmentalist. The Commonwealth Conversation recently featured a very moving monologue on our website, which was with a lady called Ursula from the Carteret Islands in the South Pacific, and she was talking about how she, and many members of her community, have had to leave and move to Papua New Guinea because the islands are becoming submerged. Do you think this is feasibly going to happen to other Commonwealth island states, such as the Maldives, if nothing is done to combat climate change?

I think it’s inevitable. I mean, even if we, at Copenhagen, capped emissions overnight, because of the inertia of climate change, the emissions of the last twenty, thirty years will still have to feed through into the atmosphere. Therefore some sea level rise, some changes to our climate, are, I think, unstoppable. The question is whether we get a grip on that, and stop it at that, or whether it becomes really really dangerous. But so many of these small islands are extremely vulnerable. I mean, even something like half a metre sea level rise could be extremely difficult. So I think preparations have to be put in place already, for discussions about what an environmental refugee is, and that we think well in advance, and don’t just wait until it happens, and then suddenly say ‘oh my goodness, this is a surprise!’. And I don’t like to sound fatalistic, but I think the people who live on these islands, and their policy-makers, must have to engage with this in a very realistic way.

So do you think therefore that climate change should be the number one priority for Commonwealth leaders in the foreseeable future, over anything else?

Yes, because, in a sense, we’ve got into this habit of thinking that the environment is just another subject, even if it’s an important one, it’s just another item on the stage. Whereas, in fact, the environment is the stage. If you have a world where there are floods and drought and tornadoes, and completely unpredictable weather, it’s almost impossible to plan or do anything. And so, the difficulty of this- as Al Gore said in his wonderful film, An Inconvenient Truth, this is a challenge to our moral imagination. We need imagination, because we aren’t in that place yet, but we have to see what it might be like. And it’s moral because of the fact that we have moral obligations to people who aren’t born yet, to people we’ve never met. And these are enormous challenges to us, but I think they make some of the pressing issues of today rather insignificant.

You’re also well known in the United Kingdom as a commentator on religious affairs. Do you think that issues like the environment and climate change can act as a really good catalyst for people of different faiths to unite together?

A Muslim friend of mine said to me recently ‘What’s the point in arguing about the battle over the Koran and the Bible if we’re both twenty feet underwater?’. In a sense, it is the great equalising issue. And the fact of the matter is also that some religions have historically in the past three or four hundred years found engaging with this subject difficult. There is a tendency to have a knee-jerk response that says ‘oh, it’s a green issue’ or ‘oh, those environmentalists, they’re all a bit wacky’ and ‘aren’t they all pagans?’. I think, in a sense, what all the religions of the world have got to do is go back to their own basics, their own scriptures, and see that care for God’s creation, and being in balance with it, is an absolutely core part of the DNA of their faith. It’s not some extra additional little thing you can tag on, it’s absolutely central.

Category : Climate Change & Environment, The Commonwealth's Relevance
Tags: religion
Stay Updated :  RSS 2.0 feed.