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Iain Taylor

Date posted: 1 Sep 2023

The summer heatwave across the northern hemisphere has seen almost uncontrollable forest fires break out from Canada to China, Algeria to Greece, as soaring, record temperatures hit the high-40°sC.

But as soon as the flames were doused, the question on many people’s minds was – to what extent are these record thermometer levels the result of human-made climate change?

Iain Taylor

Date posted: 1 Jan 2024

Even as it opened, the UN Climate Change Conference COP 28 was making headlines for all the wrong reasons.

The BBC revealed claims that hosts, the United Arab Emirates, were planning to make oil and gas deals with 15 other countries at the event. Despite that, many Christian groups were represented there, some as part of the Christian Climate Observers Program, a non-denominational Christian presence advocating for God’s creation. All are, perhaps, encouraged by the fact that COP28 for the first time featured a ‘faith pavilion’. Evangelicals Now spoke to four leading Christian environmental organisations about their hopes and fears for the conference.

Iain Taylor

Date posted: 28 Oct 2024

Although many US evangelicals are backing Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential election. Democratic nominee Kamala Harris has supporters among them too.

‘Evangelicals for Biden’ has rebranded as ‘Evangelicals for Harris’ in an effort to mobilise Christian voters for her campaign. The group argues that her faith ‘shines through in her clear Christian values displayed in her unwavering support for American families.’

Iain Taylor

Date posted: 17 Jul 2024

On a warm afternoon, the ululation, drumming and singing of a choir of two-dozen women can be heard across Gan Gora, a tiny village in Nigeria. ‘We are happy you arrived safely,’ they sing in Hausa, welcoming visitors to the community branch of the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) in Zangon Kataf, Kaduna. One song is from the book of Habakkuk: ‘Oh Lord, how long must I call for help, but you do not listen?’

The Guardian has reported how about 100 women dance regularly, including Rifkatu Dauda Kigbu, 53, hobbling on a fractured knee. This is a weekly meeting of zumunta mata, a fellowship of married women. Their visitors are zumunta mata members from an ECWA in Gonin Gora, a Kaduna suburb.

Iain Taylor

Date posted: 1 Nov 2021

Evangelicals are prominent among church leaders demanding change in the run-up to the COP26 climate change conference. This will take place in Glasgow from 31 October to 12 November and will be attended by 190 world leaders.

At COP21 in Paris in 2015, for the first time, every country agreed to work together to limit global warming to, ideally, 1.5 degrees; to adapt to the impacts of a changing climate and to make money available to do so. Under this Paris Agreement they were mandated to present how they would achieve this at COP26.

Iain Taylor

Date posted: 1 May 2024

Christians and churches across vast tracts of southern Africa are bracing themselves for famine following a crippling drought. Across the region farmers suffered the driest February in decades. It has wiped out crops, led to power shortages, and now threatens to send already expensive food prices surging even higher.

In February, many parts of Zambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe had the lowest recorded rainfall since 1981. The dry spell, blamed on the El Niño weather system, is but the latest indicator of how severely Africa is being impacted by extreme weather events, which many scientists say are becoming increasingly frequent and severe due to man-made climate change.

Iain Taylor

Date posted: 1 Aug 2023

The mass slaughter of Christians across parts of Nigeria, violence which has already claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced over two million people, is almost entirely fuelled by Islamist extremism.

This is the stark keynote conclusion of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief (APPG FoRB)’s new report Nigeria: Unfolding Genocide? Three Years On, which has just been launched in parliament. It features contributions from a range of 47 Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs), think tanks, journalists, academics and charities.

Iain Taylor

Date posted: 1 Jan 2023

A key pact made at the COP27 Climate Summit in Egypt doesn’t have enough money behind it to make it work, according to an evangelical climate expert.

Andy Atkins, chief executive of green Christian organisation A Rocha, said of the ‘Loss and Damage Agreement’ – designed to compensate poorer countries suffering from climate change:

Iain Taylor

Date posted: 1 Aug 2022

Even before the invasion of Ukraine, many of the poorest nations of the world were suffering the catastrophic impact of climate change.

Earlier this year the island of Madagascar, for example, experienced its ‘worst drought’ in 40 years. UNICEF says half a million under-fives will be ‘acutely malnourished’ this year; in the south, where 80% of the people depend on agriculture to survive, the UN World Food Programme estimates that half of the population now faces hunger. The drought has decimated crops and dried up water sources, resulting in little sustenance for communities and cattle. The pandemic, deforestation and Madagascar’s cyclone season have further exacerbated their woes. According to UNWFP, this could become ‘the first famine to be caused by climate change’.

Iain Taylor

Date posted: 1 Dec 2021

Christians have made their presence felt at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.

Many young evangelicals were among the thousands who marched through the city as part of the Fridays For Future movement, inspired by the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who was at the rally. Churches were behind a special handing-in of petition signatures and paper ‘prayer boats’ to the COP presidency.