Vestry motion considers climate action

For many of us in the Diocese of Toronto, 2025 was the year the climate crisis came to our doorsteps. In late March, the ice storm across central Ontario left over a million homes and businesses without power, destroyed hundreds of thousands of trees and resulted in $342 million in insured damages. By August, wildfires were raging in Haliburton and the Kawarthas, fueled by downed trees and drought conditions. People many miles away from the fires experienced negative health impacts from the smoky air. Meanwhile, farmers’ crops and homeowners’ gardens struggled without adequate rainfall, and Toronto faced six heat advisories – more than double the usual number of days of extreme heat.

Scientists have long warned that a warming climate exacerbates extreme weather events, contributes to wildfire risk and results in more frequent and intense heat waves. Over 80,000 peer-reviewed studies regarding the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on the global climate point to the same conclusion: our addiction to fossil fuels is causing Earth’s climate to heat up at a rate that is increasingly dangerous for human and other created life.

Despite the scientific studies, and even the real-world impacts, we are slow to act. Especially for Canada, the world’s fourth-highest producer of oil and gas, fossil fuel production and export is seen as essential to our economy, with oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) pipelines promoted as “nation-building projects” in the face of economic threats. Reducing our greenhouse gas emissions is not an easy proposition – practically or politically – when so much of our national economy, including people’s livelihoods, is tied up with the oil and gas industry.

Yet Canadians also face existential and economic risks from a changing climate. Warming across Canada has been about twice the global average, and three times higher than the global average in Canada’s Arctic. The climate impacts of worsening wildfires, reduced crop yields, loss of biodiversity, damaged infrastructure from severe weather events, lower labour productivity and negative health outcomes must be considered as well. At the very least, we as a nation must do our part to limit global warming, for the sake not only of people around the world but of those here at home as well.

As Christians, we worship a God who created our world and called it good. We follow a Christ through whom all things were created, in whom all creation is held together and through whom all creation is reconciled. Our General Synod has recognized this in adding to our baptismal vows the call to safeguard the integrity of creation and respect, sustain and renew the life of the earth. Called to love God and our neighbour, we must embody this faith commitment with actions that show our care for God’s creation and all who depend on it, including those who have most to lose from the climate crisis.

There are many ways for us to care for creation and reduce our own carbon footprint, from reducing excess consumption and ensuring that our homes (and parish buildings) are as energy efficient as we can make them, to protecting our local ecosystems and helping to foster biodiversity by planting native trees, shrubs and wildflowers. The global Anglican Communion Forest initiative has seen hundreds of thousands of trees planted worldwide since it was launched at Lambeth in 2022, and our diocese is starting to take part in those efforts.

All these are good and necessary things to do; but they alone are not enough. We must also call on our elected representatives to take leadership and action on a wider scale, to honour the commitments our governments have already made to reduce emissions and limit the rate of climate change. In 2015, 196 countries adopted the landmark Paris Agreement, a legally binding international treaty on climate change, with the goal of limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, relative to pre‑industrial levels. Yet, current global commitments fall far short of this, leading to projections of warming by 3 degrees Celsius by the year 2100.

Canada is the worst performing of the G7 countries in terms of meeting its targets under the Paris Agreement. Although Prime Minister Carney reaffirmed his commitment to meeting Canada’s climate targets, recent actions by the federal government to jettison or delay many of the policy tools meant to achieve those targets have left open the question of how we as a nation will accomplish our goals.

This winter, as part of your annual vestry meeting, the Social Justice & Advocacy Committee, with the support of the College of Bishops, invites you and your parish to recommit to our vow to safeguard God’s creation and to call on the federal government to enact and implement policies that enable us to meet Canada’s climate commitments. Parishes’ support of this motion will be tallied and included in our diocesan advocacy efforts, but parishes and individuals may also wish to contact their local MPs to express their concerns. We also hope that discussing and considering this motion sparks a conversation in your parish about how you can live out your local commitment to respect, sustain and renew the life of God’s earth, especially in the face of a warming climate. This motion, and our response to it, forms part of our diocesan response to Cast the Net Call #8: “Intensify advocacy and action in response to the climate crisis.”

You can find this year’s social justice vestry motion and related materials at www.toronto.anglican.ca/vestry-motion. The Social Justice & Advocacy Committee also invites you to submit questions on this year’s motion to [email protected] by Jan. 16, which we will do our best to address in our annual video Q&A.