Rev. Dr. Becca Edwards (far right) pictured with (L to R): Rabbi Yonatan Neril, Executive Director, Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development; Rev. Melanie Mullen, Director of Reconciliation, Justice and Creation Care for The Episcopal Church; Archbishop Serafim Kykotis, Greek Orthodox Archbishopric of Zimbabwe; Rev. Dr. Lisa Graumlich, Professor, School of Environmental and Forest Sciences and President of the American Geophysical Union (AGU).

By Becca Edwards

In Luke 12, we read the parable of a man who receives an unexpectedly bounteous harvest of grain. Does he hold a community festival to praise God for the harvest and share this blessing with his neighbors? Does he start a food bank and find a way to distribute the grain to his less fortunate neighbors? Does he sell the grain and use the proceeds to establish a foundation that will do good work in the community for generations to come?

The man does none of those things. The parable tells us that the man responded to his unexpected windfall by tearing down his barns and building larger ones so that he could store the extra grain. The man declares that he can now relax, eat, drink, and be merry. But God chastises the man, calling him a fool. The man dies and the harvest is wasted.

 When we read the parable in the comfort of our churches in the United States, we no doubt lament the waste of the gift of a bountiful harvest and shake our fingers at the foolishness of the farmer. It seems such an obvious moral to a familiar story.

From my perspective as UMC clergy attending this year’s United Nations climate negotiations, known as the Conference of the Parties, or COP, the US’s response to the cries of the global south for economic relief from the increasingly severe climate impacts with which they must contend sounds very much like the logic of the man with the abundant harvest of grain.

Climate finance is a mechanism that seeks to address the injustice central to the climate change problem: the countries that have done the least to cause climate change endure the most severe impacts.

Countries like the United States, which have benefited from generations of fossil fuel production and use, enjoy a high standard of living that allows them to insulate themselves from many climate impacts.

Countries like Zimbabwe and other African nations, as well as Small Island Developing States and others, have done little to cause climate change and must contend with its impacts: droughts, floods, infectious disease, sea level rise, and more. These impacts, which go back generations, cause economic loss, loss of life, issues with food security, and loss of cultural practices and places.

Climate finance is a system where wealthy countries like the United States contribute money to a fund that can be distributed as grants to developing countries to support climate change adaptation and mitigation activities.

Just before this year’s COP, a study released by the London School of Economics estimated that the cost of addressing climate change was $1.3 trillion. Delegations from Africa and the Small Island Developing States, as well as the faith-based advocacy community, hoped that the new goal for climate finance would approach that number.

But after two weeks of deliberations, the final number agreed upon as a new climate finance goal was only $3 billion.

Analysis reveals a range of reactions, from sadness and disappointment to relief that any agreement at all could be reached. Regardless of how any of us feels about it, the fact remains that the agreement fails badly to reach the scale of finance needed to address climate change.

In the US this year we have seen everything from devastating floods to catastrophic fires; each of these was made more likely or worsened by the warming climate. It has become increasingly apparent that even in the US, we are vulnerable to the disruption caused by climate impacts.

Jesus’s words later in Luke’s gospel help us see a better way forward on climate finance:

“Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.” 

—Luke 12:27-31

Strive for the kingdom. Live with a spirit of abundance and generosity. Look out for the good of the other. This is how we create a world where we can thrive because everyone can thrive.

It’s time for the United States to pay its fair share of climate finance.

 

Rev. Dr. Becca Edwards is the Climate Action Fellow at Texas Impact and the UMC General Board of Church and Society. She is a provisional Deacon in the Rio Texas Conference. Prior to serving in climate advocacy, Becca taught climate science, energy, and environmental studies courses at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. She has attended UN Climate Negotiations in Dubai, the most populous city of the United Arab Emirates (COP28), and in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan (COP29).