As world leaders arrive in Cornwall this week for the G7 Summit, the United Reformed Church (URC’s) General Assembly Moderators joined dozens of faith leaders to call on the UK government to use its presidency of the G7 and of the UN climate talks to drive real progress on addressing the climate crisis.

In an open letter to the Prime Minister, they state, “As people of faith, we cannot stand by while world leaders continue to delay action. Delays on phasing out support for fossil fuels and on addressing climate impacts are destroying lives. From the Pacific islands to sub-Saharan Africa, from Bangladesh to Brazil, the climate crisis is a present reality for the world’s poorest people. They have little power to tackle this catastrophe which they did not cause. We ask you, who do have power, to use the UK’s G7 and COP Presidency in their interests.”

The Moderators of the United Reformed Church (URC) General Assembly are warmly inviting members of the denomination to join General Assembly’s Sunday worship service on 11 July.

The Revd Clare Downing will preach at the service which will be livestreamed from the URC’s national website and Facebook page from 11am.

The Moderators hope this will offer a number of possibilities for United Reformed churches:

Members of the URC are being urged to write to their MP to ask them to back a restoration of the UK’s international aid budget in a parliamentary vote today. The recent cut in aid, from 0.7% to 0.5% of national income, broke promises made by the government at the last election and to the world’s poorest people. Billions of pounds of funding for international development projects has been slashed, undoubtably costing lives in some of the poorest places of the world.