A survey by Whitestone Insight shows that British ‘committed’ Christians are more sceptical about climate change than other faiths and the general population.

Researches surveyed 2,064 UK adults, finding that 77% of the general population and a similar proportion of people of faith (76%) agreed that the climate is changing.

However, that figure falls to 61% when those surveyed are “exclusivist Christians”, that according to Whitestone Insight are “those who believe that theirs is the only true faith”.

The survey also points out that the just 28% of the general population claim that humans are not to blame for climate change versus 45% of “exclusivist” Christians, 34% of “exclusivist” Muslims, and 51% of “exclusivist” Hindus.

While 70% of respondents overall agreed that climate change was one of the most pressing issues facing the world today, that drops to 61% among “exclusivist” Christians.

Jake Scott, secretary of the Institute for the Impact of Faith in Life, who commissioned the survey, confirmed that “despite almost all faiths emphasising a duty of care and guardianship to the Earth, people of faith in the UK are more sceptical than their non religious counterparts, especially regarding both its existence and its man-made causes”.

“If climate change is to be confronted seriously, there must be greater efforts to engage with faith communities across the country”, stressed Scott.

French Protestants interested in creation care

A similar survey carried out last year in France, showed that faithful Christians are more interested in reflecting about how to care for the planet than the average French population.

The research, which was the first of its kind in France, also said that 58% of Protestants want their church to speak more about environmental issues and ecology, but, at the same time, 44% agreed that environmentalism was becoming “a new religion that sacralises nature and denies the central place of humans in creation”.

Jean-François Mouhot, director of A Rocha France, pointed out in an interview with Evangelical Focus that, despite what the survey said, “there is also a need to show to those more sceptical that taking action to care about the planet is a biblical mandate, not a liberal political cause”.

“Climate change is a problem that is changing the way we think about any other issue”

According to Fernando Primo Forgioni, professor of Climatology at the National University of Villa María, in Argentina, and researcher at the Centre for the Study of Climate Variability and Change, “climate change is a problem that is changing the way we think about any other issue”.

That is why scientists “spend a lot of time trying to make people understand that the climate crisis is real”, said Forgioni in an interview with Evangelical Focus.

Climate change “is not a whim of the younger generations. Our system of excessive and infinite consumption has truly failed”, he added.