The 7th Carbon Budget: love your neighbour?

The Seventh Carbon Budget is out now. It won’t make it to our news feeds, but it’s an important document.

Published by the UK government’s Climate Change Committee (CCC), it’s a well-articulated pathway to (trigger alert) net zero. It’s their best effort at how we in the UK can live more or less as we do now, but without ruining the world around us. For us evangelicals though, there’s something about it that really stands out. Something quite amazing. Though lacking the poetry of Isaiah 65, its themes of prospering humanity, long life, well-being, justice, peace and a flourishing earth could come right out of the prophets.

The pathway to the CCC’s world of mutual flourishing is fairly straightforward. Switch everything to electric (home heating, cars, industrial processes), make all our electricity from low carbon sources (wind, solar, nuclear), plant new woodlands, restore peatlands, fly less; eat less beef, lamb and dairy; walk, cycle and take public transport more. That’s pretty much it. If you’d like to go to the horse’s mouth, you can find it at www.theccc.org.uk.

Now, though straightforward, it needs lots of changes and investment, individually and as a society. And we can – especially in this time of politicising things which should not be politicised – wonder whether it’s really worth it. What about China? What about the US? We’re just a small country – making all these changes isn’t going to make a difference unless they do it too. And we can feel the same as individuals and even as church communities. Our actions are so small – unless everyone does them, they won’t make a difference. Why make these changes in our lives?

I think there are a few answers to that. One is that despite what we read in the press, China, though it has a long way to go, is making the transition. In fact, it’s arguably a market leader in solar, wind, high speed rail, electric vehicles and reforestation. Another is that if we don’t do it – if I don’t do it – neither will anyone else. We all have to do all of it, and somebody has to take a lead.

But for us as evangelicals there’s a much more compelling answer. And that’s that the Seventh Carbon Budget is but a pale reflection of the much deeper reality of God’s plans for us and the whole earth. It is not only possible to see both a prospering humanity and a flourishing earth, but one day it will be so. When the rule of God is at last uncontested, the wolf will lie down with the lamb (Isaiah 11:6). As we’ve said before in this column (en, March 2025), ‘the renewing of all things is near!’

Now, we know that the rule of God does not come by carbon budgets alone. It comes by the news that Jesus is Lord and the transforming power of the Spirit of God at work in and through those who gladly give Him their allegiance; and, ultimately, on Jesus’ return when all things are brought under His rule of peace. But what the carbon budget does do is tell us how we, who love the maker and redeemer of all things, can live – in this time and place – in a way that aligns with God’s purposes. That anticipates His rule. That works for the flourishing of one another and all things. It tells us, in fact, how in our complex industrial society to love our neighbour as ourselves.

Do you want to know how to love your neighbour? To align with God’s purposes? To live in a way that prefigures that day when His rule is uncontested? Switch to electric as soon as you can. Support nature recovery. Fly less. Eat less beef, lamb and dairy. Walk and cycle more. These (obviously!) aren’t the full story of God’s rule of peace – not by a long way – but they are a non-negotiable piece of what it means to love our neighbours as ourselves.