The climate emergency feels desperate – but Cop17 gave me faith

The news isn’t good for people passionate about climate and nature. I have periods of utter despair, when I feel completely let down about the most significant issue for our future. The government has approved drilling the Jackdaw gas fields . In the pipeline is oil at Rosebank , with a decision on a third runway at Heathrow imminent. The budget had a throwaway line about abandoning biodiversity protection on brownfield sites. Greenpeace has warned the government against sleepwalking into climate disaster.

But governments, not just in the UK, are wide awake, and tread that path nevertheless. Yet I have returned from the Cop17 summit on biodiversity inspired, and here’s what moved me. I shared Jewish teaching about nature, which begins when God instructs us in the Bible to work the earth with reverence and protect all life because it’s sacred. Jews, Muslims, Christians and Hindus spoke together at the Faith Hub, connected by our heartfelt care for God’s earth.

Here, transcending politics, our scriptures and values met. That spirit of togetherness went wider, embracing ecologists, economists, indigenous and national leaders, businesses and NGOs, all committed to the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework for every country to protect 30% of its land and sea by 2030. I attended sessions about Amazon restoration, sustainable fishing in Indonesia, mobilising private and public finance, why trees are sexier to fund than peatlands, and what happens when bottom-up initiatives are matched with top-down political commitment – and when they’re not.

Short-term financial interests consistently outweigh environmental and social justice. This is wrong Short-term financial interests consistently outweigh environmental and social justice. This is wrong There was strong allyship across disciplines and continents. The presenter of the Global Strategy for Fungal Conservation put it perfectly: you don’t often see mycelia because their network is underground. But they connect everything; they transfer nutrients, convey chemical messages, nurture the root-work of forests.

Without that interconnectivity, nothing can thrive. Which, he added, symbolises how we need to work together here. This was balm for that PTSD, that visceral anguish which, as the visionary conservationist Aldo Leopold wrote, is the price of ecological awareness. But that balm quickly washed off. In the blue zone was a photo of elephants, beneath the strapline: We Need to Talk About the Elephants in the Room. This is the title of a report by Friends of the Earth International , together with youth, women’s and indigenous groups.

It names four “elephants”: an international financial architecture that pressures governments toward extractive development; trillions of dollars in harmful public and private financial flows; legal systems that prioritise investor protections over environmental regulation; and the use of market-oriented biodiversity finance mechanisms that often fail to address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss. I sensed what that meant at a session with bankers on investment in forest restoration.

The work they supported was excellent: regenerating biodiversity-rich landscapes and engaging local communities. Investors got carbon credits. But credits for what? For damage done elsewhere? Was this a green-tinted cover-up, or genuine reparation? No one asked. Related articles: Europe is warming fast but its politicians are blowing hot air ‘We came, we saw, we engineered’: my week as a Eurasian beaver There’s a rabbinic expression: “Immersing with the reptile in your hand.”

It’s shorthand for dipping in the ritual baths to purify oneself while clutching the very thing that makes one ritually impure. Billions are needed for nature restoration, and private finance is essential. But trillions continue to flow into extractive and polluting practices. Why? Because short-term financial interests, chiefly profiting the few, consistently outweigh the long-term work of climate and nature sustainability and environmental and social justice.

This is wrong. But for politicians working in four- or five-year election cycles, it’s hard to break the pattern. We all need to think, as faiths do, of “generation to generation”. Put personally, I’ve recently become a grandfather. When asked how it feels, the answer I don’t give is: “I’m worrying whether those babies have a future.” It’s the fear that dares not speak its name. We must face tough truths, as Pope Francis said so powerfully in Laudate Deum, the 2023 update to his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’.

Faith leaders can’t just present theology; we have to speak truth to power. So am I wrong to be moved by COP17? Certainly not. The work of so many people, day in, day out – from reaching 30% by 2030 in Panama, to bringing traditional, drought-resistant crops back in Kenya – is humbling and inspiring. Thousands at COP, and the millions they represent, are dedicating their lives to their local portion of our collective future. “Where do you find hope?”

I asked a Muslim colleague. He answered: “In people the world over who protect their forest because it’s their homeland, clean up that river because it flows through their town, save that bird because it nests in their meadows.” Absolutely! Is that sufficient to save our world? I doubt it, though there are powerful motivating factors at work whose impact can’t be measured: love, a deep sense of kinship with all life, the instinctive compulsion to protect what we can, and the knowledge that we share one destiny.

Yet even that love, without the clear backing of political and economic leaders, is not enough. They need to listen to the ancient rabbinic message: “Don’t destroy My world, because there’s nobody coming after you who can put it right.” Jonathan Wittenberg is senior rabbi of Masorti Judaism and is the founder of EcoJudaism Photograph by Henrique Casinhas / AFP via Getty Images Climate Environment Nature Religion Judaism Christianity Islam