A Very Small Pilgrimage

Make the Big Polluters Pay

A Very Small Pilgrimage in support of Christian Aid's call to action

Photo taken by Cordelia Newsome

On September 23rd 2023, the Christian Aid Group at Holy Innocents invited folk from the local community and from other local ecojustice groups to join us in Our Very Small Pilgrimage. We were joined by friends from Ascension Church, by the Diocesan Environmental Officer, by the Manchester lead for Methodist Churches, and by folk from Green Spirit, from the Unitarian Church, and by activists from CAFOD, Tear Fund, and Global Justice Now. Our happy band of pilgrims included people with direct knowledge of the loss and damage caused by the ecological crisis in the Global South. As we walked with our banners and placard from Holy Innocents Church Fallowfield to St Chads Ladybarn we stopped at the Sainsbury’s and the Shell Garage to give out leaflets and to share in a Novena to St. Francis: nine stations based on the ‘Canticle of the Sun’ and offering praise, lament, prayer and reflection, with histories and stories from people and places all over the world most immediately affected by the climate emergency. We hope to continue to engage with others locally on similar activities in the future.

Photo taken by Phil Barton

Photo taken by Stephen Pennells

Photo taken by Phil Barton

Climate disasters are happening on a scale so large that communities don’t have the resources to adapt, causing them to experience loss and damage. Losses are things which can never be replaced like loss of lives, livelihoods and culture. While damage, such as to homes, roads and schools can be repaired, but it takes resources. The climate crisis is impacting us all, but those most affected are communities in the global south, who have done the least to cause it. When climate disasters strike it’s affected communities who lead the response. They rebuild their homes, plant new crops and make up for lost income. They pay the bill for loss and damage. Meanwhile those responsible for the climate crisis, like fossil fuel corporations, continue to make vast profits from their polluting industry, and turn their backs on the loss and damage they’ve caused. What is the solution? As well as doing all we can to limit temperature rises to minimise future loss and damage, we must make those most responsible pay up for loss and damage too.

Thanks to the powerful demands of countries and campaigners in the Global South, in 2022 governments agreed to create an international Loss and Damage Fund. But right now, the fund is empty. Those most responsible need to pay into the fund now. Governments need to tax the profits of the big oil companies and provide gifts not loans for the Loss and Damage Fund. As a result the Fund could allow affected communities to access money to support their recovery, and show that big polluters must take responsibility for their climate destroying actions. But the profit driven actions of big polluters show they won’t do this willingly.

Photo taken by Phil Barton

In 2022 the combined total profits of BP, ExxonMobil, Shell and Total Energies were $159.5 billion. In 2022 more than 1,700 people died due to the floods in Pakistan. And in 2023 over half a million people were displaced in Malawi after their homes were damaged by Cyclone Fred. As we walked and talked together today we thought about people experiencing war and conflict, desertification, fire and .flood. In Chad and Sudan; in Zimbabwe; in Sierra Leone; in Somalia and Ethiopia; in Pakistan; in Syria ; in Libya ; and we made a very small act of witness to our own Government, that our eyes are on their actions, calling on them to Make the Big Polluters (specifically the major oil companies) Pay.

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