Climate Change: How Christians Respond
After months of preparation in 2004 and early 2005, and a huge amount of effort by a lot of people, the conference on 26th Feb. 2005 finally happened. Over 220 people attended from across the region and beyond, and it was an incredibly successful day. We now present this report as a permanent record.

World Summit Candle 2002
 Introduction
The aim of the meeting was to present the Christian environmental message, particularly concentrating on the issue of climate change, to Christians in the three counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. Broadly, this is the area covered by the Oxford Diocese, but the meeting was ecumenical, open to members of all denominations (and quite a number of denominations were represented). Our hope is that this stimulated Christians to take action at all levels: personal; local; church; regional; national; and international. The content of the meeting was varied, with keynote speakers, workshops, and exhibitions, and plenty of time to talk. This was part of a national programme of meetings for anyone with a concern for environmental issues organised by the Conservation Foundation in association with the Church of England supported by DEFRA.


St Andrew's, High Wycombe. Fully booked on the day!! Venue
The venue for the meeting was St. Andrew's church, Hatters Lane, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. We thank St. Andrew's staff and members for all the help they gave us with refreshments, technical matters, shifting chairs, you name it.... Thanks a lot!!








L. to R. David Shreeve, Sir John Houghton, Claire Foster, Bishop Richard Harries, Rev Prof Ian James
 Speakers
The keynote speakers were:
1) Sir John Houghton used a PowerPoint presentation which was an updated version of that which he gave in the Oxford 2002 Climate Change meeting. See Notes. A REPORT on Sir John's presentation (and important recent news) is available at Global Warming.
Sir John was chairman or co-chairman of Scientific Assessment for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 1988-2002. He recently published Global Warming: the Complete Briefing (3rd ed CUP 2004). Sir John is chairman of  The John Ray Initiative.

2) Claire Foster has kindly provided us with the text of her talk Why and how Christians care about the Climate
Claire is the policy adviser to the Archbishop's Council of the Church of England on science, medicine, technology and environmental issues. She is also deputy director of the St. Paul's Institute, an educational centre created by St. Paul's Cathedral, where she is a lay canon and member of Chapter.

3) The Bishop of Oxford, Richard Harries, spoke very effectively in the conference service, to end the day.

Gathering in the main auditorium before the first session- lots of people!!
There is a LOT more to see at:
Workshops have their own page, with resources and reports from many of them.
Exhibitions have their own page, with pictures of many of them.
What Next? now has its own page, as there is rather a lot happening!






 Steering Group
The group behind the conference were:
Rev Prof Ian James (Chair)
Mrs Ruth Conway
Rev Canon Christopher Hall (Workshops)
Rev Margot Hodson
Dr Martin Hodson (Exhibitions)
Rev Adrian Hopwood (Worship)
Dr Owen Jewiss

 Contacts
General enquiries concerning the conference should now go to Ian James.

SageSage was pleased to provide a web page to advertise what was very definitely the biggest Christian environmental meeting ever held in the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Region. Many hundreds of people visited the page in the run up to the conference, and this played a key part in our publicity. We should stress that this is an event put on by the Oxford Diocese, but Sage gave it their full support, and were much involved in the planning and execution of the day. We are continuing to support by using our pages to give a permanent report on the conference.