|TOP|UK church leaders are urging people to ‘go green’ in order to protect God’s creation, following an announcement made by the Government that the UK will not meet its target to reduce CO2 emissions and resource clean energy sources.

Christian leaders have joined forces to encourage individuals and businesses to enforce a low consumption, non-nuclear, energy plan, asserting that it is a moral imperative to be environmentally-aware. They also emphasised Christian principles of wise stewardship, peacemaking, justice, loving our neighbours and moderation in consumption.

The plea has been compiled by Dr Tim Cooper, head of the Centre for Sustainable Consumption at Sheffield Hallam University in the environment, made by Christian organisations Christian Ecology Link (CEL) and Faith and Power.

Faith and Power argues that promoting energy efficiency, switching from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy and phasing out nuclear reactors in electricity generation is appropriate in order to take proper care of God’s creation.

|AD|The Bishop of Liverpool, Rt Rev James Jones, said: “Faith and Power comes to similar conclusions to those of the Sustainable Development Commission, which I welcome. What we lack is the commercial leadership to invest in renewable sources of power and the political leadership to reduce our energy consumption.

“People of faith and goodwill must work together to educate and inspire the public to use their own power as consumers and citizens to ensure the future health and safety of the planet.”

The report comes as the Government is encouraging home owners and businesses to fit small power generation plants in their premises – including green power from solar panels and windmills.

It is estimated that 25% of all carbon dioxide emissions come from the households.

Dr Cooper, the University’s sustainable consumption expert and CEL chairman, said: “For many years Gordon Brown has done far too little to integrate environmental sustainability within Treasury policy. As a consequence Britain is not doing enough to reduce energy consumption and thereby reduce the threat of climate change.”

In addition, the Archbishop of Canterbury described climate change as a ‘moral problem,’ according to an interview with the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“It's a huge practical problem, it's a huge moral problem,” Dr Rowan Williams said, before quoting the calculations of the International Energy Agency which predicted a 60 per cent rise in carbon emissions over the next quarter of a century with the expansion of the Indian and Chinese economies.

“Unless we are able to effect serious concrete reductions immediately, the problem really is vast,” he said.