St Edmundsbury Cathedral, Bury St Edmunds, is joining in the nationwide call for all churches to ring their bells on the eve of the United Nations Climate Conference in Glasgow.

The Ring Out For Climate Change campaign is being led by Edward Gildea, a Christian Aid climate campaign organiser from Essex who is asking churches to ring their bells at 6.00 pm for thirty minutes on Saturday October 30 as a warning of the climate emergency and to mark the start of the conference.

The UN Climate Conference, COP26, will see 196 world leaders and an expected 20,000 delegates meet in Glasgow and work together to commit to a reduction in emissions to avoid a climate emergency.

It comes just months after the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change described global warming as a “code red for humanity”.

St Edmundsbury Cathedral is one of England’s Cathedrals to have achieved a Bronze Eco Church Award from the Christian nature conservation charity, A Rocha UK.  Eco St Eds, the Cathedral’s environmental group, is working apace to ensure the Cathedral community is doing all it can to care for God’s earth in different areas of life and work. The Cathedral is committed to achieving net carbon zero in the next ten years. Weekly eco tips are shared with the staff and congregation encouraging awareness and participation in measures to lower carbon footprint.

The bells, which are housed in the Norman Tower alongside the cathedral, will be rung for 30 minutes on Saturday 30 October, starting at 6.00 pm.

The Dean of St Edmundsbury Cathedral, the Very Reverend Joe Hawes said: “The climate emergency is real, and of great concern, but Christians believe that in God, there is hope.  We will ring the cathedral’s bells to call us to action, as world leaders meet at the COP26 summit. We hope that it will encourage us all to act more intentionally to tread lightly on God’s creation and play our part in giving a future to this planet.”

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