Contact: Shantha Ready Alonso, shantha@creationjustice.org 202-618-2501 (mobile)
Washington, DC --- Today, members of the US House of Representatives Select Committee on the Climate Crisis released a recommendations report, Solving the Climate Crisis: The Congressional Action Plan for a Clean Energy Economy and a Healthy, Resilient, and Just America.
Creation Justice Ministries Executive Director Shantha Ready Alonso said of the report, “At last, substantive, moral, federal climate policy leadership is emerging from Congress. We are grateful to the members of the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis for the foundation they have laid through these crucial recommendations. Christian communities stand ready to advance climate solutions that are not only good for God's creation, but that also foster care for our neighbors, through racial and economic justice."
Religious communities, including Creation Justice Ministries, have a long track record of calling on the US Congress for climate action. Many religious organizations maintain offices near Capitol Hill to engage with federal public policy matters of profound concern to congregants, including the climate crisis. While religious communities are deeply concerned about emissions reductions and are taking action to bring congregations, retreat centers, and other religious facilities to net zero, their main policy focus is on justice aspects of the climate crisis.
Priorities in the report that religious communities most strongly support include: environmental justice policies that counteract devastating disproportionate pollution burdens borne by low-income communities as well as communities of color; nature-based climate solutions like increasing the resilience and mitigation capacity of land and ocean ecosystems that uphold the integrity of God’s creation; adaptation support for farmers and ranchers; planning for natural disaster resilience as well as just recovery; protections for communities’ physical and mental health; workforce development for a just transition to a more sustainable economy; and international climate finance measures such as the Green Climate Fund.

Creation Justice Ministries represents the creation care and environmental justice policies of major Christian denominations throughout the United States. We work in cooperation with more than two dozen mainline Protestant, historically Black, Baptist, Peace, and Orthodox communions.