WA Synod 2025 – Climate Care and Net Zero Emissions

Uniting Church WA affirms our ongoing commitment to being faithful stewards of our God-given planet earth and calls on State and Federal Government to take further steps to strengthen climate care and establish a pathway to net zero emissions.

The decisions were made at the 49th Annual meeting of the Synod of WA which took place on Saturday 13 and Sunday 14 September 2025, where more than 120 Uniting Church members from around Western Australia gathered together to discuss issues of importance in the life of the church and wider community.

The Climate Care and Net Zero Emissions proposal was presented by Social Justice Commission members Rev Ken Devereux and Dr Alison Atkinson-Phillips, and passed by consensus, with the Synod agreeing on the following key points:

Affirm our ongoing commitment to being faithful stewards of our God-given planet Earth, home to all human beings and to the wider web of life that sustains our fragile, resilient, unique and sacred eco-system;

Confess that we have lacked the courage and commitment to live up to some of our previous policies and targets for better caring for the Earth and transitioning to a net zero greenhouse emissions organisation;

Recognise that threats from human-induced climate change are increasing rapidly and we therefore commit to renewed efforts to promote environmentally sustainable lifestyles within our homes, our Church life, our State and Nation;

Call upon the Synod Standing Committee in consultation with the General Secretary to review the previous recommendations of the Net Zero Emissions Working Group…and to freshly resource the Synod and the wider Uniting Church in Western Australia to fast track efforts to reach net zero greenhouse emissions within the next 10 years.

As well as these decisions, there was also a commitment to call on the WA State Government to take faster steps to legislate a Climate Change Act that establishes a pathway to net zero greenhouse emissions, and for the Federal Government to take notice of research and recommendations from the Climate Council and the Australian Conservation Foundation in setting an ambitious science aligned target to achieve net zero emissions by 2035.

This resolution builds on a long tradition of environmental concern by the Uniting Church WA. The Synod of Western Australia in 2022 called on governments to take actions to keep within a 1.50C global temperature rise, by urgently transitioning away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy.

The Presbytery of Western Australia at its meeting in March 2025 agreed to encourage Congregations, faith communities and other bodies in the Uniting Church in Western Australia to press for further actions promoting climate care and working towards net zero emissions.

Earlier this year in June the Uniting Church WA, together with the Uniting Church in Australia, Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress and Australian Religious Response to Climate Change WA gathered at Wesley Uniting Church in the City to speak out against further development of the North West Shelf gas processing facility. They shared their concerns about the decision by the Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt to extend the life of the polluting facility out to 2070.

Action in response to our 2025 Synod resolution has already been taken in relation to letters to both State and Federal Governments. In the letters the Moderator highlighted the words from the Uniting Church in Australia statement Our Vision for a Just Australia, which was revised by the UCA Assembly earlier this year, reminding us that caring for creation is a key Christian task. It reads:

“We seek the flourishing of the whole of God’s Creation and all its creatures. We act to renew the earth from the damage done and stand in solidarity with people most impacted by human-induced climate change. Government, churches, businesses and the wider community work together for a sustainable future.”
We hope “that we will see the whole of creation as interdependent, and learn to live in harmony with the whole created order… That we become open to the growing scientific edges which understand that all biology is ecology and that we are part of an interconnected community…”

Article by Wendy Hendry