2. Conceptualizing the intersection of urbanization, religion and climate

Sustainable global urban futures will increasingly rely on the extent to which we can understand what Becker et al. (Reference Becker, Klingan, Lanz and Wildner2014) refer to as the ‘urban-religious configuration’. Birgit Meyer suggests this configuration prompts two key questions: ‘how do new religions transform urban space? And conversely, how do ‘cities generate specific urban forms of religion’…?’ (Meyer, Reference Meyer, Becker, Klingan, Lanz and Wildner2014, p. 595). Rapidly expanding geographies of religion and urban sociology disciplines are responding to these questions (see Kong et al., Reference Kong, Woods and Tse2024). Previous understandings of urban-religious configurations include ideas of the postsecular city (Beaumont & Baker, Reference Beaumont and Baker2011; Cloke et al., Reference Cloke, Baker, Sutherland and Williams2019), which highlights political, activist and ethical rapprochements between faith-based and secular actors actively discovering in-common values that overcome divides and sustain shared public engagement. It is most evident in the complex religious landscapes of the global North, marked by disaffiliation from aspects of organized religion (particularly Christianity), increasing categories of unbelief (Lee, Reference Lee2015), and growth in spiritual values among those ‘disenchanted’ with traditional religion (Woodhead & Catto, Reference Woodhead and Catto2012).

A more material concept emerging from global South urbanism is ‘worlding’ (Roy & Ong, Reference Roy and Ong2011). It describes the ‘heterogeneous spatializing practices’ that are created when practices from the world (global cultural ideas and trends) encounter the city, but then are released back in altered form, as ‘a non-ideological formulation of worlding as situated in everyday practices that shape alternative social visions and configurations’ (Becker et al., Reference Becker, Klingan, Lanz and Wildner2014, p. 27). These practices specifically include aspirations and imaginations that are religiously informed, and which motivate faith groups to create alternative urban ‘worlds’. They achieve this by bringing into being new structures and experiences of living together in the city that address these aspirations via ‘urban-religious forms of circulation and community building, modeling practices…borrowing and appropriating…identities… or as the expansion of religious-political and economic power’ (Becker et al., Reference Becker, Klingan, Lanz and Wildner2014, pp. 27–8).

In this context of the co-construction of religion and cities (Day & Edwards, Reference Day and Edwards2021), we propose four ways of conceptualizing the interaction between religious and urban systems, summarized as physicalities, practices, prophetic imagination and policy (Table 1). The first emphasizes how religion and belief shapes the physical and material structure and function of a city (Meyer, Reference Meyer, Becker, Klingan, Lanz and Wildner2014). This materiality is expressed in the visible and physical planning of buildings and spaces of worship and social congregation, as well as the social capital provided via the physical presence of religious organizations. This may be, for example, in the form of a small community food project repurposing land around a church. The second contribution of religion and belief is the public and outward-facing practices of religious groups within urban society, historically linked to poverty, homelessness, asylum seeker and migrant support, health and social care, addiction services, and youth and family support. Initiatives and partnerships focused on environmental issues are now coming to the fore especially in projects aimed at ‘greening’ religious assets such as buildings, land and financial investments.

Table 1.

Typology of religious responses to climate change in urban contexts

The third influence is what we term prophetic imagination, present in all religious traditions and which critiques existing socio-economic structures from the perspective of a perceived divine vantage point, providing an impetus for enacting social justice. There is a clear genealogy linking, for example, the intersection of Black identity and religion from the Civil Rights movement in the 60s to present day global activist movements such as Black Lives Matter (Gray, Reference Gray2019; Johnson, Reference Johnson2021). In a similar way, religiously-motivated environmental activism is increasingly becoming evident. Extinction Rebellion – the first global environmental protest movement to openly acknowledge the moral power of spiritual and religious dimensions of protest in its language (Joyce, Reference Joyce2020) – encouraged a ‘bubbling up’ of postsecularity (Cloke et al., Reference Cloke, Baker, Sutherland and Williams2019, p. 3) through welcoming practices of meditation and prayer at its gatherings, and promoting high visibility of faith spaces at its events (such as Faith Bridges), most notably Christian, Buddhist, Islamic and Jewish support (Skrimshire, Reference Skrimshire and Kowalewski2022). Finally, there is a growing policy discourse around the importance of developing more strategic partnerships at scale between faith-based and secular actors to deal with existential threats facing urban communities. Recent UK based research has highlighted effective partnerships across faith-based and local authority (i.e. secular) actors mobilized in response to the COVID-19 pandemic which eschewed traditional hierarchies of expertise, protocols and technocratic language (Baker & Timms, Reference Baker and Timms2020, Reference Baker and Timms2022). However, scholarship has also revealed the internal structures of religious groups that can stifle a ‘greening’ imagination at a grassroots or political level (Koehrsen et al., Reference Koehrsen, Blanc and Huber2022).

The following sections explore key findings and priorities from the IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report as they pertain to climate adaptation, mitigation and implementation. The lens of the Three Spheres of Transformation (O'Brien, Reference O'Brien2018) is used to translate the above four models of religious interactions with cities on climate change. First, the practical sphere of transformation, defined by O'Brien (Reference O'Brien2018, p. 155) as ‘specific actions, interventions, strategies and behaviors' corresponds to both the materiality of religion in cities and the practices that stem from religious beliefs, values and worldviews. Second, the political sphere, defined as ‘systems and structures that facilitate or constrain practical responses to climate change’ (p. 156) corresponds to the prophetic imagination that faith groups draw upon in enacting social and environmental justice. Finally, the deepest and most transformative sphere – the personal – is defined by O'Brien as the ‘beliefs, values, worldviews and paradigms that influence how people perceive, define or constitute systems and structures, as well as their behaviors and practices’ (O'Brien, Reference O'Brien2018, p. 156). It is evident therefore that religion represents a distinctly powerful contribution towards urban transformation through its role in coalescing social structures and identities and drawing on them to motivate action in political and practical domains. We now highlight how this framework of transformation might be applied to the contribution of religious actors to the priorities of the Sixth IPCC Assessment Report.

3. Adaptation and vulnerability

The IPCC AR6 WGII (Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability) report emphasized the importance of practical responses to increased frequency, severity and duration of extreme events (IPCC, 2022a). The material resources of religious organizations have been widely documented to be crucial assets in the aftermath of climate disasters. For example, after Hurricane Katrina, many shelters that offered support for evacuates were run by faith-based organizations (Pant et al., Reference Pant, Kirsch, Subbarao, Hsieh and Vu2008).

In addition to immediate practical responses to extreme events, the AR6 report highlights the importance of building adaptive capacity within communities by implementing adaptive strategies (IPCC, 2022a). Climate change impacts the urban poor most severely due to heightened exposure to natural hazards (e.g. flooding or heat) exacerbated by political, economic and planning disparities, and reduced capacity to plan for and respond to hazards due to lack of economic or political power (Dodman et al., Reference Dodman, Archer and Satterthwaite2019; Leal Filho et al., Reference Leal Filho, Balogun, Olayide, Azeiteiro, Ayal, Muñoz, Nagy, Bynoe, Oguge, Toamukum, Saroar and Li2019). Yet commonly, religious organizations are anchor institutions within poor and informal settlements, helping to provide social cohesion and support (Glaab & Fuchs, Reference Glaab and Fuchs2018; Lipsky, Reference Lipsky2011; Lunn, Reference Lunn2009). Thus, religious organizations can be vital in any activities to enhance adaptive capacity in these settings.

Also key to the contribution of religion to the adaptive capacity of cities is the role of culture and spirituality in place meanings and place-making. A large body of literature demonstrates the importance of shared identity and investment in place as integral to creating and sustaining urban resident localities (Grenni et al., Reference Grenni, Soini and Horlings2020; Horlings, Reference Horlings2016). In many contexts, spiritual meanings and religious histories are central to an understanding of place (Cooper et al., Reference Cooper, Brady, Steen and Bryce2016; Kong & Woods, Reference Kong and Woods2016). With the IPCC highlighting the importance of ‘diverse forms of knowledge…in understanding and evaluating climate adaptation processes and actions’ (IPCC, 2022a, p. 7), the role of religious beliefs in shaping local perspectives on climate change and place is vital. This includes notions of sacredness, which can protect ecologically-valuable areas within cities (Jaganmohan et al., Reference Jaganmohan, Vailshery, Mundoli and Nagendra2018; Ormsby, Reference Ormsby2021; Tatay & Merino, Reference Tatay and Merino2023), and religiously shaped understandings of knowledge, especially religious concepts of future desirable visions (e.g. justice, peace, freedom), which are critical to the effective formulation of urban climate change adaptive strategies.

Finally, religion and spirituality are well known to be important factors that can help trauma victims cope with and respond to traumatic events (Peres et al., Reference Peres, Moreira-Almeida, Nasello and Koenig2007) and for many, participation in religious communities can enhance personal resilience and psychological recovery (Pargament, Reference Pargament2001). Given the extensive evidence of the profound psychological damage of climate disasters on victims (see Ferreira, Reference Ferreira2020 for recent comprehensive review), understanding the function of religious organizations in contributing to urban adaptive capacity is crucial.

Some have theorized these enabling resources of faith as ‘spiritual’ or ‘religious’ capital (Baker & Miles-Watson, Reference Baker and Miles-Watson2010; Haar, Reference Haar2011), which should be appreciated alongside built, financial and natural capitals. However, any reference to social or spiritual capital needs to be offset with general criticisms, which not only critique its fuzziness and ambiguity (Inaba, Reference Inaba, Kawachi, Takao and Subramanian2013) but also its separation from economic capital. This separation underestimates the ways in which cultural reproduction always favors existing power structures rather than providing radical alternatives for the most marginalized in society (for example Bourdieu's understanding of cultural capital and religious capital) (Bourdieu, Reference Bourdieu and Richardson1983; DeFilippis, Reference DeFilippis2001).

4. Mitigation

The IPCC AR6 WGIII report emphasized the importance of local communities in enabling the necessary and profound transition towards a low carbon society (IPCC, 2022b). Key mitigation actions that cities must pursue include the reduction of energy consumption and enhanced uptake of carbon. Faith-based organizations can significantly assist in motivating these transitions through engaging communities with value-based moral motivations for climate action, and mobilizing these changes by directing practical and political resources to this challenge. Examples of these are presented below using O'Brien's (Reference O'Brien2018) Three Spheres framework as an organizing tool.

Within the practical sphere, Buddhist, Muslim, Christian and Hindu communities have mobilized recycling behaviors in Malaysia, through their implementation of a communal collection system and ability to reinforce behavior over time (Mohamad et al., Reference Mohamad, Idris, Baharuddin, Muhammad and Nik Sulaiman2012a), thus representing faith-based niche experiments towards urban sustainability transitions (Mohamad et al., Reference Mohamad, Idris and Mamat2012b). A register of other practical faith-based practical projects on climate mitigation can be found at the Forum on Religion and Ecology's database (Yale, 2023). Urban sacred sites are also physically valuable for their urban greening, biodiversity and carbon mitigation potential (De Lacy & Shackleton, Reference De Lacy and Shackleton2017; Gopal et al., Reference Gopal, von der Lippe and Kowarik2018).

In line with the political sphere, faith communities have fostered collaboration towards reducing carbon emissions through establishment of networks (e.g. Faith for the Climate; Green Faith, Parliament of World Religions), lobbying for political action on climate, issuing joint statements on the imperative for climate action, and participating in nonviolent direct action. Faith groups have also participated in UNFCCC meetings (Glaab, Reference Glaab2017), in forms that have become increasingly formalized and visible, such as the ‘Faith Pavilion’ at COP28 (UNEP, 2023). However, many minority faith communities can be encumbered from taking political action that they feel may compromise their social acceptability and legal security within society, as has been observed among British Muslim People of Color (Tobin et al., Reference Tobin, Ali, MacGregor and Ahmad2023).

At a deeper level, faith-based action at the personal sphere includes interventions or initiatives that seek to shape and activate the moral commitments and religious values that can motivate and underpin climate action. Religious traditions are not homogenous and there can be significant disagreement and conflict within and between religious denominations and communities (Koehrsen et al., Reference Koehrsen, Blanc and Huber2022). However, religious rationalities for addressing climate change, such as notions of sacredness, stewardship and spiritual relationality between people and nature, have been captured by many organizations in an attempt to unify and catalyze this potential (e.g. Faith for the Climate, 2023). There is also evidence that appealing to religious beliefs, values and rationalities can be a powerful approach to shifting or strengthening attitudes and behaviors related to climate change among religious believers (Ives et al., Reference Ives, Buys, Ogunbode, Palmer, Rose and Valerio2023).

5. Implementation

Given the polycentric nature of environmental governance (Jordan et al., Reference Jordan, Huitema, Van Asselt and Forster2018), multi-actor partnerships across formal and informal institutions and networks are key to adaptive responses of cities to climate change (Boyd & Juhola, Reference Boyd and Juhola2015). Yet, religious actors have often been marginalized, invisibilized or instrumentalized in formulation of climate policy and engagement in action initiatives by both state and non-state organizations (Tobin et al., Reference Tobin, Ali, MacGregor and Ahmad2023). This narrative is changing (see ‘policy’ row of Table 1), but future framing of the relationship between faith groups and the state or market needs to re-imagined as one of active co-creators of a common response to a common threat rather than producers of services and outcomes (Baker, Reference Baker2023; Osborne et al., Reference Osborne, Radnor and Strokosch2016; Voorberg et al., Reference Voorberg, Bekkers and Tummers2015).

The AR6 WGII report emphasizes the importance of ‘[e]ffective partnerships between governments, civil society, and private sector organizations, [to] enhance the adaptive capacity of vulnerable people’ (IPCC, 2022a, p. 24). Similarly, the WGIII Mitigation report emphasized that ‘[e]ffective and equitable climate governance builds on engagement with civil society actors’ (IPCC, 2022b, p. 45). It is evident that partnerships between faith-based and secular actors are integral to more effective climate action and implementation of climate policy. This resonates with understandings of the ‘post-secular city’, which is marked by ‘a coming together of citizens who might previously have been divided by differences in theological, political or moral principles – a willingness to work together to address crucial social issues in the city, and in doing so put aside other frameworks of difference involving faith and secularism’ (Cloke and Beaumont, Reference Cloke and Beaumont2013, p. 28). There is therefore a need for a deeper understanding of basis upon which effective partnerships with religious actors can be formed. Within many contemporary societies, there is a growing emphasis on values as the source of real change in both individual and corporate life, based on sources of spiritual re-enchantment as opposed to disenchantment (Duffy, Reference Duffy2021; Katz et al., Reference Katz, Ogilvie, Shaw and Woodhead2022; Turner, Reference Turner2022). Thus, there is a need to develop a theoretical and policy paradigm that harnesses and engages with values and their intersection with religion and spirituality. Figure 1 presents a pictorial metaphor of such a paradigm through the analogy of remediation of brownfield urban land. The intention of this diagram is to illustrate how values that are often embedded at deep levels can be intentionally attended to and ‘resurfaced’ in political and cultural debate to provide the conditions for positive social action on climate change.

Figure 1.

A schematic representation of the depositional model of values. As a visual metaphor, sets of values can be understood as sediments, laid down under particular environmental (socio-cultural) conditions through time, often characterized by religious belief systems. Therefore, a complex assemblage of values are present beneath the surface. As remediation of brownfield land requires an understanding of soil histories and conditions to enable establishment of new urban communities and ecologies, the task of forming effective partnerships for urban climate action is to develop partnerships across religious and secular divides, grounded in shared values. This includes (1) understanding the value context, (2) remediating toxic values, (3) mixing and aerating values, and (4) enriching values through collaborative processes.

Values can be understood as subsurface sediments that influence the health of the land above it. Just as sediments carry the marks of the depositional environments and landscape conditions within which they were laid down, values carry the marks of the socio-cultural contexts they are derived from. Across geographical and historical settings, cities have been profoundly shaped by religious ideas and practices (Day & Edwards, Reference Day and Edwards2021). After the Enlightenment and following the industrial revolution, technological and cultural changes associated with modernity and industrialization created new cultural environments that ‘deposited’ a new set of values. These have included human exceptionalism, individualism, a belief in progress and development, an emphasis on utility and production, and consumerism. Many of these values are associated with the process of secularization, which Taylor (Reference Taylor2007) characterizes not as a retreat of religion but a philosophical shift in society that legitimizes unbelief, embraces plurality and is grounded in a separation of nature and divinity. More recently, scholars have begun to explore the entanglement of cultural meanings, values and scientific understandings of environmental change that define the Anthropocene (Hamilton et al., Reference Hamilton, Bonneuil and Gemenne2015). In this context, the ‘depositional environment’ model proposed therefore recognizes both the importance of religion in shaping the plural sets of values present in contemporary urban settings, and rejects neat categorization of values as religious vs secular or assumptions of value homogeneity within religious traditions.

This model has profound implications for how action on urban climate change mitigation and adaptation can be mobilized. The IPCC concluded that ‘[m]itigation options that align with prevalent ideas, values and beliefs are more easily adopted and implemented’ (IPCC, 2022b, p. 46). Similarly, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services calls for actions that help ‘unleash existing social values of responsibility’ for sustainability transformations (IPBES, 2019, s. 33). Horcea-Milcu (Reference Horcea-Milcu2022, p. 5) argued that for the transformative potential of values to be unleashed, they must be ‘activated, negotiated, consolidated, and mobilized within and across intentional individual or collaborative processes’. Thus, sets of ‘sustainability-aligned values’ proposed by IPBES (2022), namely values of care, unity, equity and justice, cannot be neatly imported from elsewhere but must be attended to within particular socio-cultural settings. The stratigraphic model of values proposed here emphasizes the need to recognize and work with existing values laid down in cultural sediments to plant, germinate and nurture seeds of climate transformations.

An understanding of values as cultural sediments has implications for urban climate action. First, just as urban brownfield remediation requires soil testing before actions are decided upon, climate and sustainability practitioners must recognize and understand the religious landscape and history of a community. This includes understanding key historical moments, religious complexity and division, and examples of positive action and flourishing. Second, just as sediments can be contaminated by toxins and pollutants, so it may be necessary to remediate toxic values, beliefs and attitudes, that lead to the generation of regressive outcomes that privilege the few over the many, whether religious or secular in origin. Religiously derived toxins, for example, could include theological beliefs that see the climate crisis as a welcomed end-of-times phenomenon, or as divine punishment for human sins (Koehrsen et al., Reference Koehrsen, Blanc and Huber2023, p. 6). These beliefs can generate various forms of climate skepticism, denialism, fatalism or quietism, and are expressed in bureaucratic structures and institutional values of religious institutions that inhibit collaborative engagement with secular organizations and mutual development of coherent policy. Third, just as urban agriculture on reclaimed land requires mixing and aeration of the soil, it is necessary to find shared values across difference, by effectively ‘mixing’ cultural layers. This can involve establishing contexts where religious beliefs and values can be offered freely as gifts to society rather than markers of division. Finally, as soil is enriched through addition of nutrients, climate action can be enhanced through activities that draw out, support and amplify deep values and motivations for sustainability.

Many of these activities can be seen in a recent example of how resources of UK faith-based organizations were activated during the pandemic lock-downs of 2020 and 2021, and indispensable to the overall policy responses of local authorities (Baker and Timms, Reference Baker and Timms2020, Reference Baker and Timms2022). In terms of the model outlined in Figure 1, the professionalism and scale of response from faith communities in response to the pandemic favorably reminded secular agencies of their indispensability (i.e. Action 1: a renewed awareness and understanding of religious traditions and practices for the current context). Old hierarchies, bureaucratic protocols and technocratic language, designed to entrench ‘expert’ vs ‘lay’ identities, were quickly eschewed as wholly inadequate for the scale of the task in hand (i.e. Action 2: the removal of toxic assumptions and practices that embed regressive as opposed to progressive outcomes). Shared values quickly emerged in the context of devising effective and sustainable responses to human disaster and the realization of a common and interdependent humanity (i.e. Action 3: creating the conditions for aerating the policy landscape by allowing the creative mixing of religious, sacred and secular/scientific substrates of values and beliefs). These values were articulated as kindness, empathy, compassion, motivation, hope, friendship and social justice. Such shared values are being reflected upon by some faith groups and local authorities as the basis for policy formation going forward. This resonates with new ways of consolidating partnership working for sustainability, which focus less on ideological or economic aims that are often sources of division and siloed thinking (Hynes et al., Reference Hynes, Lees and Müller2020) (i.e. Action 4 – creating an enriched and more fruitful partnership environment that will generate enhanced communication, innovation, trust and solidarity). That shared values will more effectively lead to shared outcomes is a vital lesson that has been learned from the pandemic and can be applied to urban climate challenges.