Transformation is sometimes scary. Rapid transformation is usually scary. Just ask the Church of Scotland.

Last year our General Assembly was presented with a ten-year plan for radical change, to reverse our potentially existential decline. Faced with a difficult decision the Assembly decided to reject it, not out of fear but out of a recognition that more urgency was required.

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A three-year plan was demanded instead and this week that even bolder blueprint for change was adopted.

That bravery wasn’t a consistent feature of 2018’s Assembly. When given the opportunity to divest our pension funds from around £2 million in fossil fuel investments, that recognition of urgency melted away and the Assembly instead opted for ‘constructive engagement’ with oil & gas companies on the issue of the climate crisis.

Unsurprisingly, that engagement has produced no tangible results. The very existence of these companies depends on a process which is literally bringing our world to its knees, after forty years and tens of millions poured into suppressing the evidence of man-made climate change, they’re not about to apologise and shut up shop.

The Kirk has led with passion in advocating for bold action on the climate crisis, on an agenda of climate justice for those in the Global South and on a just transition for those here whose current jobs depend on an industry which must end.

We are called to love Creator and Creation, to act as stewards but not owners of this planet. That is a message the Church of Scotland has embraced in our rhetoric, in our actions across communities from Shetland to Galloway and in our work across the world.

Today Assembly commissioners will have the chance to follow through on that brave rhetoric with necessary action, by voting for a fresh divestment proposal. The moral leadership eroded by last year’s delay can be reclaimed.

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With governments and communities across the world declaring a climate emergency and thousands of Scottish school pupils joining over a million others in walking out of school to protest this crisis, surely this is the moment for the Kirk to take the painless step of making sure our own house is in order?

We only need to look at the devastation caused by Cyclone Irma across the east coast of Africa to recognise that our moral responsibility to act is an immediate one. Taking what we have invested in these destructive industries and moving it to the clean industries of the future is not only one small step to stop the climate crisis, it is also responsible stewardship of our finances.

The oil & gas industry will end, either as a result of a positive transition towards the jobs-rich and environmentally sustainable alternatives or as a result of the climate crisis throwing our world into chaos. Either way, these investments are set to become stranded assets in the not too distant future, worth next to nothing.

For the sake of our planet and our staff’s pensions, it’s time to divest.

Ross Greer is the Green MSP for the West of Scotland and a member of the Church of Scotland’s National Youth Assembly