The Patriot Post® · Beyond Christian Aid: The Poor Ask for Policy Support

By Vijay Jayaraj

At the recently concluded United Nations General Assembly in New York, India spoke for the Global South, stating that the low- and middle-income nations must have a just and rightful opportunity to industrialize, just like the West did in the 20^th century. This echoes what rational Christian environmentalists like me having been saying for the past decade or so.

For Christians, the issue of poverty reduction in the Third World is more than a matter of economics or diplomacy. It concerns the dignity, livelihood, and future of millions of God’s children living in poverty—many of whom have never known the level of productive industry, reliable energy, employment, and material security that countries such as America enjoyed decades ago. 

Historically, believers in the West loved their neighbors in India, Africa, and Southeast Asia through mission hospitals, famine relief, and child sponsorship checks. Everyone in the underdeveloped Global South remembers that generosity. Many of the leaders there learned to read in schools your congregations funded.

Justice to the Developing World

But the world has changed. The needs of many communities in India, Africa, and Southeast Asia have changed with it. The plea coming from energy-poor Christians today is not simply, “send us another donation.” Instead, it is, “please use your influence to help us stand on our own and to have freedom to build.”

The West built its prosperity on coal and later oil and gas. Your great-grandparents escaped backbreaking farm labor, smoke-filled kitchens, and early death because cheap, reliable energy powered factories, refrigerators, heating and air conditioning, and hospitals. Working families in Manchester, Pittsburgh, and the Ruhr gained plentiful and affordable power.

Western policymakers now deny a similar opportunity for the world’s poor through a global campaign against hydrocarbon fuel sources. The plea from Christians across the Global South is simple: do not use your democratic voice to deny poor nations the reliable, affordable energy that made the West prosperous.

Scripture leaves little room for doubt about which way that discernment should lean.

You have something the poor of the Global South lack: a vote and a voice in the capitals that shape global finance.

“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy” (Proverbs 31:8–9). Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40).
Jesus did not measure love by the statements believers sign at climate conferences. He measured it by what they did for the hungry, the sick, the prisoner, and the stranger. Today the hungry need fertilizer made from natural gas. The sick need hospitals with round-the-clock power. The strangers need a job in a factory that runs on reliable electricity. If the Western church stands with lobbies that deny them these things, it can’t claim to be serving Christ in them.

Your Voice Matters on Energy Policy

The least of these are not asking for your pity. They are asking for your voice in support of the same energy proliferation that liberated the West from generational poverty. Will you give it? When anti-hydrocarbon lobbying or development-finance restrictions make poor countries carry costs and prolong poverty, Christians should speak plainly.

Speaking up also means refusing to waste mission money. Well-meaning congregations increasingly direct mission funds toward alternative energy projects abroad. Rock Spring Congregational UCC in Virginia, for example, committed $24,000 from its mission fund to install solar arrays at rural clinics in India. In reality, solar panels deliver only a fraction of their rated output, because the sun sets, clouds gather, and dust settles on the glass.

Energy economists show how wide the gap is between the capacity factors of solar compared with dispatchable coal, gas, or nuclear plants. The hardware also fails early. In Gujarat, one of India’s sunniest states, rooftop solar owners are replacing panels years ahead of schedule because of cracks and corrosion. Projections show that expired panels worldwide could total as much as 78 million metric tons by 2050.

Before your mission committee signs a check, ask hard questions. Who will maintain the system after installation? What will it actually produce over twenty years, not what does the label promise? Would the same money buy a grid connection, a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) supply, or a diesel generator that serves more people for longer?

More than 2 billion still cook with firewood, charcoal, crop waste, or dung, and the smoke from those fires kills millions every year. India reached more than 100 million households with LPG connections through its Ujjwala program. That fossil fuel spared women and children hours of gathering wood and years of breathing toxic fumes. Who will speak for the families still waiting when Western policymakers decide which fuels they may use?

Stop allowing environmental lobbies to dictate your mission strategy. Evaluate your giving. True justice requires hard realism. Reject the bogus Green schemes that prey on your compassion. Preach from your pulpits about the moral imperative of energy access. Let your policymakers know that Christian voters demand energy justice for the world’s poorest citizens.

Vijay Jayaraj is Research Associate for Developing Countries with the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, a Science and Research Associate at the CO₂ Coalition, and a Visiting Fellow at the U.S. National Center for Energy Analytics. He holds a M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, postgraduate degree in Energy management from Robert Gordon University and has served as a research assistant at the University of British Columbia’s Fisheries Center in Canada.