The best way to show the love this February

Even if money can’t buy you love, the pounds in your bank balance could be showing the love for people affected by climate change by funding renewable energy rather than fossil fuels. Christian Aid campaigner Sarah Rowe explains.

How are you planning to show your love this Valentine’s Day? Flowers? Chocolates? Perfume? Or will you be hiding away in a dark room hoping Valentine’s goes away and never comes back (the most suitable reaction as far as I’m concerned)?

Lots of the ways we tend to show our love these days demand our money. The more expensive and extravagant the gift, the bigger your love must be — or at least that’s what the advertisers want you to think.

For the last couple of years we’ve used Valentine’s as a reminder to celebrate our love for the planet, and the people and places that make it special. Because the planet really needs our love. Climate change is already threatening the special places, people and life we love and want to protect for future generations.

Our money can show our love for the planet too, but the good news is it doesn’t need to be expensive or extravagant. The money sitting in your bank account is being used by your bank to support companies and projects around the world — and right now much more of it is used to support fossil fuels than the renewable projects we need to protect the planet and our neighbours from further harm.

Our money is key to the world we want — it will either build the clean energy systems that we need, or lock us into more fossil fuel infrastructure that belongs in the past. What matters is whether our banks make good decisions on our behalf.

This Valentine’s Day, join us in showing the love for our neighbours and our planet by asking your bank to make the Big Shift away from fossil fuels — you can write to them now.

Because when it comes to climate change, hiding away in a dark room will not make it go away.