The Anglican Church in Dunedin has taken its own steps to combat climate change, choosing not to invest any longer in companies involved in fossil fuels.
The Dunedin Diocese joined four others from around New Zealand in committing to divest holdings in fossil-fuel companies.
Dunedin Anglican Diocesan manager Graeme Sykes said the decision was made by the Dunedin Synod on Sunday.
''The feeling from the synod was it was one way we could demonstrate that extracting more fossil fuels from the ground was not doing anything to help in the efforts against global warming,'' he said.
Mr Sykes said investments made up a small part of the church's funding and he did not expect there to be much impact from the decision.
The Church would also look at other ways to reduce its carbon footprint, Mr Sykes said.
''We have tried to cut down on vehicle use but our diocese is quite large, so that can can be difficult, but we are also looking at using more digital conferencing to cut down,'' he said.
Each diocese could choose its own policies when it came to issues about social justice and on this issue the church in Dunedin decided to take a moral stand, he said.
The global fossil fuel divestment campaign was started by the environmental group 350.org last year. 350 Aotearoa national co-ordinator Ashlee Gross said the five Anglican diocese had shown moral leadership with their decisions to divest.
The group was calling on other churches and organisations to do the same, she said.
