Catholic bishops from Asia, Africa and Latin America demanded climate justice for the parts of the world most affected by rising temperatures and rejected what they said were the “false solutions” promoted by wealthy countries.
As a heat wave hits much of Europe, including the Vatican, the continental bishops conferences of the Global South penned a first-ever joint ecological appeal ahead of the next U.N. climate conference in November in Belem, Brazil.
In the document, they echoed the frequent environmental appeals by Pope Francis during his 12-year pontificate, but in a language that was far less diplomatic and far more urgent.
They blasted the “openly denialist and apathetic stance” of “so-called elites of power” in the industrialized world who pressure their governments to back off sufficient mitigation and adaptation measures.
The proposals merely perpetuate the exploitation of God’s creation and its most vulnerable people, when what is really needed is the complete abandonment of fossil fuels and a new economic model that values the common good, the bishops said.
Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, the archbishop of Kinshasa, Congo, said the document isn’t just an analysis, “but a cry of dignity.”
“We, the pastors of the South, demand climate justice as a human and spiritual right,” he told a Vatican news conference in prepared remarks.
The document said it was “seriously contradictory” to use profits from oil extraction to finance green energy transition, saying carbon markets and mining for clean technologies were “false solutions.”
This “green economy” really serves as an “ecological restructuring of capitalism” that just concentrates power again in corporations and regulatory systems, they said.
Francis made caring for the environment a hallmark of his pontificate and penned a landmark encyclical that has spawned global movements to care for the planet.
Pope Leo XIV has indicated he is following in Francis’ footsteps, visiting the future site of a huge Vatican solar panel project and planning to spend the summer at the papal retreat outside Rome that Francis turned into an environmental center.
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