A Message from the Catholic Episcopal Conferences and Councils of Africa,
Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean
I think we can all agree that we are experiencing climate change that has seen an increase in temperature fluctuations, more violent storms, floods and droughts. There is great debate about the role that human activity has played in the dramatic change in climate over the past century and especially in the past few decades but it is evident that we are experiencing an alarming increase in temperature and violent weather worldwide. The recent flooding in Texas is just one tragic example of it.
Over the past 30 years, the United Nations has sponsored 29 annual meetings, called Conferences of the Parties (COP), beginning in Berlin, Germany, in 1995. These meetings are called to review and assess the implementation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that was negotiated among the participating nations in 1992. COP30 is scheduled to take place in Belém, Brazil, this November. Almost all the countries of the world – 190 out of 195 – will be represented at this important meeting. One of the key indicators of the success of the work of COP has been to limit global temperature rise to under 1.5˚C above the pre-industrial age. COP30 will refocus efforts on action including the delivery of ambitious nationally determined contributions toward this goal.
In preparation for COP30, the Catholic Episcopal Conferences and Councils of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean on 12 June published a document entitled “A Call for Climate Justice and the Common Home: Ecological Conversion, Transformation and Resistance to False Solutions.” This topic was very important for the late Pope Francis as he made clear in his encyclical letter, Laudato Si, and Pope Leo XIV has already indicated that it is a very important topic for him, as well. I would like to provide an overview of this document that addresses this very important topic for your information and reflection.
The document opens with a very clear synthesis that includes fundamental principles and a call to action. It begins with a stark warning that global warming reached 1.55 ˚C in 2024 and that desertification is already affecting 500 million people in the Global South and declares that “immediate action is essential to avoid irreversible impacts on climate and nature systems.” The document goes on to call for solutions that “combine justice, ecology, the rights of nature and human dignity.” It explains that “integral ecology proposes a structural change in economics and development models, overcoming technocratic and extractivist paradigms that perpetuate the exploitation of peoples and environmental degradation.”
Asserting that “climate change, mainly caused by the Global North, affects everyone, but disproportionately affects countries in the Global South,” the statement from these bishops asserts that “climate policies must be based on equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.” It goes on to require that “solutions must integrate the worldviews and practices of local peoples and communities; they cannot be limited to purely technical and financial adjustments.”
In its call to action, this document calls for rich countries to “recognize and assume their social and economic debt as the main historical actors responsible for extracting natural resources and emitting greenhouse gases.” In response, it requires that they commit to fair, accessible and effective climate finance that does not generate more debt in order to recover existing losses and damages in the Global South. In order to accomplish this, the document invites “a historic coalition of actors from both the Global South and North, committed to ethics and justice, to address the issue of debt, promote resilience and ensure conditions for life on the planet to thrive.”
I provide this overview in the hope that you will read the entire document; it’s only 31 pages long. I also invite you to pray for the success of COP30 for the sake of our planet Earth and our human race. God has given us dominion over the earth and we have a collective responsibility to care for it so that future generations may live here and enjoy the many fruits God has given us to enjoy. As Pope Leo XIV said so well in the homily that he delivered at his inaugural Mass:
Brothers and sisters, I would like that our first great desire be for a united Church, a sign of unity and communion, which becomes a leaven for a reconciled world. In this our time, we still see too much discord, too many wounds caused by hatred, violence, prejudice, the fear of difference, and an economic paradigm that exploits the Earth’s resources and marginalizes the poorest. For our part, we want to be a small leaven of unity, communion and fraternity within the world.
We are blessed to enjoy the abundance of the richest country in the world. Tragically, our economic paradigm has exploited the Earth’s resources and marginalized the poor in our country and in many nations around the world. Let us become united in conversion and reconciliation to heal our planet as responsible stewards of God’s creation.