Pope: Climate change impacts poorest and requires global cooperation
By Kielce Gussie
About 30% of the world’s population has been exposed to deadly heat waves more than 20 days each year, according to the UN Environment Programme.
In a seminar on November 28 in Rome hosted by the embassies of Cuba, Bolivia, and Venezuela to the Holy See, several Cardinals and representatives from these countries came together to discuss the global impacts of the ongoing environmental crisis.
Pope Francis sent a letter to participants, issuing them a warning: climate change impacts the “poorest nations” and its signs “cannot be hidden or disguised.”
Man must not be a tyrant
Speaking on the deteriorating environmental crisis facing the world, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America and Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, stressed it is time to move “from words to action.” He said the answer to this challenge must be based on the Social Doctrine of the Church.
“Dominion over nature”—the task which God gave humanity—should not become “tyrannical.” It must be a “relationship of reciprocity” with the environment, he said.
The Cardinal cautioned against the “harmful” consequences of technological development and reiterated the Holy See’s commitment to protecting the environment, enumerating examples, like the Vatican installing solar panels and shifting to electric vehicles.
Climate change is ‘undeniable’
Cardinal Peter Appiah Turkson, chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, emphasized humanity's vocation to care for the environment. “The world is not an accident but an intentional act of God” and everyone is called to be a “co-creator.”
The Cardinal emphasized that those most affected by climate change are the most vulnerable. The way the environment has been treated, Cardinal Turkson said, is “a tragic and glaring example of structural sin.”
Referring to movements that deny climate change, he stressed the importance of taking action now, as the climate emergency is not a “hypothetical future” but something humanity is “experiencing firsthand.”
Agreeing with Cardinal Turkson, Dr. Paolo Ruffini, Prefect of the Dicastery for Communication (our parent organization), reiterated Pope Francis’ words, stating the need to call the climate crisis what it is: “undeniable.”
Impoverished but ‘we all have the right’
Emilce Cuda, Secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, pointed out how floods in Brazil, which have “swept away entire communities,” often do not make headlines like those in Spain. She called on all of Latin America to focus on agendas similar to Pope Francis.
“We are an impoverished continent,” the Secretary stated, “but when we sit at the same table, we all have the right to the same space and freedom.”
She emphasized that being “poorer does not mean we are less professional or less qualified.”
How to face the future
Numerous organizations are working to implement the principles of Laudato si’ to support the most vulnerable amid the climate crisis.
In Venezuela, Josué Alejandro Lorca Vega, Minister of People’s Power for Ecosocialism, described how young people are being educated on environmental sustainability to give the tools needed to do their part.
With the COP29 meeting just having ended, Pedro Luis Pedroso Cuesta, Deputy Director General for Multilateral Affairs and International Law at Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, called its response to the climate crisis “fragmented” and inadequate, as no “financial milestone” was outlined to offer aid to developing countries.
The Deputy Director applied a phrase from Cuban revolutionaries to climate change, stressing the need for immediate action: “Tomorrow will already be too late to address what we should have done a long time ago.”
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