Pope Francis: ‘Irresponsible’ Western Lifestyles Push the World to ‘the Breaking Point’ on Climate

The 86-year-old leader of the 1.3 billion-member Catholic Church bluntly urges more aggressive action to curb emissions at the next U.N. climate meeting in eight weeks.

In a new papal exhortation on climate change issued in advance of the upcoming U.N. climate talks in the United Arab Emirates, Pope Francis challenged U.N. negotiators to strengthen the agreement they reached in Paris in 2015, to include “binding forms of energy transition that meet three conditions: that they be efficient, obligatory and readily monitored.” Credit: Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images.

Taking aim at the United States and an “irresponsible lifestyle” with some of the world’s highest carbon emissions per capita, Pope Francis on Wednesday doubled down on his earlier call for urgent action to tackle climate change, while also criticizing a failing global response to the crisis.

Eight years after the Vatican published Francis’ landmark “Laudato Si’: On Care for our Common Home,” the first papal teaching letter sent to all of the church’s bishops focused on the environment, the pontiff’s new writing comes in the form of a papal exhortation called Laudate Deum, or Praise God.

On the climate crisis, Francis writes that “our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point.”

The Vatican published Laudate Deum in advance of the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference to be held Nov. 30 to Dec. 12 in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates, which has invested heavily in increasing hydrocarbon production capacity, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency.  

In the document, Pope Francis challenged U.N. negotiators to strengthen the agreement they reached in Paris in 2015, to include “binding forms of energy transition that meet three conditions: that they be efficient, obligatory and readily monitored.”

He warned that technology alone won’t solve a climate crisis that’s only getting worse. He specifically mentioned “technological advances that make it possible to absorb or capture (heat-trapping) gas emissions,” writing that they have “proved promising.”

But he added: “We risk remaining trapped in the mindset of pasting and papering over cracks,” and that “to suppose that all problems in the future will be able to be solved by new technical interventions is a form of homicidal pragmatism, like pushing a snowball down a hill.”

People, he writes, “have turned into highly dangerous beings, capable of threatening the lives of many beings and our own survival. We need lucidity and honesty in order to recognize in time that our power and the progress we are producing are turning against us.”

Other popes have commented on the need to care for the environment, but Francis has stood out as a global leader and moral force, taking to task fossil fuel companies and rich countries alike, while speaking against economic greed that underlies the climate crisis. His new writings are primarily aimed at the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics, following earlier calls for them to take into account human-driven global warming that puts so many of the poorest people on the planet at the greatest risk. But his words also resonate more widely with people who share his concerns.

Strong Reactions

Climate scientist and evangelical Christian Katherine Hayhoe, author of the book “Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World,” said Francis’ clarity and bluntness in his latest document stood out to her.

“He does not shy away from calling out the power structures and the anthropocentric and technocratic mindsets that are the root causes of the situation we find ourselves in today,” Hayhoe said. “He fully acknowledges the ‘but what about…?’ arguments people will […]

Full article: insideclimatenews.org