The head of the Catholic Church blasted inaction on climate change and what he called a careless Western way of living.
Pope Francis has warned that the world as we know it is “collapsing” due to the world’s leaders’ inactivity and the fast escalating pace of climate change. He pointed to Western wealthy countries as the primary offenders for the issue.
The leader of the Roman Catholic Church bemoaned that not much has changed since he wrote the Encyclical Letter Laudato Si on the subject back in 2015. He expressed this in his Apostolic Exhortation Laudate Deum, which was published on Wednesday.
The Pope stressed that the current climatic catastrophe threatens the fundamental “dignity of human life,” and that as a result, “the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point.” He continued by emphasising that its effects, which include “extreme weather phenomena, frequent periods of unusual heat, and drought,” are getting harder to ignore.
The idea that less wealthy countries are mostly to blame for global warming is completely false, according to the Pope. The Pope noted that “emissions per person in the United States are about two times greater than those of individuals living in China, and about seven times greater than the average of the poorest countries.” In light of this, he demanded a “broad change in the irresponsible lifestyle connected with the Western model.”
Francis slammed anyone who reject the human-caused, “anthropic,” nature of climate change, saying that it is “no longer possible to doubt this.” He pointed out that the rate of increase in global temperatures over the past fifty years has exceeded that of the previous two millennia.
The Pope bemoaned the fact that “the great economic powers, whose concern is with the greatest profit possible at the least amount of cost and in the shortest amount of time,” are not particularly interested in the climate catastrophe. He also criticised powerful multinational corporations for their inefficiency.
Francis claimed that earlier crises—such as the severe economic downturn in 2008 and the Covid-19 pandemic—offered special chances to “bring about beneficial changes” but that these possibilities were all “squandered.”
Months before the Paris Climate Accords were ratified in 2015, the Pope issued a plea, and a Vatican delegation was present during the talks. In the years that followed, the Holy See held a number of climate change-related conferences with participation from both commercial and religious leaders. Several remarks on the subject have been given by Francis, including ones at the UN and the US Congress.
