The Bishops' Conferences of the Global South Issue Message on Climate Justice
A Call for Radical Ecological Conversion
On July 1, the episcopal conferences of Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean issued an unprecedented joint message on the climate, A Call for Climate Justice and the Common Home: Ecological Conversion, Transformation and Resistance to False Solutions. The document calls on the nations of the Global North to do more to address the “climate debt,” and proposes a radical transformation for how we think about sustainability and social development.
Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, Archbishop of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo and President of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), Cardinal Filipe Neri Ferrão, Archbishop of Goa and Damao in India and President of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences (FABC), and Cardinal Jaime Spengler, Archbishop of Porto Alegre in Brazil and President of the Latin American and Caribbean Episcopal Council (CELAM) presented the document to Pope Leo XIV. The three cardinals, alongside Emilce Cuda, secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, also announced the publication of the message at a press conference in the Vatican.
From an ecclesial perspective, this document is significant because an occasion on which so many bishops from such a wide geographical area speak with one voice is unusual, if not unheard of, outside of a formal ecclesial body like the Synod of Bishops or an ecumenical council. SECAM, FABC, and CELAM are themselves confederations of many national bishops’ conferences, and the nations represented in these confederations comprise about two-thirds of the world’s population. They also probably represent slightly more than two-thirds of the world’s Catholics.
The document is also noteworthy, however, because it gives voice to the bishops of the Global South without those from the Global North. The message is an exercise of the Church’s preferential option for the poor on a global scale. This approach allows the bishops to take radical stances that probably would not have been possible if the consensus of the bishops of North America and Europe was needed. The statement is “a call to conscience in the face of a system that threatens to devour creation, as if the planet were just another commodity,” as Cardinal Ferrão said at the press conference. At the same time, hopefully the statement initiates a conversation between South and North rather than contributing to a fissure within the global Church.
The message appeals for inspiration to Pope Francis’s monumental 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’ on care for creation, but its contents are more akin to his 2023 follow-up document Laudato Deum, both in its urgency and its focus on concrete policy. Indeed, although Cardinal Ferrão called the message “eminently pastoral,” it reads like a policy brief, and the message itself states it was written on the occasion of the upcoming United Nations COP30 gathering in November, where global dignitaries will gather in Belém, Brazil to update their carbon emissions reduction goals (first set at the Paris Climate Accords in 2015) and to negotiate greater commitments on the part of the Global North to finance climate change mitigation and sustainable development in the Global South.
Despite this focus on policy, the message does lay out the reasons for the Church’s intervention on these matters. For one, it is part of the Church’s mission to speak up for the most vulnerable, who are disproportionately impacted by the effects of climate change. Second, as part of its responsibility to preach the Gospel, the Church has been entrusted with social doctrine and has a duty to educate the public on these teachings, enriched by the wisdom of local cultures. The Church also has a unique capacity, as illustrated by the document itself, to strengthen cooperation and solidarity among the nations of the Global South, and likewise it can help build a coalition of solidarity from both the North and South. And lastly, the Catholic Church is a trusted institution that can assist in monitoring the commitments made by nations, particularly by establishing what the document calls a Climate Justice Observatory.
In his 2025 World Day of Peace message, one of his last public statements, Pope Francis called on the wealthier nations to address what he called the “ecological debt,” what wealthier nations who have contributed the most to climate change owe to the poorer nations for the harm caused by climate change and other forms of environmental destruction. At the 2023 COP28 gathering in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, several nations committed to providing $100 billion per year in “climate financing,” or funds intended to help developing nations mitigate the effects of climate change and transition to renewable energies. At the COP29 gathering in Baku, Azerbaijan last year, this amount was increased to $300 billion per year.
One of the key proposals put forward by the bishops in their message is that at COP30 this amount should be substantially increased. Citing one study that estimates the total amount of the climate debt will reach $192 trillion by 2050, the bishops call for climate financing of $1.3 trillion per year, a goal set by participants at the Baku gathering looking ahead to Belém. Although the idea that the climate debt could be estimated as a specific amount seems questionable to me, there is certainly a need for greater responsibility on the part of the wealthier nations to assist the Global South with promoting sustainable forms of development and mitigating the effects of climate change. Considering that climate financing often comes in the form of loans, the bishops also sensibly argue that, as a matter of justice, climate financing should not leave poorer nations further indebted.
The bishops also call for robust commitments to reduce carbon emissions (“nationally determined contributions,” or NDCs) to help reach the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above the pre-industrial average, the number identified by scientists as representing a tipping point for significant and irreversible climate changes. As I noted in my commentary on Laudate Deum, we are probably already past the point where 1.5°C is a realistic goal, but concerted effort can bring us as close as possible to that goal and mitigate the effects on the climate. The bishops also call for a phase out of fossil fuel use, a goal also set by the organizers of COP30 after a deal on that issue failed to materialize at Dubai in 2023 (although participants agreed to “end their dependence” on fossil fuels).
Besides these specific recommendations, the bishops also call for a broader transformation of the economy. Here, although the bishops propose a compelling moral vision with roots in Catholic social teaching, the message also suffers from vagueness.
The bishops reject what they call “false solutions” to the climate crisis. Most importantly, they identify the concepts of “the green economy” or “green capitalism” as false solutions. What they seem to mean is an attempt to address ecological concerns within the existing structures of the capitalist economic system through regulations or reforms that leave the economy’s basic structures in place. As they write, “[T]he green economy emerges not as a break with capitalism, but as an incremental modernisation of capitalism, expanding its capacity for self-regulation while perpetuating systemic contradictions.”
My overarching concern here is, as I explored in my book Interrupting Capitalism: Catholic Social Thought in the Economy, that “capitalism” itself is a contested term with no agreed-upon meaning, and capitalism takes a variety of forms in different contexts. So, without defining what they mean by “capitalism” and what its fundamental structures are, it’s not clear what aspects of the capitalist economy need to be left behind and which are legitimate, or even what would or would not represent a “break” with capitalism.
That being said, the bishops do provide some examples they believe illustrate the problems with the “green economy.” The most prominent is what they call the “financialization of nature.” Here they are referring to various kinds of offsets where companies pay a cost for the use of a particular natural resource. The most well-known example is carbon trading where companies can purchase a carbon credit from a company with low carbon emissions to offset their own higher emissions, but there are also systems in which a company engaged in deforestation or mining can make a contribution to fund the conservation of forest land elsewhere. The bishops point out that, despite their intentions, these systems perpetuate the exploitation of the environment for economic gain, but they also criticize these systems for transforming the natural environment into commodities. But surely any economy must involve the commodification of nature to some degree, so it’s not clear how helpful this criticism is.
Similarly, the bishops point out that mining for the lithium, cobalt, and nickel needed for the batteries used for electric vehicles and to store the energy produced through renewable methods like wind and solar “is devastating territories and sacrificing communities” in the Global South. This is certainly a problem that demands a global response, but the bishops dismiss “mining in the name of energy transition” itself as a “false solution” to the climate crisis. It’s not at all clear, then, how other key demands made by the bishops, such as the phase out of fossil fuels and the development of renewable energy programs in the Global South, could be met without mining for these minerals.
While the bishops reject “the green economy” as a false solution, they propose that we need to undertake a radical transformation of the economy:
We propose a model aligned with planetary boundaries and with goals for degrowth. A model that reduces demand and excessive consumption and promotes solidarity-based, circular, and restorative economies.
As with “the green economy” and “green capitalism,” these and similar terms used by the bishops are likewise vague and are never defined in the message. Even so, many of the specific examples provided of what such an economy might look like are compelling:
The rejection of renewable energy “megaprojects” (like massive hydroelectric dams) that end up destroying local ecosystems, are conducted without community input, and that concentrate economic power in favor of “cooperative and decentralised renewable electricity generation projects that consult both women and men in communities at risk.”
Decent and safe housing, sanitation, and disaster prevention policies for cities that incorporate “green infrastructure” techniques.
Efforts to protect forests and other natural “commons,” as well as the territories of indigenous groups and other vulnerable populations.
That being said, on a number of occasions the document appeals to the notion of “degrowth,” the highly controversial contention that reversing the climate crisis will require placing limits on, or even reversing, economic growth. Degrowth is based on two basic premises. The first is that economic growth and fossil fuel consumption are inextricably linked and therefore cannot be decoupled. Even with the rapid development of renewable energy sources and their widespread adoption that I noted in my commentary on Laudate Deum cited earlier, this growth in renewable energy production, degrowth advocates claim, is paired with ongoing growth in energy consumption, meaning that growing renewable energy consumption comes on top of fossil fuel consumption, which will continue unabated. Second, efforts to promote energy efficiency or the efficient use of other resources paradoxically have the effect of generating more consumption, and thus the use of even more resources. For example, the use of energy-efficient air conditioners may make people more willing to turn on the air conditioner, leading to more energy use overall. Both of these claims suggest that the only realistic solution to the climate crisis is to limit consumption and to limit economic growth.
As I already noted, however, the degrowth perspective is very controversial. For one, several countries (mostly in the Global North) have in fact been able to decouple economic growth from fossil fuel use, experiencing GDP growth while reducing their carbon emissions, although it’s not yet clear if this trend is sustainable in the long term and universalizable to all countries. Second, although degrowth advocates warn that economic growth can’t be decoupled from fossil fuel use, they do tend to assume that improving living standards can be decoupled from economic growth. It’s widely acknowledged that gross domestic product (GDP) is a limited indicator of true social development (including health, education, gender equality, etc.). But degrowth advocates go further, arguing that so much of what counts toward economic growth does not further true social development, that current levels of true well-being could be maintained or even improved even while economic growth is reversed. But as the economist Branko Milanovic points out, the current evidence suggests that economic growth (as measured by GDP) is a necessary, even if not sufficient, condition for improving living standards; providing health care, educating the public, and lifting people out of poverty requires creating wealth, although it also requires redistributing wealth.
At least since Pope John XXIII’s 1961 encyclical Mater et Magistra and Paul VI’s 1967 encyclical Populorum Progressio, Catholic social teaching has insisted that economic development cannot focus exclusively on economic growth and the creation of wealth; instead, it should be put at the service of what Paul called “integral human development,” the development of the person in their material, social, and spiritual dimensions. Likewise, economic growth does not serve the common good if it is concentrated in the hands of the few. In Laudato Si’, Pope Francis added that an exclusive focus on economic growth will be disastrous for the environment. So, there is certainly significant common ground between Catholic social teaching and the degrowth movement. Similarly, as the bishops of the Global South note in their statement, Pope Francis also called for us, particularly those of us in the Global North, to adopt simpler lifestyles.
Even so, I think Catholic social teaching makes room for a position between the pursuit of economic growth at all costs, and even the “false solution” of “green capitalism,” on the one hand, and “degrowth” on the other. In this perspective, economic growth and technological development are encouraged, but as goods put at the service of, and limited by the needs of, integral human development and ecological sustainability.
The bishops of the Global South, however, seem to leave no room between the view that economic growth is an absolute imperative and degrowth. In the end, they may end up being right that there is no middle ground, but for now this is a highly contested question, and the official documents of the universal magisterium present a more nuanced view of the relationship between economic growth, integral human development, and ecological sustainability. That being said, A Call for Climate Justice and the Common Home is a necessary wake-up call from the Church of the Global South and an important ecclesial event.
Of Interest…
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) issued a letter highly critical of the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the tax and spending bill proposed and ultimately passed by Republicans in the House and Senate. The bishops criticize the bill for raising taxes on working poor families while cutting taxes for the wealthiest households. The bill likewise cuts spending for Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and the bishops cite an estimate that 16 million people may lose their health insurance as a result of the bill’s provisions. The bishops are also critical of the immense spending the bill dedicates to immigration enforcement, calling it an “unjust and fiscally unsustainable” enforcement-only approach to immigration. They also lament the bill’s cuts to clean energy initiatives and other environmental programs. On the other hand, the bishops’ praise the bill’s ending of subsidies to Planned Parenthood and other providers for abortions and gender transition procedures. Unusually, a handful of bishops also signed on to another letter also signed by an interfaith group of religious leaders including Christians, Muslims, and Jews. This letter raises some of the same criticisms as the USCCB’s letter, and adds that the expanded immigration enforcement funding will be used to target faith communities now that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) no longer respects churches as “sensitive locations.” This letter also explicitly calls on US Senators to vote “no” on the bill, while the USCCB letter had urged them to “think and act with courage and creativity to preserve human dignity and uphold the common good and to change the provisions that undermine these fundamental values.” Despite these differences, I probably would not read too much into the fact that a number of bishops signed this second letter. I think the purpose was to show interfaith unity, not to critique the USCCB letter. For more on the two letters, see Aleja Hertzler-McCain and Jack Jenkins’s reporting at Religious News Service.
In 2021, Pope Francis published the document Traditionis Custodes, which restricted the use of the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) by overturning Pope Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum, which had permitted the celebration of the pre-Vatican II liturgy alongside the post-Vatican II Mass. At the time, Francis stated that, after consulting with bishops from around the world, he had decided Summorum Pontificum had contributed to an effect the opposite of what was intended; rather than bringing peace to the Catholic Church, it had furthered division and encouraged greater hostility toward the teachings of Vatican II. Last week, American journalist Diane Montagna, who currently writes for the Catholic Herald and formerly wrote for LifeSite News, published a collection of quotations from bishops taken from a survey administered prior to the publication of Traditionis Custodes and a document from the Congregation (now Dicastery) for the Doctrine of the Faith intended as a summary of the survey’s results. These documents seem to suggest that many bishops were satisfied that the implementation of Summorum Pontificum had benefitted the Church. Supporters of the TLM, then, have claimed that Pope Francis therefore “lied” about the reasons behind Traditionis Custodes and are calling on Pope Leo XIV to reverse Francis’s decision. On the other hand, the quotations seem to have been gathered from a much larger set of responses, and the Vatican has insisted that Montagna has leaked only a selective sample of the materials Pope Francis used to make his decision. Mike Lewis has a detailed overview of the situation at Where Peter Is.
Thank you for this very important' document and- Backgrounder Matthew! Our mass media doesn't do a very good job on this subject.
~ I don't know if you are aware of the Military, political events permeating these regions, but these natural resources are precisely the reason there is such political and violent turmoil. In addition to the resources there's is a needs' of labor by the large multinational groups that covet these resources. What the media fails to' do is' make the connections so' the public only sees the fragments, like a tapestry with a multitude of 'lacunae'. Thanks for this fine paper and the embedded material!
Thank you for covering this, Matthew. I have no doubt the transformation needed for their desired outcome requires boatloads of prayer and much more hard work here in the Global North.
If anyone is interested in learning more, I suggest the Laudato Si' Movement which provides free formation for parishioners willing to learn how to animate their communities to respond.