“the world is collapsing”, warns Pope Francis in a new text

The reactions to global warming are “insufficient while the world (…) collapses», deplores Pope Francis in a text published Wednesday October 4, a few weeks before COP28, the climate negotiations under the aegis of the UN in Dubai.

Eight years after his encyclical on integral ecology “Laudato Si’“, the Argentine Jesuit calls on the great powers to come out in favor of an energy transition “binding” And “controllable“. In this 12-page apostolic exhortation entitled “Laudate Deum» (“Praise God), written in Spanish and translated into several languages, Pope Francis also warns against “contemptuous and unreasonable opinions» climate skeptics, «even within the Catholic Church“.

“The signs of climate change are there, ever more obvious”

“In recent years, many people have tried to make fun of this observation“, he deplores, against a backdrop of proliferation of false information relativizing global warming or “ridiculing» those who talk about it. “No matter how much we try to deny them, hide them, conceal them or put them into perspective, the signs of climate change are there, ever more obvious.“, insists the 86-year-old pope, judging “likely» the explosion in the number of climate migrants «in a few years“.

In this text of 73 paragraphs with a didactic tone, the Pope once again insists on the damage caused by “the unbridled intervention of man on nature» and castigates the “ irresponsible lifestyle of the western model», pointing the finger in particular at the United States and China for their greenhouse gas emissions.

Difficult to achieve goals

Pope Francis, who defended the “Commune house» one of the recurring themes of his pontificate since his election in 2013, regrets that “the climate crisis (is) not really a subject of interest for the major economic powers, concerned with the greatest profit at the lowest cost and in the shortest possible time“. Drawing up the observation of a “old diplomacy in crisis“, the head of the Catholic Church calls for “reconfigure multilateralism» while the objectives of reducing carbon emissions seem increasingly difficult to achieve.

In 2015, “Laudato si», a call for global solidarity to act together to protect the environment, had triggered a debate at the global level, an unprecedented phenomenon for a religious text. A few months later, significant progress was obtained with the Paris climate agreement, the primary objective of which is to keep the temperature rise below 2°C.