Explosive intervention by Pope Francis set to transform climate change debate
Pope
Francis will call for an ethical and economic revolution to prevent
catastrophic climate change and growing inequality in a letter to the world’s
1.2 billion Catholics on Thursday. In an unprecedented encyclical on the subject of the
environment, the pontiff is expected to argue that humanity’s exploitation of
the planet’s resources has crossed the Earth’s natural boundaries, and that the
world faces ruin without a revolution in hearts and minds. The much-anticipated
message, which will be sent to the world’s 5,000 Catholic bishops, will be
published online in five languages on Thursday and is expected to be the most
radical statement yet from the outspoken pontiff.
However, it is certain to anger sections of Republican
opinion in America by endorsing the warnings of climate scientists and
admonishing rich elites, say cardinals and scientists who have advised the
Vatican. The Ghanaian cardinal, Peter Turkson, president of the
Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and a close ally of the pope,
will launch the encyclical. He has said it will address the root causes of
poverty and the threats facing nature, or “creation”.
In a recent speech widely regarded as a curtain-raiser
to the encyclical, Turkson said: “Much of the world remains in poverty,
despite abundant resources, while a privileged global elite controls the bulk
of the world’s wealth and consumes the bulk of its resources.” The Argentinian pontiff is expected to repeat calls for a
change in attitudes to poverty and nature. “An economic system centred on the
god of money needs to plunder nature to sustain the frenetic rhythm of
consumption that is inherent to it,” he told a meeting of social movements last
year. “I think a question that we are not asking ourselves is: isn’t humanity
committing suicide with this indiscriminate and tyrannical use of nature?
Safeguard creation because, if we destroy it, it will destroy us. Never forget
this.”
The encyclical will go much further than strictly
environmental concerns, say Vatican insiders. “Pope Francis has repeatedly
stated that the environment is not only an economic or political issue, but is
an anthropological and ethical matter,” said another of the pope’s advisers,
Archbishop Pedro Barreto Jimeno of Peru.
“It will address the issue of inequality in the distribution
of resources and topics such as the wasting of food and the irresponsible
exploitation of nature and the consequences for people’s life and health,”
Barreto Jimeno told the Catholic News Service.
He was echoed by Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga of
Honduras, who coordinates the Vatican’s inner council of cardinals and is
thought to reflect the pope’s political thinking . “The ideology surrounding
environmental issues is too tied to a capitalism that doesn’t want to stop
ruining the environment because they don’t want to give up their profits,”
Rodríguez Maradiaga said.
The rare encyclical, called “Laudato Sii”, or “Praised Be”,
has been timed to have maximum public impact ahead of the pope’s meeting with
Barack Obama and his address to the US Congress and the UN general assembly in
September.
It is also intended to improve the prospect of a strong new
UN global agreement to cut climate emissions. By adding a moral dimension to
the well-rehearsed scientific arguments, Francis hopes to raise the ambition of
countries above their own self-interest to secure a strong deal in a crucial
climate summit in Paris in November.
“Pope Francis is personally committed to this [climate]
issue like no other pope before him. The encyclical will have a major impact.
It will speak to the moral imperative of addressing climate change in a timely
fashion in order to protect the most vulnerable,” said Christiana Figueres, the
UN’s climate chief in Bonn this week … read more
