Sala Stampa

www.vatican.va

Sala Stampa Back Top Print Pdf
Sala Stampa


Press Conference to present the document “Un llamado por la justicia climática y la casa común: conversión ecológica, transformación y resistencia a las falsas soluciones”, 01.07.2025

At 11.00 today, at the Holy See Press Office, Via della Conciliazione 54, a press conference was held the present the document Un llamado por la justicia climática y la casa común: conversión ecológica, transformación y resistencia a las falsas soluciones, by the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC) and the Latin American Episcopal Conference (CELAM), coordinated by the Pontifical Commission for Latin America (PCAL).

The speakers were: His Eminence Cardinal Jaime Spengler, O.F.M., archbishop of Porto Alegre, Brazil, president of CELAM and president of the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (NCBB); His Eminence Cardinal Filipe Neri Ferrão, archbishop of Goa and Damão, India, president of the FABC; His Eminence Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, O.F.M. Cap., archbishop of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, president of SECAM; and Dr. Emilce Cuda, secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.

The following are their interventions:

 

Intervention of His Eminence Cardinal Jaime Spengler, O.F.M.

Sisters and brothers, on behalf of the Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM) and the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil, as we commemorate the tenth anniversary of Laudato si' and the Paris Agreement, I raise a voice that is not mine alone, but that of the Amazonian peoples, the martyrs of the land, the riverside, indigenous, Afro-descendant, peasant and urban communities who have tenderly cared for life in the midst of the threat, a situation that led us to launch a campaign to defend them a few months ago: ‘Life is hanging by a thread’.

The document we are presenting is not an isolated gesture. It is the fruit of a synodal process, of spiritual and community discernment between sister Churches in the Global South: Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean. It contains the main points of defence, proposals and denunciations made by the Church, in accordance with the Magisterium of Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV, in relation to the climate crisis and the issues being discussed at COP30. We are presenting this document to Pope Leo XIV today and we want it to be considered in the run-up to COP30. Its message is clear: there is no climate justice without ecological conversion, and there is no ecological conversion without resistance to false solutions.

From the heart of the Amazon, we hear a cry: how can we allow a market without ethical regulations to decide the fate of the planet’s most vital ecosystems? How can we accept that the climate solution is a business for the few and a sacrifice for indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants and local communities? There is an urgent need to realize the need for changes in lifestyle, production and consumption (cf. LS, n. 5).

“[Environmental problems have] ethical and spiritual roots… which require that we … replace consumption with sacrifice, greed with generosity, wastefulness with a spirit of sharing… moving gradually away from what I want to what God’s word needs” (LS, no. 9). We denounce the masking of interests under names like “green capitalism” and “transition economy”, which perpetuate extractivist and technocratic logics. We reject the financialization of nature, carbon markets, energy monocultures without prior consultation, the recent opening of new oil wells, which is even more serious in the Amazon, and abusive mining in the name of sustainability.

Instead, we embrace the happy sobriety that Pope Francis told us about, inspired by the “good way of life” of the Amazonian peoples. We are committed to a transition that is just, popular, community-based, with women, young people and communities at the centre.

“Change is impossible without motivation and a process of education” (LS, no. 15). From the region that will host COP30, we offer the ecclesial commitment to educate in integral ecology, to accompany suffering communities and to remain vigilant with a Climate Justice Observatory that will be promoted by the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon (CEAMA) and that will promote, among other studies, the monitoring of the NDCs at national level.

We are convinced that ecological conversion is not an option for Christians, but required by the Gospel, and we believe, with Easter hope, that it is still possible to change course. We will do this with our feet on the ground and our hearts in the Kingdom.

 

Intervention of His Eminence Cardinal Filipe Neri Ferrão

Dear sisters and brothers in faith and in humanity:

From Asia, a land of immense spiritual, cultural, and ecological diversity, we join the global clamour for a transformation that is not only technical, but ethical, prophetic, and profoundly human.

Our message today is not diplomatic, it is pastoral. It is a call to conscience in the face of a system that threatens to devour creation, as if the planet were just another commodity. The document we present is the reflection of a collective discernment, in synodal perspective, and in communion with the Churches of Africa and Latin America. It is not just a matter of changing policies; it is a matter of changing hearts.

In Asia, millions of people are already living the devastating effects of climate change: typhoons, forced migration, loss of islands, pollution of rivers... And meanwhile, false solutions are advancing: mega infrastructures, displacement for "clean" energy that does not respect human dignity, and soulless mining in the name of green batteries.

In the face of this, the Loss and Damage Fund must be urgently operationalized, and together with the adaptation fund that focuses on building climate-resilience – must guarantee priority access to affected communities.

It is necessary that the most developed countries recognize and assume their social and ecological debt, as the main historical perpetrators of natural resource extraction and greenhouse gas emissions. It is estimated that this climate debt of the Global North will reach $192 trillion by 2050. In addition, it is estimated that approximately two trillion dollars are extracted from the Global South every year, through corporate, banking, and governmental mechanisms. We therefore call for fair and accessible climate finance for local communities and organizations, including women, that does not generate more debt, to ensure resilience in the Global South.

Likewise, we demand that the ancestral wisdom of our communities be heard. Stop the expansion of fossil fuels, expand clean renewable energy solutions in consultation with men and women in local communities, especially decentralized solutions. Rich countries ought to recognize and pay their ecological debt, without continuing to indebt the Global South.

Likewise, as a Church, beyond criticism, we want to promote alternatives: educational programmes, new economic pathways based on degrowth, circular economies, ecological spirituality, protection policies, accompaniment of women and girls -the most affected-, and strengthening of interreligious networks for the defense of life.

We want COP30 to be not just another event, but a moral turning point. And as Pope Leo XIV has said, we need love and unity to "build a new world where peace reigns". May hope flourish among us like a tree of life.

 

Intervention of His Eminence Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu

I am speaking to you on behalf of the Churches on the African continent, a land rich in biodiversity, minerals and cultures, but impoverished by centuries of extractivism, slavery and exploitation. Africa is not a poor continent, it is a plundered continent.

This is why the document we are presenting today, as a joint reflection and a call to action in the run-up to COP30, is not just an analysis: it is a cry for dignity. We, the pastors of the South, demand climate justice as a human and spiritual right.

It is well known that with global warming, which in 2024 will exceed pre-industrial measurements by 1.55°C, we are seeing the effects of desertification, which is already affecting 500 million people in the South. Urgent action is needed to avoid irreversible impact on the climate and natural systems. We therefore demand an economy that is not based on the sacrifice of the African people to enrich others.

How can we accept that, in the name of the “energy transition”, entire communities are being wiped out in the search for lithium, cobalt or nickel? How can we tolerate carbon markets turning our forests into financial assets, while our communities remain deprived of drinking water?

We're saying enough is enough, enough of false solutions, enough of decisions taken without listening to those on the front line of climate collapse!

We are proposing a transformation that puts the care of life at the centre, the sovereignty of indigenous and rural peoples over their territories, and the active defence of the rights of women, climate migrants and new generations.

The document, which we signed and shared with Holy Father Leo XIV, outlines in ten points the “commitments and responsibilities” of the world's powerful, and presents ten specific demands, with calls to action, including a series of efforts undertaken by the Catholic Church itself.

As the Church in Africa, we commit ourselves to strengthening the spirituality of care, to educating new generations in an ecological ethic, and to building an intercontinental alliance of the South to say with one voice: “the time for indifference is over”.

Africa wants to live. Africa wants to breathe. Africa wants to contribute to a future of justice and peace for all humanity. And she will do so with her faith, her hope, and her invincible dignity.

Thank you for listening to this voice, which comes from the margins, but which speaks to the heart of the world.

 

Intervention of Dr. Emilce Cuda

Like the Three Wise Men, these three cardinals from the episcopal conferences of the Catholic Church of the Global South, following the star of Bethlehem, are leading us to Belém. They bring us three gifts: a renewed faith in God and a firm trust in humanity; the cry for a new environmental justice as the highest form of charity; and the certainty that hope does not disappoint.

Six months ago, in this same hall on 9 December 2024, CELAM - as the Latin American and Caribbean Church organized for the Care of the Common Home - launched its campaign Life hangs by a thread, in relation to the deaths that have occurred as a consequence of the social and environmental disorders already warned about in the Encyclical Laudato si’.

On that occasion, Cardinals Jaime Spengler from Brazil, Fernando Chomali from Chile and Carlos Castillo from Peru were present, accompanied from the Holy See by Cardinal Michael Czerny, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development; and by myself as secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.

This CELAM campaign, still in progress, is the silent and constant community work of a process of integral ecological conversion of persons, communities, organizations and institutions, not only of a religious but also of a secular nature, with which we try to reach the hearts of believers and non-believers, so that “our peoples may have a good and abundant life” as our bishops said in Aparecida.

The presentation of this document today, in the context of COP30, is part of this process in which, from Latin America, community bridges were built with the Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Asia. The PCLA takes on this initiative in response to the request made by Pope Francis on 27 June 2024: “The CLA must build bridges of reconciliation, of inclusion, of fraternity! Bridges that allow the journey together to be not a mere rhetorical expression but an authentic pastoral experience”.

The Particular Churches of the Global South, aware that “no one is saved by themselves” – as our beloved Pope Francis taught us – have begun to build bridges as an expression of the catholicity that constitutes them. The result of this community work is the joint document presented today to the Pope and the press, as a foretaste of what will be presented in five months’ time in Belém. It is a concrete example of this bridge-building practice, typical of the virtuous capacity for community organisation that distinguishes the Catholic Churches of the Global South to overcome: party, conflict, space and ideology.

Pope Leo XIV, in his first greeting from Saint Peter’s Basilica, said: “Peace be with you all!”, and said that “it is the peace of the risen Christ, a peace that is unarmed and disarming, humble and persevering”. In this context of socio-environmental ecological crisis and urgency, his first words further energize the Churches of the Global South: to disarm negationist discourses; and to take climate change seriously as a consequence of a system of production and consumption without ethical regulations.

“Either we unite, or we sink”, Francis said. That is why we are here today - you journalists, and us - because as Pope Leo said in his first greeting, and as senior officials of governments and international organizations are already repeating – “All of us are in God's hands”. Therefore, he continues, “let us move forward, without fear, together. We are followers of Christ. Christ goes before us. The world needs his light. Humanity needs him as the bridge that can lead us to God and his love”.

As missionary apostles of an outgoing, synodal Church, we will go to COP30 to build that peace in the midst of this piecemeal war against creation, where many are dying and more will die if we do not act now, as the UN scientists warn. We do so because, as Pope Leo says, the Church “always seeks to be close above all to those who are suffering”. And our people are suffering because, in the global South, life hangs by a thread.

Thank you for being here, the work of the press is an inseparable part of the evangelical mission because it allows us to reach everyone, everyone, everyone. You, my journalist sisters and brothers, are walking alongside us, I know that. Thank you for your work, and for disseminating this document.