During his inaugural major speech on climate change, Pope Leo XIV implored Catholics and global citizens alike to embrace the environmental advocacy pioneered by his predecessor, Pope Francis. He emphasized that climate action should not be viewed as a ‘divisive’ issue, but rather a unifying cause.
The pontiff delivered his address at the opening of a significant climate conference, marking a decade since the release of ‘Laudato Si.’ This seminal papal encyclical underscored humanity’s pressing responsibility to safeguard our planet. Pope Leo asserted, ‘The challenges outlined in Laudato Si are, in fact, even more critical today than they were ten years ago.’
For a little over ten minutes, Pope Leo captivated an audience at the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo, located approximately 17 miles southeast of the Vatican. Sharing the stage with notable figures like actor and former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Brazil’s climate minister, he honed in on the power of individual and community-level actions to mitigate mounting climate challenges.
He passionately declared that ‘everyone in society, through non-governmental organizations and advocacy groups, must exert pressure on governments to develop and implement more rigorous regulations, procedures, and controls.’ He further stressed the importance of active citizen participation in political decisions at all levels – national, regional, and local – stating, ‘Only then will it be possible to mitigate the damage done to the environment.’
This powerful address underscored the new pontiff’s unwavering dedication to maintaining climate change at the forefront of global conversation.
Elected in May as the first American pope, Leo has consistently adopted a measured stance on numerous contentious topics. His most impactful statements on Wednesday directly referenced the revered words of Pope Francis. ‘What must be done now,’ he asked, ‘to ensure that caring for our common home and listening to the cry of the earth and the poor do not appear as mere passing trends or, worse still, that they be seen and felt as divisive issues?’ This poignant query echoed some of Francis’s most memorable calls to action.
Delivering his speech just over a week after President Trump controversially declared climate change the ‘greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world’ at the United Nations General Assembly, Pope Leo carefully avoided direct criticism of any national leader or specific policy.
However, during his Wednesday address, Pope Leo subtly reinforced earlier papal warnings, referencing Francis’s 2023 update to Laudato Si. This document ‘noted that ‘some have chosen to deride’ the increasingly evident signs of climate change, to ‘ridicule those who speak of global warming’ and even to blame the poor for the very thing that affects them most.’
Pope Francis had previously articulated climate change as a profound spiritual concern for the Roman Catholic Church’s 1.4 billion adherents, frequently cautioning that the world’s impoverished populations disproportionately bear the brunt of global warming’s devastating effects.
Just last month, Pope Leo introduced a novel Mass rite, specifically designed to ‘ask God for the ability to care for creation.’ In that context, he powerfully articulated how ‘injustice, violations of international law and the rights of peoples, grave inequalities and the greed that fuels them are spawning deforestation, pollution and the loss of biodiversity.’
The extent of the pontiff’s influence on global climate action remains an open question. In 2015, a minimum of ten world leaders cited Pope Francis during the United Nations climate summit that culminated in the historic Paris Agreement, where nations vowed to cap global warming below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Francis himself attempted to sway national politics, famously presenting a copy of Laudato Si to President Trump in 2017, imploring him to reconsider withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate accord. Despite this appeal, Trump proceeded with the withdrawal.
Pope Francis himself openly expressed frustration that his fervent appeals had not translated into more decisive action. In the 2023 revision to Laudato Si, he voiced deep regret over the meager progress made in curbing greenhouse gas emissions since the encyclical’s initial publication.
As global leaders and environmental activists gear up for the upcoming 30th annual United Nations Climate Change Conference in Brazil next month, alarming indicators suggest an accelerating global warming trend, threatening millions with catastrophic consequences. Brazil’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Marina Silva, speaking prior to the Pope, observed that the commitments enshrined in the Paris Agreement ‘haven’t been fulfilled and haven’t been complied with despite the compelling claims of science.’
She further emphasized, ‘What we need now is the ethical determination to fulfill these commitments for the benefit of this present time and future generations, with special attention to the most vulnerable and marginalized communities.’
The World Meteorological Organization reported that 2024 registered as the warmest year in its 175-year history of record-keeping. That same year witnessed an unprecedented surge in extreme weather events, resulting in the highest number of annually displaced individuals since 2008.
In the United States, former President Trump notably shut down laboratories dedicated to studying climate change’s impact on weather patterns and suspended renewable energy initiatives. Globally, major economies like China, Japan, South Korea, and Indonesia have escalated coal power production since 2020. Alarmingly, only a third of the nations that originally signed the Paris Agreement have since updated their climate commitments.
Cardinal Michael Czerny, a key environmental collaborator with Pope Francis and current head of the Vatican’s climate ministry, highlighted the challenges posed by the fragmented geopolitical environment, making concerted climate action increasingly difficult.
In a Wednesday morning interview at the Vatican, Cardinal Czerny lamented, ‘It’s very, very hard to see, with multilateralism in tatters, how you can face other issues which, while they have local or regional roots and local and regional consequences, nevertheless are the case throughout the world.’ He concluded somberly, ‘I think our capacity to cooperate is deteriorating rapidly.’
His concerns extended to the upcoming United Nations conference, which he feared might devolve into little more than a ‘charade.’
Despite these worrying reversals, many activists and climate scientists maintain hope that the Pope’s moral authority could still galvanize meaningful change.
Piers Forster, former chairman of a British government climate advisory board and a professor of climate physics at the University of Leeds, acknowledged, ‘We’re not going to solve the problem instantly of course.’ However, he added optimistically, ‘Every little step and every little statement by someone as important as Pope Leo can clearly begin to move populations and countries in the right direction.’ Josephine de La Bruyère contributed reporting from Rome and Castel Gandolfo.