Top Leaders in Africa, Asia, and Latin America Unite for the First Time to Urge Action on
The Catholic bishops of Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean have issued their first-ever joint statement. Standing together as representatives of the global South, they demand “ambitious implementation of the Paris Agreement” and lay out the Church’s commitment to action ahead of COP30.
The joint appeal, which was announced in a press conference in the Vatican’s press office and is available here, was collectively written by continental episcopal conferences and councils, top bodies of the Catholic hierarchy. Together, these bodies represent nearly 821 million Catholics across Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the Vatican’s Central Office of Church Statistics.
The statement deepens the Catholic Church’s position as a moral force pressuring governments to take real action on the climate crisis. As many states contemplate back-tracking on climate commitments, the conferences “demand that States implement ambitious NDCs on a scale commensurate with the climate emergency and communicate to the world how they will implement the collective decisions taken at previous COPs, including a socially just energy transition.”
Clearly identifying “who is destroying the Earth and who is offering false solutions,” the Catholic Church in the global South demands “a transition away from fossil fuels and the halting of new related infrastructure, with defined timelines, concrete accountability measures and public policies” while also “standing up to carbon offset schemes and the financialisation of common goods.” The leaders urge policy makers to “phase out fossil fuels, ending all new infrastructure and properly taxing those who have profited.”
The conferences offer strong perspective on climate finance, saying that “rich nations must pay their ecological debt with fair climate finance without further indebting the Global South, to recover losses and damages in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Oceania.” They refer to recent UN-sponsored decisions, saying, “following the profound disappointment caused by the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG); we demand that climate finance be transparent, accessible and delivered directly and effectively – without intermediaries – to the most vulnerable communities, ensuring that development banks and financial institutions do not invest in fossil fuels and extractive projects, and that it is not based on the financialisation of nature or increases the debt of countries in the Global South.”
The leaders highlight justice in the energy transition, saying “we defend climate justice, ensuring that the decisions of COP30 and others prioritise impoverished people over corporate logic that deepens inequalities.” With special attention to both the disproportionate harm to women and women’s capacity for leadership, they call for “decentralised renewable energy policies and programmes” that “promote decent work for women at all levels, support women’s entrepreneurship in the renewable energy sector.”
Among other commitments, the conferences announce that they will create “the Ecclesial Observatory on Climate Justice, through the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon, to monitor the commitments of the COPs and their fulfilment in the Global South, as well as to denounce unfulfilled commitments.” They reaffirm that the Catholic Church “will not cease to raise its voice against ecological and social injustices, remembering that the cry of the Earth is also the cry of the poor.”
The document’s release takes place during the tenth anniversary of the Paris climate agreement and the tenth anniversary of Laudato Si’, Pope Francis’ landmark encyclical on climate and ecology. Pope Francis was active in encouraging the adoption of the Paris agreement, and the Vatican has consistently promoted urgent and ambitious action on climate change over the past decade. This year, the Vatican’s social-environmental ministry, the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, is leading a year-long campaign, Raising Hope, to encourage continued action.
The statement of the global South builds on this history while also acknowledging the new leadership of Pope Leo XIV, in particular his first statement as pope urging the Church to “build a new world where peace reigns.”
Bishop Allwyn D’Silva, Chairman of the Office of Human Development of the Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences, said “Fossil fuels belong to the past; the future must be powered by clean, renewable energy. The Global South, including communities across Asia-Pacific, holds the wisdom and experience needed to ensure this transition is just and equitable for all.”
Lorna Gold, Executive Director of Laudato Si’ Movement, a global network of Catholics for climate and ecological justice, said, “The global South is showing the global North what true leadership looks like. While we see many states backtracking on their climate goals, the Catholic Church is standing up for real, just solutions to the climate crisis.”
Vicente de Paula Ferreira, Bishop of the Diocese of Livramento de Nossa Senhora, Bahia, Brasil and President of the Special Commission for Integral Ecology and Mining of the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil, said “The Church of the Global South raises its cry for climate justice and care for our Common Home. With courage, it offers its prophetic witness through a document issued by the episcopal conferences and councils of Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia. This text brings together socio-environmental doctrine and practical experiences in dialogue with science.
It is a cry of many voices in defense of human rights and all of creation, that denounces the false solutions of green capitalism, its voracious financialization of nature, and the violence caused by large-scale mining projects and energy transactions. All of this is done in the name of a model of development that benefits only a small portion of the global population while condemning millions to misery.
Yet, it is also a message of hope, showing that the sustainability of life on Earth depends on the protection of forests, water sources, agroecology, Indigenous Peoples, quilombola communities, women, and others. May this document inspire not only sectors within our churches but also the global society to embrace a new way of life grounded in integral ecology.”