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Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) – Saying “enough” to “false solutions” and calling on rich countries to settle “with urgent action” the ecological debt owed to the poorest nations. This is the meaning of the document “A call for climate justice and the common home: Ecological conversion, transformation, and resistance to false solutions,” the result of collaboration between the continental episcopal organizations of Latin America and the Caribbean (CELAM), Asia (FABC), and Africa (SECAM), coordinated by the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. The document, divided into three chapters and 12 paragraphs, takes up various aspects of the climate crisis already analyzed in the encyclical Laudato Si’ (published ten years ago by Pope Francis) and analyzes its social and moral implications at the global level, calling on States to intervene not with “false solutions,” as until now, but with concrete measures.
Ecological Debt and Green Economy
The text begins by denouncing the "contradiction" of financing an alleged "energy transition" with profits from oil production without any real commitment to abandoning fossil fuels. Hence the criticism of the so-called "greenwashing" of environmental policies: the green economy, even if presented as a sustainable model, risks being nothing more than a "modernization of capitalism" that continues to concentrate power and wealth in the hands of a few, excludes the poorest, and exacerbates existing inequalities.
The current system, the text emphasizes, tends not to protect the Planet, but rather to "commodify" nature, transforming it into an "asset that can only be traded by a few," without questioning the actions and processes that have led to the climate crisis.
The bishops therefore call for "building a truly sustainable, supportive, and inclusive economic system" that also takes ecological debt into account. Pope Francis, quoted in the document, already recalled that ecological debt and foreign debt are "two sides of the same coin".
In the Bull of Proclamation for the 2025 Jubilee, "Spes non confundit," and in the Message for the 2025 World Day of Peace, the Argentine Pope described foreign debt as an "instrument of control" by governments and financial institutions over poor countries.
The document takes up these words and the invitation - expressed several times by Pope Francis - to rich countries so that they "recognize and pay their ecological debt, resulting from decades of emissions and the exploitation of natural resources to the detriment of poor countries." Estimates suggest that the climate debt of the global North could reach $192 trillion over the next 25 years. For this reason, the text calls for "not only financial but also moral justice," requiring transparency and concrete commitments to support the most vulnerable populations without further exacerbating their indebtedness.
Responsibility and Equality
Among the measures proposed in the document is an appeal for responsibility: According to the bishops, the countries that have contributed most to polluting emissions in the past must assume the greatest burden of mitigation and adaptation, without further burdening poorer countries.
To achieve this, the text proposes the creation of a "new coalition" bringing together the Church, governments, indigenous peoples, scientists and humanitarian organizations in the South, and "allies in the North" to "study and promote ambitious measures that address social and ecological debt" and thus guarantee "a just and sustainable future for future generations."
The Ecclesiastical Observatory on Climate Justice was recently established, promoted by the Ecclesiastical Conference of the Amazon (CEAMA). This Observatory will monitor the implementation of the agreements reached at the last Climate Conferences (COP), recording any non-compliance, and monitor the fulfillment of the commitments made. (F.B.) (Agenzia Fides, 1/7/2025)
