|Saturday, November 08 2025

(Photo: Vatican News)UN Climate Conference in Belém, Brazil in November 2025.

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Pope Leo XIV has sent a message to the UN Climate Conference in Belém, Brazil, calling for urgent action and an “ecological conversion” rooted in responsibility, justice, and solidarity

The message was delivered by Cardinal Pietro Parolin at the Climate Conference in the northern Brazilian city that is a gateway to the mighty Amazon River, Vatican News reported on Nov. 7.

In it, the Pope urged world leaders gathered for the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) to make courageous and concrete commitments for the care of creation, reminding them that peace and environmental stewardship are inseparably linked.

Delivering the Pope’s message, Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, told delegates: “If you want to cultivate peace, care for creation.”

The Pope’s words, he said, reflect the conviction that caring for our common home is both a moral duty and a path toward lasting peace.

“These challenges endanger the lives of everyone on this planet,” he said, “and therefore require international cooperation and a cohesive and forward-looking multilateralism which puts the sacredness of life, the God-given dignity of every human being, and the common good at its centre.”

“In the midst of a world that is in flames, as a result of both global warming and armed conflicts, this Conference should become a sign of hope,” he said.

The U.S. born pontiff recalled the words of Saint John Paul II, in reiterating that the ecological crisis “is a moral issue” that demands a renewed sense of solidarity among nations.

For the first time since countries began gathering 30 years ago to grapple with global warming, the United States will not send a top government official to the annual United Nations climate summit, which launched on Nov. 7, The New York Times reported.

“And that is just fine with those who see the Trump administration’s hostility toward anything related to climate change as a menace to international cooperation on global warming,” the Times commented.

- SHARED RESPONSIBILITY

Pope Leo said, “States must increasingly share responsibility, in complementary ways, for the promotion of a natural and social environment that is both peaceful and healthy.”

He explained that the poorest and most vulnerable “are the first to suffer the devastating effects of climate change, deforestation, and pollution,” and stressed that caring for creation is therefore “an expression of humanity and solidarity.”

“We must turn words and reflections into choices and actions based on responsibility, justice, and equity,” he said.

“We must turn words and reflections into choices and actions based on responsibility, justice, and equity.”

Pope Leo also called for “a new human-centred international financial architecture” to ensure that all nations, especially “the poorest and those most vulnerable to climate disasters”, can achieve their potential and protect the dignity of their citizens.

Such a structure, he said, should also recognise “the link between ecological debt and foreign debt.”