(OSV News) — Ahead of the United Nations’ annual climate conference, two U.S. Catholic bishops and the leader of a top Catholic aid agency are calling for “decisive action” in protecting humanity and the planet it calls home.
“The global Church continues to witness the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor,” said Archbishop Shelton J. Fabre of Louisville, Kentucky; Bishop A. Elias Zaidan of the St. Louis-based Maronite Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon of Los Angeles; and Sean Callahan, president and CEO of Catholic Relief Services.
Archbishop Fabre serves as chair of the U.S. Catholic bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, while Bishop Zaidan heads up the bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace. Callahan leads the bishops’ official overseas humanitarian and development agency.
The three issued a Nov. 6 joint statement days before the U.N.’s COP31, which will take place Nov. 9-20 in Antalya, Turkey.
Named for the “Conference of the Parties” that signed the original 1992 U.N. climate agreement, the COP gatherings are held under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, which entered into force in 1994 and now counts 198 parties (representing 197 countries plus the European Union).
Reining in the rise in the global temperature
According to the official COP31 website, the talks will focus in particular on reining in the rise in the global temperature, adapting to extreme weather events and climate changes, and moving beyond fossil fuels.
In their statement, Archbishop Fabre, Bishop Zaidan and Callahan said they recognized “the need for decisive action that will protect and promote human flourishing and our common home.”
They quoted from Pope Leo XIV’s message to last year’s COP30, in which the pope stressed that creation is “crying out in floods, droughts, storms and relentless heat.'”
In his message to last year’s COP30, said the three Catholic leaders, Pope Leo had told attendees that “while nations have made progress” in addressing climate change, “it is not enough.”
The statement added that the pope’s COP30 message had also clarified that the Paris Agreement, the legally binding international treaty on climate change, is not failing, but rather, “our collective response to it — and that to overlook communities most exposed to climate change is to deny our shared humanity.”
Reducing greenhouse gas pollution, which traps heat near the earth’s surface, and negotiating developing countries’ climate finance — a broad array of funding to offset the impact of climate change — are also on the COP31 agenda.
A call for climate finance that ‘prioritizes grants over loans’
“We urge world leaders and institutions to deliver additional climate finance that prioritizes grants over loans so that poor countries can invest in resilience and adaptation without the weight of more debt,” said Archbishop Fabre, Bishop Zaidan and Callahan in their statement.
COP31 organizers will look to navigate “a just transition for workers and communities” as the international community grapples with the effects of climate shifts, according to the conference website.
Scientists say climate change has been a major cause of the world’s glaciers melting. (OSV News photo/Lucas Jackson, Reuters)
“We implore negotiators to agree on how progress on adaptation will be measured within the Global Goal on Adaptation,” said the three Catholic leaders in their statement. “We call on them to finalize a ‘just transition’ mechanism to accompany developing countries with expertise, cooperation, and funding as they move away from fossil fuels.”
The three stressed that “this transition should center on protecting the dignity of every worker, family, and community affected.”
In addition, said organizers, COP31 will feature “a big emphasis on the Climate Action Agenda,” a “separate, yet complementary track” at the gathering.
Bringing together governmental, civil, economic participants
The agenda will bring governmental, civil and economic participants together to address climate impact on food and health, expanding the use of electricity, reducing waste and “making cities more resilient to climate change,” said the COP31 website.
In their statement, Archbishop Fabre, Bishop Zaidan and Callahan signaled their pastoral closeness to those bearing the brunt of climate change.
“We accompany those most impacted by a changing climate and the resulting extreme weather, rising seas, and biodiversity loss,” they said.
The three also noted that “young people in particular are leading” the response to climate change, “demanding climate justice for their generation and generations to come.
“Their witness is our hope: proof that our faith in action answers the hardest realities,” they said.
The two prelates and Callahan echoed Pope Leo, saying, “We ask leaders to leave Antalya having matched the scale of their commitments to the scale of the need — and to remember, in every negotiating room, that behind every number is a family making difficult, daily decisions on survival amidst more extreme, erratic, and frequent climate shocks.”
Gina Christian is a multimedia reporter for OSV News. Follow her on X @GinaJesseReina.
