Pope Francis, who died on Monday, April 21, 2025, aged 88, was one of the greatest climate champions we have ever had.
History’s first Latin American pontiff, he used his position as the spiritual leader of 1.2 billion Catholics to educate and highlight the climate crisis from day one of his papacy.
He repeatedly drove home the moral, ethical, and spiritual issues around its causes and effects.
He urged, cajoled, and appealed repeatedly to world leaders to listen to the climate science, to reach meaningful international agreements, to deliver the transformative change needed to tackle the crisis, and to protect the poor.
Climate justice was always central to his message.
He said he was disturbed that global warming had been accompanied by a general cooling of multilateralism, a growing lack of trust within the international community, and a loss of shared awareness that we are all part of the same family of nations.
At the COP28 climate negotiations in Dubai in 2023, Pope Francis reminded global leaders that “now more than ever, the future for us all depends on the present that we choose”.
He went on to pose a question for the global leaders and climate negotiators that he asked them to answer. It was: “Are we working for a culture of life or a culture of death?”
Listen to the cry of the Earth, he told them. Hear the plea of the poor. Be sensitive to the hopes of the young. Protect the dreams of children and ensure they are not denied their future.
These were among the core messages Pope Francis delivered, not just at COP28, but right throughout his papacy.
When he was elected Bishop of Rome in 2013, Argentine Cardinal Jorge Maria Bergoglio chose the name Francis.
It was a deliberate effort to honour Francis of Assisi, the 13th-century saint, now the patron saint of all who study and work in the area of ecology.
The Pope said he was inspired by Saint Francis because his life highlighted an inseparable bond between concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society, and interior peace.
Now, eight centuries later, climate change is front and centre – and represents a very real existential threat to those inseparable bonds
Pope Francis said: “The destruction of the environment is an offence against God, greatly endangers all human beings, especially the most vulnerable, and threatens to unleash a conflict between generations.”
He published two major Papal Encyclical Letters about the matter, and by so doing ensured the climate crisis is now central to the Church’s social teachings.
Papal Encyclical Letters are the highest-level teaching documents that any Pope can issue.
His first climate change Encyclical was published in 2015. It is called “Laudato Si”, which means “Praise be to You”.
It is a term directly from the “Canticle of the Creatures” by Saint Francis of Assisi.
In this document, Pope Francis said the Earth is like a sister or mother who sustains and governs us. He then lamented the harm people now inflict on the Earth through the irresponsible use and abuse of the good things it offers.
He said we have come to see ourselves as lords and masters of the Earth, entitled to plunder it at will.
Soil, water, air, and all forms of life are now sick, and the Earth is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor.
“It is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth.
“In many parts of the planet, the elderly lament that once beautiful landscapes are now covered with rubbish.
“Industrial waste and chemical products utilised in cities and agricultural areas can lead to bioaccumulation in the organisms of the local population, even when levels of toxins in those places are low.
“Frequently no measures are taken until after people’s health has been irreversibly affected.
“These problems are closely linked to a throwaway culture, which affects the excluded just as it quickly reduces things to rubbish,” he said.
Eight years later, in 2023, Pope Francis published his second encyclical letter about climate change.
This one was called “Laudato Deum”, meaning “In praise of God”.
It was published on October 4, which is the feast day of Saint Francis of Assisi.
“Laudato Deum” was yet another urgent cry from Pope Francis for global climate action, which he said has become more pressing than ever before.
It highlighted again how the effects of climate change are borne by the most vulnerable people and said every family ought to realise that the future of their children is at stake.
He said the situation is close to breaking point and the world is not reacting fast enough.
In one passage he described it as “chilling” to realise that technology has given those with the economic resources “an impressive dominance over the whole of humanity and the entire world”.
It is extremely risky for a small part of humanity to have such a power, he said.
He also took a very clear swipe at some of the richest countries in the world, who place economic and business objectives above the need for climate action.
“The climate crisis is not exactly a matter that interests the great economic powers, whose concern is the greatest profit possible at minimal cost, and in the shortest amount of time,” he wrote.
The Holy Father highlighted that greenhouse gas “emissions per individual in the United States are about two times greater than those of individuals living in China, and about seven times greater than the average of poor countries”.
He shared the global sense of frustration about the slow pace of agreement at international climate negotiations.
He said these negotiations “cannot make significant progress due to positions taken by countries that place their national interests above the global common good”.
This he called “a failure of conscience and responsibility” that “will not be forgotten”.
Pope Francis also pushed back against any attempt to link climate change to population growth in poorer countries.
“It is not the fault of the poor, since the half of our world that is most needy is responsible for scarcely 10% of toxic emissions, while the gap between the opulent few and the masses of the poor has never been so abysmal. The poor are the real victims of what is happening,” he said.
Pope Francis told global leaders that in the end the purpose of being in power is to serve. He said it is useless to cling to an authority that will one day be remembered for its inability to act on climate change when it was urgent and necessary to do so.
By George Lee, RTE