In this article, Adrian Statham summarizes Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Laudate Deum

Note: numbers in brackets refer to the paragraph numbers of the apostolic exhortation “Laudate Deum”

Laudate Deum was published on 4 October 2023 (the Feast Day of St Francis of Assisi)

Laudate Deum

Climate change will “increasingly prejudice the lives and families of many persons”, particularly the most vulnerable. “We will feel its effects in the areas of healthcare, sources of employment, access to resources, housing, forced migrations etc.” (2).

“This is a global social issue and one intimately related to the dignity of human life.”

Laudate Deum (3)

1. The Global Climate Crisis

Climate change increases “the probability of extreme phenomena” such as floods, heatwaves, wildfires and droughts. “If up to now we could have heat waves several times a year, what will happen if global temperature increases by 1.5°C, which we are approaching? Those heat waves will be much more frequent and with greater intensity” (5). If we surpass 2 degrees the icecaps of Greenland and much of Antarctica will melt completely with catastrophic consequences for all of us.

Resistance and confusion: Some try to deride the facts of global warming saying, for example, that the earth has historically had periods of cooling and warming. The current warming, however, is happening much faster than previous periods. Some blame excessive birth rates but ignore the fact that “a low, richer percentage of the planet contaminates more than the poorest 50% of the total world population, and per capita emissions of the richer countries are much greater than those of the poorer ones” (9). Reducing the use of fossil fuels may reduce the number of jobs but new jobs will be created in the new power generating industries e.g. making wind turbines. Also “rising sea levels, droughts and other phenomena affecting the planet have left many people adrift” (10), homeless and unemployed.

“It is no longer possible to doubt the human – “anthropic” – origin of climate change.”

Laudate Deum (11)

We cannot deny the human causes of climate change: “[t]he concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere … was stable until the nineteenth century at below 300 parts per million in volume”, but began to increase due to industrialization, “arriving at 423 parts per million in June 2023. “More than 42% of total net emissions since the year 1850 were produced after 1990” (11). At the same time “the temperature has risen at an unprecedented speed, greater than any time over the past two thousand years.” “The climate crisis is not exactly a matter that interests the great economic powers, whose concern is with the greatest profit possible at minimal cost and in the shortest amount of time” (13). Pope Francis admits that he comes across “dismissive and scarcely reasonable opinions “even within the Catholic Church” (14).

Damages and risks: The warming and acidification of the oceans has affected many species : “[t]his is one of the many signs that the other creatures of this world have stopped being our companions along the way and have become instead our victims” (15). “Smaller changes can cause greater ones, unforeseen and perhaps already irreversible, due to factors of inertia” (17). “Phenomena already in motion” include “the reduction of ice sheets, changes in ocean currents, deforestation in tropical rainforests and the melting of the permafrost in Russia”. “What is being asked of us is nothing other than a certain responsibility for the legacy we will leave behind, once we pass from this world” (18).

2. A Growing Technocratic Paradigm

In 2015 the official gazette of the Holy See (the Acta Apostolica Sedis or AAS) described technocracy as the thinking that “reality, goodness and truth automatically flow from technological and economic power” which makes it easy “to accept the ideas of infinite or unlimited growth, which proves so attractive to economists, financiers and experts in technology.” Artificial Intelligence and other developments contain “the notion of a human being with no limits,” (21) so that “those with the knowledge and especially (with) the resources to use them” have “an impressive dominance over the whole of humanity and the entire world. Never has humanity had such power over itself, yet nothing ensures that it will be used wisely, particularly when we consider how it is currently being used” (23) by a small section of humanity.

We need to rethink our use of power. “We need to rethink among other things the question of human power, its meaning and its limits. For our power has frenetically increased in a few decades. We have made impressive and awesome technological advances, and we have not realized that at the same time we have turned into highly dangerous beings, capable of threatening the lives of many beings and our own survival” (28). Technological advances “have not been accompanied by a development in human responsibility, values and conscience…” (24). We are part of nature which is not just something for us to exploit but something that we interact with and depend on. “Human life, intelligence and freedom are elements of the nature that enriches our planet, part of its internal workings and its equilibrium” (26). We can reshape our environment, as in most farming, without destroying or endangering it. As Pope Francis said in “Laudato Si’”, “Strategies for a solution demand an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature.”

The ethical goad: “Marketing and false information” can make a project that involves clearing and then polluting of a people’s land sound like the developers are trying to introduce local progress by creating jobs and economic opportunities. “The mentality of maximum gain at minimal cost, disguised in terms of reasonableness, progress and illusory promises, makes impossible any sincere concern for our common home and any real preoccupation about assisting the poor and the needy” (31). We may think we live in a “meritocracy” but “if one does not seek a genuine equality of opportunity” this could mean an even greater consolidation of “the privileges of a few with great power… why should they care about the damage done to our common home, if they feel securely shielded by the financial resources that they have earned by their abilities and effort?” (32). Instead one should ask: “What is the meaning of my life? What is the meaning of my time on this earth? And what is the ultimate meaning of all my work and effort?” (33).

3. The Weakness of International Politics

“Goodness, together with love, justice and solidarity, are not achieved once and for all; they have to be realized each day” (34). We should aim for agreements between several nations with “more effective world organizations” which “must be endowed with real authority” to enforce such agreements. These multilateral agreements would not depend “on changing political conditions or the interests of a certain few” (35). Global crises like the 2007-2008 financial crisis and the Covid-19 crisis should have been used as “occasions to bring about beneficial changes” but actually “fostered greater individualism, less integration and increased freedom for the truly powerful” (36).

Reconfiguring multilateralism: “Many groups and organizations within civil society help to compensate for the shortcomings of the international community, its lack of coordination in complex situations, and its lack of attention to fundamental human rights” (37) as the Ottawa Process successfully limits the use of antipersonnel mines. So we have demands that “rise up from below” from activists throughout the world; hopefully this will happen with climate change and will pressure those in power to act. “Unless citizens control political power – national, regional and municipal – it will not be possible to control damage to the environment” (38). There is a “new sensitivity towards the more vulnerable and less powerful” and in favour of preserving the dignity of the human person and the “answers to problems can come from any country, however little” (40). “The old diplomacy ….has not responded successfully yet but “should it be able to reconfigure itself, it must be part of the solution” as it has been with past international problems. “A different framework for effective cooperation is required, with global and effective rules “to consolidate respect for the most elementary human rights, social rights and the protection of our common home” (42). “All this presupposes the development of a new procedure for decision-making and legitimizing those decisions, since the one put in place several decades ago is not sufficient nor does it appear effective” (43). We need “conversation, consultation, arbitration, conflict resolution and supervision …. It is no longer helpful for us to support institutions in order to preserve the rights of the more powerful without caring for those of all” (43).

4. Climate Conferences: Progress and Failures

The 1992 Rio de Janeiro conference of 190 nations concluded a treaty in 1994, that set up annual conferences of the parties (COPs) as the highest decision-making body. COP3 (Kyoto, 1997) aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5% by 2012 and was not achieved. The principle, unenforced, was established that developed nations should compensate un/under-developed countries for damage already incurred due to climate change. COP21 (Paris, 2015) was another significant step in that everyone agreed to keep the increase of average global temperatures to under 2°C in relation to preindustrial levels and aimed to decrease them to 1.5°C, though without clear sanctions if this did not happen. Inertia followed, partly due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but COP26 (Glasgow, 2021) relaunched the Paris agreement but failed to agree on proposals for a rapid change to alternative and less polluting forms of energy. “The accords have been poorly implemented, due to lack of suitable mechanisms for oversight, periodic review and penalties for noncompliance” due to certain countries prioritizing “their national interests above the global common good” (52).

5. What to Expect from COP28 in Dubai?

Despite further planned extractions of oil/gas in Dubai, “this conference can represent a change of direction, showing that everything done since 1992 was in fact serious and worth the effort, or else it will be a great disappointment and jeopardize whatever good has been achieved thus far” (54). Where there was a will, we came up with a binding treaty which limited production of ozone gases but emissions of other greenhouse gases continue to increase and transition to clean energy sources (wind & solar) is not happening fast enough. COP28 could be seen as a ploy to distract attention from this fast-deteriorating situation. We know that we will soon reach the maximum recommended limit of 1.5°C and that natural disasters are getting much worse, so “although the measures that we can take now are costly, the cost will be all the more burdensome the longer we wait.” “To suppose that all problems in the future will be able to be solved by new technical interventions is a form of homicidal pragmatism, like pushing a snowball down a hill” (57). “Let us put an end to the irresponsible derision that would present this issue as something purely ecological, “green”, romantic, frequently subject to ridicule by economic interests. Let us finally admit that it is a human and social problem on any number of levels.” Radical groups are only “filling a space left empty by society” “since every family ought to realize that the future of their children is at stake” (58). We need obligatory and easily monitored aims as part of “a new process…that [is] drastic, intense and count[s] on the commitment of all.” This would show “the nobility of politics and not its shame” (60). Nobody in power should want to be remembered as one of those who were unable to act at a time of impending crisis.

6. Spiritual Motivations

Catholic (and other) faith “gives strength to the human heart … transforms life, transfigures our goals and sheds light on our relationship to others and with creation as a whole” (61).

In the light of faith: “The land is mine: with me you are but aliens and tenants” (Lev 25:23). We must respect the laws of nature and the “delicate equilibria existing between the creatures of this world” (62) and not be indifferent at the extinction or threatened extinction of so many species (65).

Journeying in communion and commitment: We need to recognize that we cannot sustain life without other creatures and “to think of ourselves differently, in a humbler but more fruitful way” (68). We all need to make changes: “efforts by households to reduce pollution and waste, and to consume with prudence, are creating a new culture. The mere fact that personal, family and community habits are changing is contributing to greater concern about the unfulfilled responsibilities of the political sectors and indignation at the lack of interest shown by the powerful” (71) which should prompt action by governments. “Emissions per individual in the United States are about two times greater than those of individuals in China, and about seven times greater than the average of the poorest countries” which means that changes in western society will have the greatest impact on the problem.

““Praise God” is the title of this letter. For when human beings claim to take God’s place, they become their own worst enemies.”

Laudate Deum (73)

To read our Laudato Si’ summary articles look at Laudato Si’ Summary Chapter 1.

The full Laudate Deum Apostolic Exhortation is available here.