Pope Leo to COP30: Global peace depends on world leaders’ response to the climate crisis

Pope Leo has issued a direct message to world leaders gathering at COP30, the UN climate summit that begins in Brazil today.

“If you want to cultivate peace, care for creation,” the Pope said.

Pope Leo identified “a clear link between peacebuilding and the stewardship of creation” and “an ever-growing awareness that peace is also threatened by a lack of due respect for creation, by the plundering of natural resources and by a progressive decline in the quality of life because of climate change”.

He implored all the participants of COP30 to “commit themselves to protecting and caring for the creation entrusted to us by God in order to build a peaceful world”.

COP30 is taking place from 10-21 November in Belém, the closest major city to the mouth of the Amazon. It is one of the most critical climate summits in years and comes at an important time for poor communities - particularly Indigenous Peoples - on the frontlines of the climate crisis.

Countries are coming together to submit Nationally Determined Contributions (national climate plans) and they need to be ambitious enough to put the world on track to meet the Paris Agreement's temperature ceiling of 1.5 degrees of warming. Pope Leo warns that “the path to achieving the goals set out in that Agreement remains long and complex”.

Bishop John Arnold, Lead Bishop for the Environment for the Bishops' Conference, says: "I urge our government to renew its commitment to net zero and resist the temptation to row back on its pledges. Leadership means both meeting our own responsibilities and encouraging other nations to do the same, while offering support to those countries already suffering the harshest effects of climate crisis. We need delivery.”

Christine Allen, director of CAFOD, said: “It is a matter of fairness that high-income countries such as the UK, who became rich from polluting coal-, oil- and gas-fuelled economic development, support poor countries financially both to decarbonise and to adapt to a vastly more volatile climate. Over 93 per cent of climate-vulnerable countries are trapped in a debt crisis, undermining their ability to respond to climate-related disasters and protect their communities. The UK must lead bold global reforms to cancel unjust debt and unlock funds to fight a crisis these countries did least to cause.”