CAFOD at COP30 march in Manchester
This year’s United Nations Climate summit, COP31, is taking placed amid new alarming scientific warnings.
Recent reports from the UN Environment Programme confirm that global temperatures are on track to cross the critical 1.5°C threshold within the next few years.
Humanity has now experienced eleven consecutive hottest years on record, prompting UN Secretary-General António Guterres to warn:
"When history repeats itself eleven times, it is no longer a coincidence. It is a call to action."
For CAFOD, this sense of emergency and call to action is not a distant concept. Communities we work alongside every day are already experiencing the sharp end of the climate crisis. Severe droughts, catastrophic flooding, and escalating food insecurity are devastating the lives of people who have done the very least to contribute to global carbon emissions.
For many, the urgent findings of climate science are reason enough to act. But as Catholics, our commitment to caring for our Common Home does not stop with data. It goes deeper than that and it is woven directly into our faith.
In his Message for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, Pope Leo calls us to ecological conversion:
"What has been used for destruction can be redirected toward life, toward the care of the poor, the nourishment of the hungry, and the safeguarding of creation. This is the path of authentic ecological conversion, where the effects of our encounter with Jesus Christ become evident in our relationship with the world around us (cf. Francis, Laudato Si’, 217)."
While climate change is often caught up in polarised political debates, for people of faith the climate crisis remains a profound matter of care, justice, and living out the Gospel message.
This is why CAFOD, alongside Catholic organisations from around the world, joins the climate talks each year wherever they take place. But this year, COP is going to be different. Rather than following the usual pattern of a single host nation, COP31 marks an unprecedented turning point in international climate diplomacy.
Türkiye will hold the COP Presidency and host the summit while Australia will oversee negotiations.
This unique arrangement emerged after months of detailed debates, transforming a potential diplomatic deadlock into a creative, collaborative partnership. How is this going to work?
Türkiye will serve as the host country in the coastal city of Antalya, overseeing conference logistics, venue management, and the non-negotiated Action Agenda.
Australia will lead the formal climate negotiations, with Climate Minister Chris Bowen steering draft text and political strategy.
This new partnership has the potential to create a powerful bridge between two regions on the front lines of climate change. By working together, Australia is elevating the voices of small island states in the Pacific, while Türkiye brings crucial focus to water scarcity, extreme heat, and sustainable agriculture in Southern Europe and the Middle East.
Following the 2025 Jubilee Year, when Catholic communities worldwide united under the banner to Cancel Debt, Choose Hope, we are reminded that economic justice and climate justice are two sides of the same coin.
As the Vatican’s Dicastery for Integral Human Development highlighted during the Jubilee:
"The term ‘debt’ has been associated with the financial condition of many developing countries indebted to industrialised economies. However, this perspective overlooks a fundamental aspect: throughout history, on the one hand, the most industrialised countries have been responsible for the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions, which has contributed to the well-known phenomenon of global warming, and on the other hand, they have also built their prosperity through the intensive exploitation of natural resources in developing countries..."
In this way, lower-income nations are trapped in a vicious cycle: they bear the worse impact of a climate crisis they did not create, while being drained of resources by crippling foreign debt.
Poorer nations cannot protect their people from severe climate impacts such as rising seas or severe droughts when they are forced to pay billions in debt servicing to wealthy private banks.
Rooted in this reality, our demands for the UK government at this COP are:
Climate leadership: The government must restore its reputation for climate leadership at COP31. They can do this through building an ambition coalition to rachet up progress towards keeping global warming below a 1.5°C increase.
Grants, not debt: Deliver climate finance as new, additional grants rather than loans. In the spirit of Jubilee debt relief, climate finance must build resilience, not trap lower-income countries in endless cycles of disaster debt.
Climate finance: The UK must significantly increase its climate finance contributions in line with its outsized historic responsibility and capability. This money must come from taxing polluters, not ordinary taxpayers. Providing fair climate finance is simply an act of restorative justice.
Every year, thousands of CAFOD supporters, alongside friends across the wider climate movement, write to the UK government ahead of COP global climate talks, calling for urgent action.
Despite ongoing pushback, this ongoing pressure has helped keep climate on the political agenda over the years. Please add your voice to this year's COP action to make sure the UK delegation lands in Türkiye properly equipped for the job ahead.
