Pope Francis: ‘Irresponsible’ western lifestyles push the world to ‘the breaking point’ on climate

(Inside Climate News, 5 Oct 2023) The 86-year-old leader of the 1.3 billion-member Catholic Church bluntly urges more aggressive action to curb emissions at the next U.N. climate meeting in eight weeks.

Taking aim at the United States and an “irresponsible lifestyle” with some of the world’s highest carbon emissions per capita, Pope Francis on Wednesday doubled down on his earlier call for urgent action to tackle climate change, while also criticizing a failing global response to the crisis.

Eight years after the Vatican published Francis’ landmark “Laudato Si’: On Care for our Common Home,” the first  papal teaching letter sent to all of the church’s bishops focused on the environment, the pontiff’s new writing  comes in the form of a papal exhortation called Laudate Deum, or Praise God.

On the climate crisis, Francis writes that “our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point.”

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Inside Climate News, 5 Oct 2023: Pope Francis: ‘Irresponsible’ western lifestyles push the world to ‘the breaking point’ on climate