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Climate change and justice: Pope Francis connects these causes, in lead-up to Paris conference

Climate change is the anticipated focus of Francis’ long-awaited papal encyclical on ecology because it merges his vocal concern for the poor and marginalized with condemnation of environmental exploitation. The world’s poor, who contribute the least to climate change, are disproportionately impacted by worsening droughts, rising seas, mega storms and famine, and they are least able to evade its destructive reach…………

Hopes are high that the pope’s encyclical creates momentum and will for the enactment of a United Nations climate
change accord in Paris this December

With encyclical, Pope Francis elevates environmental justice, The Conversation, Lisa Sideris, 16 June 15  When the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio chose Francis as his papal name, he signaled to the world a dual commitment to sustainability and the global poor. His namesake, Saint Francis of Assisi, was a man of poverty and peace who loved nature and animals, and is said to have preached his sermons to birds.

Ostentatious only in displays of humility, Francis implores Catholic priests and nuns to choose “humble” automobiles and consider foregoing the latest smartphone. Tempted to buy the fancy model? Francis suggests you “think about how many children are dying of hunger in the world.” His day-to-day vehicle is a modest Ford Focus, his wristwatch a plastic Swatch.

The pope’s attention to climate change, a likely focal point of his long-awaited encyclical on the environment due to appear June 18, highlights the plight of the poor and the moral dimensions of environmental issues. It also comes as a welcome counterbalance to the fixation on global-scale human influence on the environment that, for better and for worse, has come to define the Anthropocene – the name attached to the age of human dominance over the planet.

Can we, perhaps guided by the moral authority of the pope, align the global ethos of the Anthropocene with claims of justice for the poor?

Justice for the poor

The pope’s priorities – social justice and care for the Earth – are what we might expect from a Jesuit pope who opts for a Franciscan name………….

Climate change is the anticipated focus of Francis’ long-awaited papal encyclical on ecology because it merges his vocal concern for the poor and marginalized with condemnation of environmental exploitation. The world’s poor, who contribute the least to climate change, are disproportionately impacted by worsening droughts, rising seas, mega storms and famine, and they are least able to evade its destructive reach…………

Hopes are high that the pope’s encyclical creates momentum and will for the enactment of a United Nations climate change accord in Paris this December.

The accord, if successful, would commit every nation to tougher restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions, with the goal of limiting increases in global temperatures.

Francis’ attunement to the differential claims of the poor and the disproportionate impacts of climate disruption may help ensure that the response to climate change, whatever form it takes, is not only global but truly just. https://theconversation.com/with-encyclical-pope-francis-elevates-environmental-justice-42871

June 19, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, Religion and ethics