COP28 Dubai

COP28 showed Precious Donna Gift Jayno the complicated reality of efficiently and sustainably fighting climate change. But most importantly, she says, it confirmed her Catholic obligation to care for the environment.

While the COP28 president and numerous countries hailed the U.N. summit's agreement to shift away from fossil fuels as a historic breakthrough, Catholic officials present viewed it with mixed reactions.

Nations meeting in Dubai should adopt a new treaty charting the end of fossil fuel use, a group of Catholic institutions wrote in a letter to the president of the COP28 climate change summit.

Countries are the primary focus at the climate COPs, but they're far from the only participants. Since the 1992 Earth Summit, people of faith have been regular participants. 

The first-ever Faith Pavilion at a U.N. climate change conference was inaugurated Dec. 3 in Dubai, with video messages from the pope and the grand imam of Al-Azhar, who both called the world to work for peace and preserving a livable climate.

Delivering a message Pope Francis had hoped to offer in person, Cardinal Pietro Parolin urged the United Nations climate summit in Dubai to achieve a "breakthrough" and become a turning point for the world. 

Cardinal Joseph Tobin: We must align our spiritual values with our actions toward the planet and each other.

The U.S. bishops added their voice to calls for the U.N. climate summit to usher in a decisive transition toward clean energy, describing decarbonization as "the preeminent environmental challenge faced by all nations."

A U.N. climate summit facing the daunting task to put countries back on track to prevent catastrophic global warming will take place without Pope Francis. Catholics heading to COP28 vowed his message would still be heard.

Pope Francis has canceled plans to travel to Dubai this weekend for a U.N. climate conference at the advice of his doctors following ongoing health issues, the Vatican announced on Nov. 28. 

The pope has canceled several appointments due to an inflammation of the lungs, but he plans to travel to Dubai Dec. 1-3 to address the annual U.N. climate summit, the Vatican says.

Ahead of COP28, the U.N. climate change conference, Catholic leaders in Africa called for decisive action against climate change, as churches and agencies moved to aid people affected by floods.

Catholics hope Pope Francis' first-ever papal visit to a United Nations climate change conference at COP28 in Dubai this year can be the push international climate talks need to get back on track.

Pope Francis is set to speak at the inauguration of the first-ever "Faith Pavilion" during the upcoming 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference in the United Arab Emirates.

Religious leaders have called on decision-makers to use COP28 to usher in a rapid transition to clean energy sources, and for nations to establish accountability mechanisms to hold them to climate action pledges.

Releasing the schedule for the pope's trip Nov. 9, the Vatican said he would address the conference Dec. 2 and spend the rest of the day in "private bilateral meetings." The inauguration of the Faith Pavilion will be Dec. 3.

The degree to which Pope Francis has engaged with the central debate in environmental thought over the past half a century — anthropocentrism versus eco- or biocentrism — has not been adequately recognized. 

In an interview broadcast in Italy Nov. 1, the pope had said he intended to go to COP28 next month, but the Vatican did not confirm the trip until Nov. 3. Pope Francis will travel to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates Dec. 1-3 to participate in the U.N. Climate Change Conference, the Vatican press office confirmed.

Pope Francis said he will attend the United Nations' COP28 climate change conference in Dubai next month, becoming the first pontiff to ever address such a high-level summit.

As President Biden urged global cooperation at the U.N. to combat climate change, U.S. Catholic groups are calling on his administration to use debt relief to help countries most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

The United Nations held its first-ever "Climate Ambition Summit" Sept. 20 — a conference that included 41 countries, but excluded both the United States and China because the U.N. invited only leaders from nations with concrete plans to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.

There is a growing demand for climate action. But that is not what the world got from the United Nations mid-year climate talks. Many observers and party delegates were dissatisfied with the process and the outcomes.

During a private meeting with John Kerry on June 19, Pope Francis signaled an openness to attending the COP28 climate summit in Dubai later this year.

Pope Francis used his 2023 World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation message to call for an end to "the fossil fuel era," saying it is "madness to permit continued exploration and expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure."