A Breath of Fresh Air?

BY ACTING EDITOR FR CHRIS CHATTERIS SJ

A big Pope Francis story this year will be his anticipated encyclical on climate change. According to Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the encyclical and two meetings of faith leaders are being planned to feed into the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December 2015 in Paris.

Already last year the big news networks were abuzz with reports and comment about this coming papal intervention and its possible effects. There’s a palpable excitement among green commentators who clearly hope that Francis, on this vital issue, will inspire our politically nervous world leaders with some of his moral courage.

Environmental concern used to be focused mostly on fresh air, or the lack of it. Post-war Britain’s terrible “pea-souper” smogs caused serious health problems for young and old. We now know that the problem isn’t just the pollution of fresh air that the burning of coal, oil and forests causes. It is also the excessive emission of carbon dioxide which traps heat in the atmosphere which in turn disrupts the climate.

Not everyone believes that this is in fact happening. However, the overwhelming majority of scientists say that the debate is now over and that it is clear that most climate change is being caused by modern industrial society’s emission of greenhouse gasses, especially carbon dioxide.

The warnings are becoming increasingly urgent about the need to radically reduce emissions if our children and theirs are to have a chance of living on an inhabitable planet.

Pope Francis clearly concurs with the scientists and sees the urgency of the matter. He also sees it from the perspective of the poor of the earth. For while the richer nations, who have largely caused the problem and profited from it, may have the resources to survive the worst effects of the present and coming changes, it is the poor who will suffer most.

When typhoon Haiyan ravaged the Philippines in November 2013, some 6000 people were killed, and many more were injured and made homeless. In the US people are able to evacuate far more easily in the face of hurricanes.

The pope is also likely to link climate change and our consumerist economy in which, to produce all the consumer goods we believe we need, we have to burn vast amounts of coal, oil and gas (90 million barrels of oil per day!). A most contested aspect of his encyclical will be the question: do we really have to live like this?

Time is short. The longer we wait to decisively protect the atmosphere that we all share, the greater the damage down the line, and the longer it will take for the climate to stabilise.

Hence the United Nations Climate Change Conference (or COP21) in Paris later this year will be a crucial meeting at which politicians will be called upon, as never before, to show real leadership. The aim of Paris is to get a “binding and universal agreement” among the international community, something which has so far eluded us.

Pope Francis, who will have to contend with opposition from climate change “sceptics”, from oil and energy lobbyists, seems quite happy to show that leadership. It is almost certain that when he visits the United States in September, he will address the UN. If his blunt words to the European Parliament are anything to go by, the members of the General Assembly will be treated to some refreshing plain-speaking about their climate-change responsibilities.

Francis’ message on climate change will also be relevant to South Africa. Although the hoped-for agreement in Paris will probably give developing countries some leeway on emissions, we cannot expect to get off too lightly. We will almost certainly have to start phasing out our apartheid-era, climate-damaging industries like Sasol.

More difficult will be what to do about our brand new coal-fired power stations, like Medupi, which unfortunately was obsolete even before it was built.

The issue of climate change will severely test the secular and ecclesiastical leadership, but it will also test everyone’s “followership” and our ability to come up with helpful and realistic personal responses.