Pope Francis, a dire warning about climate change: The world is collapsing

Eight years after his encyclical on integral ecology, "Laudato Si", the Argentine Jesuit has called on the great powers to speak out in favor of a "mandatory" and "controllable" energy transition and warned against the "dismissive and scarcely reasonable opinions" of climate change skeptics.

Within this 12-page apostolic exhortation entitled "Laudate Deum", which was written in Spanish and translated into various languages, Pope Francis also cautioned against the "dismissive and scarcely reasonable opinions" of climate change skeptics, "even from within the Catholic Church".

"Over the past few years, numerous individuals have attempted to mock this reality", he expressed his sorrow amid the proliferation of information that downplays global warming, or to "ridicule" those who discuss it.

"No matter how much we try to deny, hide, gloss over or relativize the issue, the signs of climate change are there, increasingly evident", insisted the 86-year-old pope.

"No one can ignore the fact that in recent years we have witnessed extreme weather phenomena, frequent periods of unusual heat, drought and other protests from the Earth, which are just a few tangible forms of a silent disease that affects everyone", he wrote.

The Pope also mentioned the "probable" explosion in the number of climate migrants "in a few years". "The rising sea levels and glacier melting can be easily perceived by an individual in his or her lifetime, and probably, in a few years, many populations will have to move their homes because of these facts", he said.

A failure in Dubai, the pope warned, "will be a great disappointment and will jeopardize everything that has been achieved so far".

In this 73-paragraph text with a didactic tone, the Pope once again emphasized the damage caused by the "unbridled intervention of man in nature" and blamed the "irresponsible lifestyle of the Western model", pointing fingers especially at the United States and China for their greenhouse gas emissions.

Pope Francis, who has made the defense of the "Common Home" one of the recurring themes of his pontificate since his election in 2013, expressed regret that this "climate crisis is not really a subject of interest for the great economic powers, concerned with the greatest profit at the lowest cost and in the shortest time possible".

Noting a "crisis of old diplomacy", the leader of the Catholic Church called for the "reconfiguration of multilateralism", while carbon reduction goals appear increasingly difficult to achieve.

In 2015, "Laudato Si", a call for global solidarity to act together to protect the environment, sparked a global debate, an unprecedented phenomenon for a religious text.

A few months later, significant progress was made through the Paris Climate Agreement, whose main objective is to keep the temperature increase below 2 degrees Celsius compared to the pre-industrial era.