Brian Roewe

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.

Laudato Si' Movement has named Susana Réfega as the new leader of the global network of 900-plus Catholic organizations working to elevate ecological spirituality and action on climate change throughout the church.

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. 

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.

Environmental groups say the East African Crude Oil Pipeline undermines goals to combat climate change and threatens to ruin ecosystems and displace communities. A new report alleges the threat also extends to the dead.

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.

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.

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.

As industrialized countries concentrate climate responses on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Honduras shoulders climate adaptation amid the impacts of global fossil fuel use. When adapting isn't possible, some migrate.

Speakers at an Aug. 29 event at Duquesne University on  responses to pollution and climate change, newly elected U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, said pollution in the area is "better" but not good enough. 

Archbishop Borys Gudziak and Bishop David Malloy, chairs of the domestic and international justice and peace committees for the U.S. bishops' conference, urged ecological conversion both in personal lifestyles and public policy around environmental justice and climate change.

Reports have traced funding for the blitz against ESG —  investment practices based on environmental, social and governance criteria — to the fossil fuel industry as well as right-wing and libertarian groups.

Hundreds of faith leaders have called on the Environmental Protection Agency to implement the strongest possible standards to cut greenhouse gas emissions from the nation's fossil fuel-fired power plants.

The Catholic Climate Covenant honored 13 Laudato Si' Champions at all levels of the U.S. church July 27 during the third "Laudato Si' and the U.S. Catholic Church" conference, co-hosted with Creighton University.

A provision in 2022's historic climate law that permits tax-exempt entities to qualify for clean energy tax credits is a "game changer" for faith communities, said Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.

U.S. Catholics join the rest of the nation in strongly backing actions to reduce the impacts of climate change, but they're also more supportive of expanding coal mining, fracking and offshore drilling than other Americans.