Brian Roewe

Caritas projects offer a sign of hope that solutions to climate change, whether mitigating heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions or adapting to impacts like more severe heatwaves and storms, can in fact work.

"We're not going to see that money coming back," said Alistair Dutton, Caritas Internationalis secretary general, who spoke with NCR about the ramifications of cuts in funding for international development.

The U.N. meeting in the Amazon runs Nov. 10-21. It comes a decade after the Paris Agreement, a historic deal where for the first time nearly 200 countries committed to reducing heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions.

At a dialogue on labor and the environment in Appalachia, Bishop Mark Brennan of Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia, lent his support to union-led boycotts to "foster a more just economy, more humane world."

The Holy See said it will cut its emissions within the Vatican City State by at least 28% by 2035 compared to 2011 levels.  

The pope spoke Oct. 1 at the start of a conference marking the 10-year anniversary of Laudato Si', Pope Francis' landmark document that encapsulated church teaching on the environment. 

"My Catholic faith compels me to urge you to leave the Endangerment Finding in place," wrote Patricia Sills-Trausch, a staff member at the Franciscan Renewal Center in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Pope Leo's first 100 days have provided insight into how he will engage with environmental crises, from climate change, to deforestation and pollution, to the health impacts of a new technological revolution.

For religious organizations, loss of the rebates jeopardizes financing options for clean energy projects and is expected to result in millions of dollars less in energy cost savings that could otherwise be reinvested in other church ministries and programs.

The 34-page letter sounding the alarm on climate change is the first-ever joint appeal issued by the continental conferences of Catholic bishops in Latin America, Africa and Asia, representing 821 million Catholics.