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For the first time in history, standing together as representatives of the global South, Catholic bishops from the Global South have joined voices, demanding that the global community phase out the use of fossil fuels, honor its climate debt in what they term, ambitious implementation of the Paris Agreement,” ahead of COP 30.

The Joint Appeal was collectively written by the continental episcopal conferences and councils—the highest bodies of the Catholic hierarchy in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean—representing 821 million Catholics, according to the Vatican’s Central Office of Church Statistics.

The release of the joint call takes place during the tenth anniversary of the Paris Climate Agreement, and the tenth anniversary of Laudato Si’, Pope Francis’ landmark encyclical on climate and ecology, and acknowledges the new leadership of Pope Leo XIV, in particular his first statement as pope urging the Church to ‘build a new world were peace reigns’.

Moreover, the leaders call for a transition to green energy and a halt to new infrastructure development related to fossil fuels, with defined timelines, concrete accountability measures, and public policies.

While also ‘standing up to carbon offset schemes and the financialisation of common goods, the clergy denounces the false solutions of green capitalism, its voracious financialization of nature, and the violence caused by large-scale mining projects and energy transactions.

Speaking on the need for transition, Bishop Allwyn D’Silva, elected President of the Ecology Commission of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI), says, “Fossil fuels belong to the past; the future must be powered by clean, renewable energy.”

He further adds that the Global South, including communities across Asia-Pacific, holds the wisdom and experience needed to ensure this transition is just and equitable for all.

Calling for financial reforms and ecological debt justice, the statement read, “following the profound disappointment caused by the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG); we demand that climate finance be transparent, accessible and delivered directly and effectively – without intermediaries – to the most vulnerable communities, ensuring that development banks and financial institutions do not invest in fossil fuels and extractive projects, and that it is not based on the financialisation of nature or increases the debt of countries in the Global South.”

The leaders further emphasized the need for gender justice and women’s empowerment in the energy transition, proposing decentralized renewable energy policies and programs that ‘promote decent work for women at all levels, support women’s entrepreneurship in the renewable energy sector.’

According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, 32% of the renewable energy workforce are women

Among other commitments, the conferences announce that they will create ‘the Ecclesial Observatory on Climate Justice, through the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon, to monitor the commitments of the COPs and their fulfilment in the Global South, as well as to denounce unfulfilled commitments.

They reaffirm that the Catholic Church ‘will not cease to raise its voice against ecological and social injustices, remembering that the cry of the Earth is also the cry of the poor.