COP31: Catholic groups demand climate grants for poorer countries

Rev Fr Sebastian Sanni, executive director of the Justice Development and Peace Caritas Initiative (JDPCI), Abuja Catholic Archdiocese .heic

Catholic organisations at the 31st meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP31) in Antalya, Turkey have called on governments to fund climate action in poorer countries with grants and to phase out coal, oil and gas.

Caritas Internationalis, a humanitarian network of 162 Catholic organisations, asked for a roadmap to triple adaptation finance to at least $120 billion a year by 2035, paid as grants that reach local communities, the group said in a statement.

“Deliver climate finance as justice, not charity,” the network stated in a statement.

A wider coalition, the Network of Catholic Climate and Environment Actors, which works with the Vatican delegation at the climate talks, has noted both finance and fossil fuel goals among its seven priorities for the summit.

Africa’s Catholic bishops have also made a similar demand. The Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), which brings together the continent’s Catholic bishops, requested more climate finance for Africa, as well as the protection of ecosystems and the rights of local communities.

“African countries and communities must be recognised as essential partners and stewards,” SECAM’s president, Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo, said.

In Nigeria, the Justice Development and Peace Caritas Initiative (JDPCI), a social development initiative at the Catholic Archdiocese of Abuja, has also made a similar call. Its executive director, Sebastian Sanni, told PREMIUM TIMES in Antalya that the talks have yet to deliver the funds needed for projects.

“There have been 30 COPs so far. It’s the 31st,” Mr Sanni said. “The time for action is now. They should bring the money,” he added.

One such project is a briquette factory the archdiocese built in Kwali, Abuja, with support from the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development.

Mr Sanni said the factory runs only on solar power, sparing workers and neighbours from hazards like generator fumes from fossil fuels such as petrol and diesel.

He said the archdiocese has also planted 5,000 trees, led by Archbishop of Abuja Ignatius Kaigama.

When the climate summit opened, the Laudato Si’ Movement, a global network of Catholic climate campaigners, urged world leaders to agree on concrete pathways for phasing out coal, oil and gas.

CIDSE, a Brussels-based alliance of Catholic aid agencies, wants the phase-out factored into national policy and for governments to align their national adaptation and emissions plans with the action plan for transitioning from fossil fuels.

Nigeria has backed a one-off roadmap, a voluntary plan led by Brazil, presented at the summit on Tuesday, but said each country should set its own pace.

“A just transition must be equitable and nationally determined, adequately financed, and responsive to the development realities of emerging economies,” Omotenioye Majekodunmi, the director-general of the National Council on Climate Change, said at COP31 on Wednesday

The Catholic groups have asked negotiators to reflect their demands in the summit’s final decisions, which are due by 20 November.