Gongloff: Pope Leo XIV seems a worthy heir to Francis’ climate advocacy

In picking a new leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, the Vatican had a chance to honor the late Pope Francis’ legacy as the greenest pope in modern history.

In choosing the American (and Peruvian) Cardinal Robert Prevost — henceforth known as Pope Leo XIV — his fellow cardinals appear to have seized that opportunity. Humanity’s hope of avoiding the worst of climate change can only benefit.

We’ll learn more about the pope’s views in the days to come. But he is on record telling a seminar last November that the world must move “from words to action” on climate change. In the same speech, he warned that humanity’s “dominion over nature” shouldn’t be “tyrannical” but “a relationship of reciprocity.”

He also touted the Vatican’s green record, including purchases of solar panels and electric vehicles — a fleet that now includes the first all-electric Popemobile.

Of course, actions speak louder than words. But the new pope’s words on climate echo those of his predecessor, who installed some of those solar panels last year and launched plans for an agrivoltaic solar array with enough power to run the entire Vatican — possibly making it the first country to run entirely on renewable power.

More importantly, Francis spoke eloquently and often about climate.

His 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’, which bemoaned humanity’s wanton “use and abuse” of the Earth, provided moral fuel for the landmark Paris climate accords in 2015. Several signatories cited his work in speeches ahead of the agreement. It inspired the Laudato Si’ Movement, a network of Catholic groups taking climate action around the world.

Francis’ environmental advocacy wasn’t just based on an abstract love of nature. He also recognized that the most vulnerable human beings in the world — including Catholics in Peru, the country of Pope Leo XIV’s dual citizenship — would suffer the most.

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A church dedicated to helping the poor and suffering can’t ignore the ravages of an overheating planet.

Eight years after he wrote Laudato Si’, after watching the world run low on the moral fuel that drove the Paris agreement, Francis wrote another encyclical, Laudate Deum, chastising global leaders for failing to live up to their own lofty words.

Just before his death, he had to witness the return to power of President Donald Trump, who has been vigorously hacking away at everything positive his government has ever done for the climate. Meanwhile, the buzzword heard too often in global climate discussions today is “pragmatism,” which is a short hop from defeatism.

In a flash, Pope Leo XIV has become one of the most famous and important people in the world. He has an opportunity to use his new vaulted platform to carry on Francis’ work and push back against climate defeatism.

It will require not only more powerful words but also powerful actions.