Najam Discusses the Vatican’s Climate Activism Under the New Pope
On a recent episode of BBC’s podcast and radio show, The Climate Question — Adil Najam, professor of international relations and of earth and environment at the Pardee School unpacked Pope Francis’s climate advocacy in the Vatican and how Pope Leo’s papacy is expected to embody it. Titled “Will the new Pope be a climate campaigner?,” the podcast examined how Pope Francis strived to make climate action a core component of the church’s work, opening up a space for broader environmental conversations within a venerated religious system.
When asked if Pope Francis can be deemed as a climate activist, Najam said, “I think he was a climate activist and he was a climate activist before he was Pope.” He also remarked that the late Pope’s interest in ecology began long before Laudato Si’ — his second encyclical published in 2015 that exclusively focused on the environment — a first of its kind. The professor explained that the Pope’s inclination toward climate action was reflected through his choice of papal name which honored St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals and nature.
Apart from persuading followers through his writings, Pope Francis embraced clean energy solutions such as electric vehicle technology and solar energy to make the Vatican a more proactive supporter of climate action. Simultaneously, he regularly spoke to the members of the climate community as well as leaders of commercial entities to bring about meaningful changes.
“He was inviting Greta to come as a climate activist and supporting and bucking her up. He was having meetings with climate scientists. . . . He was talking to ordinary lay people. He was pushing this idea or creating the space for leaders of other religions, you know not just by happenstance but actually reaching out to them.”
With Pope Leo as the successor, Najam predicts that the new pontiff’s time at the Vatican will integrate Pope Francis’s commitment to climate action.
“He has a second nationality which is from Peru,” Najam said. “His sensibility in being like Pope Francis, I think, comes even more from that route. He’s clearly a humanist and a person who understands the needs of development for the poorest populations, particularly in poorer countries in a similar fashion to Pope Francis. To me the importance of Pope Francis is not just that he talked about climate, it was that he talked about it in this human developmental context. It seems that Pope Leo is in the same mold. So whether he talks about climate as much or not, I think that the space we were talking about, the space that Pope Francis had opened is not in danger of being formally closed by this Pope.”
Najam concluded the interview by highlighting that the great test pertaining to the future of climate change will arrive in a few months during the COP30, all set to be held in Belém, Brazil. The professor said that this event will help the world witness how the climate community reacts to Pope Leo as well as the new pontiff’s stand on climate change.
To listen to the full podcast, click here.
Professor Adil Najam is the dean emeritus at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global studies and an authority on international relations, climate policy, and South Asian politics. Besides Pardee, he has taught at MIT and Tufts University. He was a visiting fellow at the University of Oxford’s Wolfson College and was named the first De Janosi Fellow at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria. A prolific writer, Najam has authored more than 100 academic papers and published eight books including South Asia 2060: Envisioning Regional Futures (2013) and How Immigrants Impact their Homelands (2013). To know more about his work and accomplishments, visit his faculty profile.