The patient suffers from substance dependency, causing progressive asphyxiation. Failure of thermoregulation results in febrile flushes, extreme perspiration, raging temperatures, irregular uncontrolled fluid discharges, flatulence that chokes everyone in the room, irreversible systemic necrosis. The patient is dying, no longer able to support her dependents. Wealthy cartels forbid the doctors to call for the withdrawal of the addictive substance from the market. All the doctors may prescribe are measures to address the symptoms and not the cause, however ineffectively – palliative care while the patient slowly expires.
The patient is mother Earth, our only home, from whom we all arise and to whom we return.
The substances to which the citizens of this planet are so addicted are the fossil fuels which have powered the industrialised economies for the past 250 years.[1] These are fuels for heating, transportation, manufacturing and raw materials for plastics and other products. Coal, oil and gas have been burnt in quantities unknown, spewing gigatons of gaseous emissions into the Earth’s fragile atmosphere,[2] forming a blanket of greenhouse gases.
These gases trap the Earth’s heat, forcing global temperatures ever higher. The thermoregulation of our planet, is failing. Beneath and above the vast ocean and land surfaces of this planet, the mechanisms of thermoregulation of the earth system are so complex, that scientists are less and less able to predict what will happen next. All they know, and everybody experiences, is that long-term weather patterns (the climate) is no longer what it was “when we were growing up.”
Each cycle of seasons brings new calamities to different parts of the world: prolonged droughts, raging fires over thousands of square kilometers, more intense cyclones, heavier rainfall, melting glaciers, rising sea levels.
Methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases, is being released in unprecedented scales in human history as permafrost, glacial ice and deep lakes warm up. Further releases of methane come from industrial agricultural methods (beef feed-lots and cultivation of rice paddies), the extraction and transportation of fossil fuels, and landfills and waste treatment.[3]
With changing climates, ecosystems dependent on precise ranges of temperature and moisture, are more and more disrupted. Plants, animals and microbes that all function together in their respective niches of their particular ecosystem, are dying off as the ecosystems are disrupted. These complex interactions cannot be sustained as more and more nodes in the network of life are lost.
Temperatures are rising inexorably. The wished-for target set a short decade ago, at the 2015 Paris Climate Conference (COP20), of 1.5⁰C above pre-Industrial-Revolution temperatures, was breached in many parts of the world in 2024.[4]Temperatures will continue to rise and climate systems will be further disrupted unless there is a global paradigm shift in the way we use energy.
Adopted in 1994, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change aims to “prevent ‘dangerous’ human interference with the climate system.” One of the mechanisms by which this is done is through annual meetings (COPs) of governments, scientists, civil society and industrialists. The ideal is that they reach consensus on what measures their respective countries and enterprises will take to reduce further climate disruption, and to support those countries already suffering damage related to climate change. In the absence of immediate measures to halt climate change, measures need to be put in place to mitigate its effects and to build resilience to future catastrophic weather events. This means throwing vast amounts of money at the problem – money which poorer nations cannot afford, and with which wealthier nations are reluctant to part.
In Laudate Deum, Pope Francis traces the progress of “loss and damage” and “adaptation” funds at a succession of conferences.[5] However, the financial approach is merely treating the symptoms, and not the cause of climate change. It is applying a Band-Aid to a major organ failure, and it does not return the lives of people, plants and animals drowned, starved, thirsted or burnt to death. There is near-universal agreement among scientists that the burning of fossil fuels is the major cause of this phenomenon. Unless the cause is dealt with, the condition will continue to deteriorate.
Recent meetings of the COP – in Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Azerbaijan, all major oil-exporting countries and none of them known for their tolerance of dissent – have been mealy-mouthed on calling for the phasing out of fossil fuels. Powerful blocs of coal- and oil-producing nations have refused to sign any final statements which identify phasing out fossil fuels as the single most effective way of curb global climate change. COP28 in Dubai came closest to acknowledging the need, as the outcome document includes a first draft of a roadmap for “transitioning away from fossil fuels.”
That is why there were elevated hopes for COP30 held in Brazil in November 2025. The president of the COP had promised that this would be the “COP of truth” at which disinformation regarding climate change would be combated. Brazil is a country with a reputation for environmental care. However, the country has also made immense ecological compromises such as granting concessions for the exploration for gas and oil,[6] as well as cutting down of vast swathes of the Amazon Forest, the lung of the world.
Disappointingly many, at this year’s COP, the usual oil-exporting countries and lobbyists for the fossil fuel industries were successful in blocking any mention of fossil fuels in the final outcome statement. 80 countries “pushed for a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels in the final deal.” But the deal reached on 22 November “would boost finance for poor nations coping with global warming but […] omitted any mention of the fossil fuel driving it.”[7]
The UN hails the COP as a success in terms of financial packages.[8] As always, the meeting was rich in slogans.[9] But there was no “clear commitments to move away from fossil fuels.” Promises are easy to break, particularly when they are made by people suffering from substance abuse. The addiction has not been addressed. The operation was a success, but the patient is still dying.
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[1] I date the beginning of the Industrial Revolution rather arbitrarily around the year 1775.
[2] Cf. Rebecca Lindsey. “Climate Change: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide.” NOAA: Climate.gov (21 May 2025). Accessed 25 November 2025. https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide.
[3] Cf. A.R. Ravishankara, Johan Ci.I. Kuylenstierna, Eleni Michalopoulou, Lena Höglund-Isaksson et al. Global Methane Assessment: Benefits and Costs of Mitigating Methane Emissions. (Nairobi: United Nations Environment Programme, 2021), 28.
[4] Cf. Inger Andersen, “Emissions Gap Report 2025 Press Statement.” Last modified October 2024. Accessed 2 September 2025, UNEP. https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/statements/emissions-gap-report-2024-press-statement.
[5] Cf. Francis, Laudate Deum: Apostolic Exhortation on the Cimate Crisis, (Vatican: 2023) 46, 51.
[6] Olivier Bois von Kursk, Joachim Roth, Ricardo Junqueira Fujii, Carolyne Schiavo, Laura Hurtado Verazain, and Emir Erhan. “Brazil at Crossroads: Rethinking Petrobras Oil and Gas Expansion.” International Institute for Sustainable Development (12 June 2025). Accessed 26 November 2025. https://www.iisd.org/publications/report/brazil-petrobras-oil-gas-expansion.
[7] Lisandra Paraguassu, Kate Abnett, William James, and Sudarshan Vardhan. “Brazil Pushes COP30 Deal amid Fury over Missing Pledge.” Business Day (Johannesburg) 24 November 2025, 5.
[8] Felipe de Carvalho, “Belém COP30 Delivers Climate Finance Boost and a Pledge to Plan Fossil Fuel Transition.” UN News (22 November 2025). Accessed 24 November 2025. https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/11/1166433.
[9] See for example on the page cited above: “A new economy is rising, while the old polluting one is running out of road.”