What Catholics Should Think About Climate

Climate change poses risks to people throughout the world. Christians have a moral duty to mitigate those risks, to the extent possible. The Catholic tradition of social teaching provides some valuable terms for framing that duty. Yet this same tradition suffers from gaps, especially regarding the roles of economic growth, costs, and technology developments in addressing the needs of the poor. Unfortunately, official Catholic statements on climate change reflect these blind spots. Too often they then fall into shallow moralizing that shows little awareness of the complexities of global energy realities. We can do better.

In his 2015 encyclical Laudato Sí, and again in his 2023 apostolic exhortation Laudate Deum, Pope Francis rightly frames climate risk as a common-good issue. He also observes that poor people in developing countries are most exposed to this risk and are likely to suffer the worst consequences. But the Holy Father’s solutions are wholly conventional: Deemphasize fossil fuels, develop renewables, and make them available globally. Francis also misdiagnoses the impediments to addressing climate risk. In Laudate Deum he blames the greed of elites, their pursuit of “the greatest profit possible at minimal cost,” and denounces the “technocratic paradigm.” In a sweeping statement, he announces: “To suppose that all problems in the future will be able to be solved by new technical interventions is a form of homicidal pragmatism.”

Though doubtless heartfelt, the Holy Father’s exhortations convey a superficial appreciation of our situation. In addressing climate risk, we face profound economic and technical challenges, which cannot easily be mastered by even the most earnest, well-intentioned, and spiritually well-formed leaders.

When examining the global energy outlook, we immediately encounter the issues of growth and costs. Global energy demand is expected to grow by 50 percent between 2020 and 2050. This growth will be driven not by greedy elites or by citizens in the developed world, but by the global poor, who wish to live better lives. For instance, 570 million people in sub-Saharan Africa currently have no access to electricity. Between 40 and 50 percent of Indian households still heat their food with wood, cow dung, or some other biomass.

The preferential option for the poor surely commits the Catholic Church to remedying such conditions, and doing so will require reliable, affordable energy—which cannot come only from renewables. The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that some 60 percent of global energy supplies will still come from fossil fuels in 2050. This is the outlook, despite the IEA’s projection of huge increases in renewable capacity and the virtual retirement of coal-fired power in developed countries. It turns out that even a rapid “green transition” in the rich world will be more than offset by growing fossil-fuel consumption in the world’s poorer nations.

Elite greed is not to blame for the enduring need for fossil fuels. The hard truth is that global decarbonization will be hugely expensive. Enormous capital sums for new capacity will be required, leading to higher energy costs for consumers. The IEA’s 2022 World Energy Outlook called for transition capital investment to double to $4 trillion per year and projected that total needed capital would approach $100 trillion by 2050. To put this in perspective, total global energy investment in 2023 was only $1.8 trillion, of which renewable capital totaled $623 billion. The energy transition will be costly. Moreover, its costs are not only pecuniary; there is also an “opportunity cost.” Basic human needs, such as health and education, will see their funding diverted to energy’s march toward Net Zero. It is a responsible elite, not a greedy one, that would hesitate to underfund essential social functions in order to address climate risk.

Climate activists have repeatedly asserted that clean energy will be cheaper than fossil fuels, and they tout the declining costs of wind and solar as proof. Stubborn facts now evidence the opposite. It turns out that the true cost of renewable power is not just in the erection of wind or solar plants, but also in the provision of the backup storage and grid expansion needed to provide customers with reliable electricity. Consumers are not eager to take on these added costs. Disappointing battery-electric car sales show customers reluctant to give up their existing vehicles for more expensive vehicles offering less range and long recharging times. Battery-powered trucks have made virtually no dent in cargo-hauling transportation. Aviation remains entirely dependent on jet fuel, despite much brave talk about “sustainable aviation fuel.” Finally, there are enormous economic sectors that simply will be hard to decarbonize. Many types of manufacturing require heat that is difficult and expensive to generate with electricity.

These massive cost and technical problems remain barriers to the decarbonization of the economies of the developed world. Such barriers are even more formidable for developing nations. They cannot be moralized away by pious exhortations against “greed.”

The developing-world challenges are greater precisely because the moral demand for a better life for the poor must command our respect. Climate is not the only threat the poor face. Many remain starved for opportunity and a decent life. Denying them the energy that will provide them and their families with better, healthier lives is hardly a proper application of the preferential option for the poor.

Thus, in Africa, India, and elsewhere, the moral challenge is twofold. We must generate more affordable energy (which in the near and medium term will usually require a carbon-based source) and a path to decarbonization.

These are formidable tasks. They will not be accomplished with mere moral suasion. We will need the “new technical interventions” that the Holy Father denounces as technocratic hubris. Widespread adoption of wind and solar energy requires better battery storage. Current technology works for only four to six hours. An army of innovators has been working to extend battery lives. Ten hours of discharge capacity is their goal. Others have been working to reduce the amount of the critical minerals—copper, nickel, and others—that must be mined to build out the battery infrastructure for mass expansion of electric vehicles and electric home heating. Another frontier concerns capturing carbon from power plants and converting it into useful products such as building materials, fuels, chemicals, and food proteins. Unfortunately, all these conversion processes are more expensive than current methods; in many cases they are two to five times more costly. Unless we make major technical progress on many fronts, the green transition will founder.

Responsible Catholics must therefore reason about climate risk by taking many factors into account: the global appetite for more energy, the role of growth in offering development opportunities to the poor, the true costs of decarbonizing economies, and the acute need for innovation. It is not sufficient to echo the warnings of climate activists while scolding elites and dismissing scientists and innovators as captive to a technocratic mindset.

What is needed is an integrated-development approach to the transition. Multiple goals must be pursued together. The next papal encyclical should emphasize an “all of the above” approach. Providing more energy that is less carbon-intensive will require contributions from many sources. Instead of touting only wind and solar, this approach would incorporate nuclear power, hydrogen, hydropower, and other forms of clean energy. It would also support “bridging solutions.” Instead of simply calling for the phase-out of fossil fuels, it would recognize that fossil fuels will be integral to global development for decades. A future encyclical should endorse energy supplies, such as liquefied natural gas, that both support growth and can substitute for coal and oil power sources. It should also call for developing technologies to capture carbon dioxide for storage or use in durable products.

An integrated-development approach will offer better support for the preferential option for the poor. Given that economic growth is crucial for countries in the underdeveloped world, it would ask how may we reconcile economic development with decarbonization. Here some hard truths must be faced. In many of these countries, coal is not going away. Recognizing this, the Holy See should break from the climate lobby and seek an answer for coal in innovation. A future encyclical should encourage development of coal-plant carbon-capture technologies and their transfer to utilities in developing countries. Considerable work has been done in the West, but it has stagnated because of the ease with which natural gas allows coal-fired plants to be phased out. That reality, however, does not apply to China, India, or a host of other developing countries. Western firms should be encouraged to continue developing coal-fired carbon-capture with an eye to licensing it on affordable terms to developing countries.

Catholic social doctrine derived its original momentum from adroit critiques of the economic conditions of the working class, even as it rejected Marxist class warfare. Its founding document, the encyclical Rerum Novarum, defended private property while deploring non-living wages and unhealthy working conditions. We need similar wisdom today. We need an exhortation to face climate risk while recognizing the economic consequences for the poor. We cannot ignore hard economic choices. The unnuanced imprecations of elites get us nowhere. Hostility toward technology impedes rather than advances good climate policy. The common good and the preferential option for the poor should be understood to incorporate both economic growth and decarbonization. Catholic teaching, attuned to reality and freed from global-warming ideologies, would enable faster decarbonization at lower costs and on a truly global scale.

S. V. Arbogast is director of the Kenan-Flagler Energy Center and professor of the practice of finance at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Image by Albert Bierstadt, public domain. Image cropped.