One Page

Link to Main Site of the Carmelite NGO

One Page is a periodic newsletter from the Carmelite NGO. It keeps people up-to-date on the issues the NGO is advocating for.

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News and Publications 

“For a just transition from fossil fuels”. From carbon domination to the experience of communion

Let’s imagine for a moment that the house where you grew up, the one that holds your most sacred memories, is starting to crack. These are not just stains on the wall; the foundations are giving way.

This is the image Pope Francis presented to us in his 2023 apostolic exhortation Laudate Deum (LD), in which he warned: “The world that welcomes us is crumbling and may be approaching a breaking point” (LD 2).

We are no longer talking about distant climate change or cold statistics; we are talking about a system in clear decline that undermines the sustainability of life as we have known it. For decades, our economy has functioned as if the goods of the earth (“resources,” some call them) were infinite, trapped in what the Church calls the technocratic paradigm (Laudato Si' (LS), 101), believing that unlimited power and consumption are the only way forward.

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Carmelite NGO Urges Renewed Global Action on Poverty and Inequality at UN Social Development Meeting

I am writing this from the United Nations headquarters in New York just as the 64th annual meeting of the Commission for Social Development (CSocD64) approaches its conclusion.  While here, I have attended various plenary sessions and side events.

A recurring theme during this year’s gathering was the importance of the Doha Political Declaration, the document that came out of the Second World Summit for Social Development, held in Doha, Qatar, this past November.

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From the Silence of Belém to the Hope of Santa Marta: Reconfiguring Climate Multilateralism

— Eduardo Agosta Scarel, O. Carm.
Director of the Department of Integral Ecology, Spanish Episcopal Conference

COP30, held in Belém do Pará, Brazil, left behind a bittersweet taste. The Brazilian presidency managed to imbue the final document with a humanist narrative that recognized the rights of indigenous peoples, the vital importance of the Amazon, and the ecological debt derived from historical emissions. However, the summit once again stumbled over the usual obstacle: the consensus rule.

The result was a text that, despite its symbolic gestures, failed on two points essential to integral ecology. In terms of mitigation, the explicit reference to the need to abandon fossil fuels disappeared, replaced by vaguer goals of achieving carbon neutrality by mid-century. In terms of financing, although the scientific urgency of mobilizing $1.3 trillion annually was recognized, the political goal was set at a mere $300 billion, thus institutionalizing a financial gap that perpetuates injustice.

Carmelite NGO Presents at Socio-Environmental Dialogue for Peace: Adaptation and Just Transition

Ten years after Laudato Si’, the encyclical of Pope Francis that inspired a new environmental ethic and shaped the moral vision that accompanied the Paris Agreement, a renewed call emerges: there can be no lasting peace without harmony with nature.

At COP30 the organization Socio-Environmental Dialogue for Peace offered a meeting space to connect peace, climate adaptation, and a just transition, strengthening trust among communities, companies, and institutions. The objective is to move towards cooperation based on integrity and justice, reconciling people with one another and with the planet.

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Carmelite NGO Has Active Presence at COP 30 in Brazil

The Climate Summit in Belém, Brazil: Just Another Summit?

— Eduardo Agosta Scarel, O. Carm. Director of the Department of Integral Ecology, Spanish Episcopal Conference
(Published in VIDA NUEVA digital, Monday, November 3, 2025)

From November 6 to 21 this year, COP 30 will be held in Belém, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon. Ten years after the Paris Agreement, this climate summit transcends the usual diplomatic calendar to become an event of profound symbolism. As stated by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the summit will be an opportunity for the world to discuss the importance of the Amazon within the Amazon itself, listening directly to its peoples.1
The conference agenda is anchored in crucial mandates that will define the trajectory of global climate action for the next decade. It inherits from COP 28 the task of responding to the first Global Stocktake, which concluded that current efforts are insufficient to limit warming to 1.5°C and called for the submission of a new and more ambitious round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), or national climate action plans by February 2025. It will also need to build on the financial commitments established at the last COP 29, particularly with regard to the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), which will replace the target of $100 billion per year in aid to countries affected by climate change.

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