Elliott is a senior director at Laudato Si’ Movement and a fellow of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication with The Op-Ed Project.
Leaders have been gathering at the United Nations climate summit for the past few weeks, shaping crucial decisions for all humanity. The negotiators in past U.N. climate summits have lacked the courage of their convictions. But this year, Pope Francis, who planned to attend in person, sent an important message to participants. Negotiators should learn from faith leaders like him because they are making the hard choices to implement real climate solutions.
The talks, known as COP28, are the 28th time that countries will try to reduce greenhouse gas pollution while the problem grows – greenhouse gas pollution is now about 50 percent higher than it was 28 years ago.
This has been taking place eight years after the signing of the Paris Agreement, a climate accord that raised hopes for humanity’s ability to dream of a better future together. The signatures on that document represented a commitment to protecting the Earth, our common home, for the benefit of all.
With this in mind, it is a surprising fact that the phrase “fossil fuels” is not mentioned anywhere in the Paris Agreement. This seems like a puzzling oversight, given that there is no question that fossil fuels are a signficant factor in driving the climate crisis. Reducing the impact of fossil fuels is the only way to prevent the worst of the hunger, sickness, conflict and forced migration that climate change brings.
As countries try once again to turn the arc of greenhouse gas pollution downward, they should look to an unexpected source of inspiration. For many years now, leaders in the faith community have been speaking out about the climate crisis and making the difficult decisions needed to implement real solutions.
Pope Francis recently released a high-level statement on the climate crisis, saying “the necessary transition towards clean energy sources such as wind and solar energy, and the abandonment of fossil fuels, is not progressing at the necessary speed.”
Through the Vatican’s sustainability program, over 8,000 institutions and individuals have committed to creating comprehensive plans for action, including making the switch to clean energy. In response to both guidance from Rome and decades of Catholic teaching on climate change, more than 350 Catholic institutions have divested from fossil fuels, making the hard decision to align their financial practices with their values.
Ambitious action is being taken by Catholics in the United States. Dominican Sisters have invested $46 million in a Climate Solutions Fund to support projects in sustainability. A nationwide effort to install solar panels on Catholic facilities has resulted in clean energy powering parishes.
Beyond the Catholic faith, Muslims are embracing clean energy and have issued a prohibition against investments in fossil fuels. Synagogues are installing solar panels and Jewish leaders are developing climate action plans.
Each of these decisions involved months or even years, of deliberation, including challenging conversations with community members, financial advisors and facilities managers. Yet despite the challenges, faith leaders didn’t let the challenges stop them because they know that the urgent need to protect our brothers and sisters from the climate crisis is imperative.
National leaders face far more complex challenges but the science remains the same. Either we stop climate change, or climate change will stop us. Now is the time for action.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a“ Steel Across America” event ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11th attacks on the Ellipse near the White House on Sept. 8, 2026 in Washington, D.C. President Trump welcomed 9/ 11 first responders to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation’ s“ Steel Across America” event featuring a 16,900- pound, 21- foot steel beam recovered.
For Trump, even 9/11 is an opportunity
There was a reason organizers of the 9/11 ceremony in Manhattan told President Trump he could not speak at this year’s memorial service.
A good one, it turns out.
Because in a speech he gave on Tuesday in Washington, he did exactly what they were presumably worried about — he made it about himself.
According to The New York Times, Trump had wanted a speaking role at the service, but the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, which oversees the site, said no, as they’ve maintained for the past decade-plus that the venue and event should be nonpartisan.
Trump has long used awful tragedies to either puff himself up, trash political opponents, or sell lies to the American people.
He blamed a deadly plane crash at Washington National Airport last year on diversity, equity and inclusion policies. He blamed Puerto Ricans for the devastation they endured after Hurricane Maria in 2017. He reportedly considered withholding disaster relief after the California wildfires based on the way affected regions voted. In an interview on Fox News meant to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, he used the occasion to slam former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi…with graves of the dead behind him.
And now, as we approach the 25th anniversary of what many New Yorkers consider the darkest day in modern history, Trump has done it again.
He told a rambling, nonsensical story — one he’s told before — about going to Ground Zero just after terrorists flew two commercial jets into the twin towers. In the story, which no one has been able to verify, despite multiple attempts, he says firefighters had to carry him out of One Liberty Plaza, also known as the U.S. Steel Building, because they thought it was about to collapse.
As CNN fact checker Daniel Dale notes, there’s no evidence Trump went into this building, especially at a time when NYPD and NYFD had locked down the area. There’s no evidence that building was collapsing — in fact, it was deemed structurally sound and reopened within two months of the attacks. There’s no evidence he was carried out of it by firefighters.
But the lie isn’t even the worst part. Pretend it was all true — why would the leader of our country, and a New Yorker, decide to make that tragic day about himself?
Because that’s who Donald Trump is. He’s a malignant narcissist.
He’s also, incidentally, a terrible and ineffectual president, who’s made ill-fated decisions that he has to keep defending, and there’s nothing he won’t do to make himself look and feel better.
Within the first two minutes of his speech, he was cravenly using 9/11 to justify and promote his dumb war in Iran — two events separated by 25 years and 6,000 miles.
“And I will tell you, we’re right now fighting because we have a certain nation that wanted a nuclear weapon, they were very close to getting it, and now they have no chance at getting it. They will never have a nuclear weapon. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. And they’ve been punished greatly. As you know, we’ve really taken it to them.”
As a New Yorker who lived through 9/11, still one of the worst days of my life, I’m utterly sickened by Trump’s crass, political, and self-promotional framing of that awful day.
And I’m relieved he won’t be given a platform to do it again on Friday’s anniversary in lower Manhattan.
Because for Trump, everything is his for the taking, and absolutely nothing is sacred.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.