“Climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic have exposed our deep vulnerability,” Pope Francis said, as he offered the “Thought for the Day” for BBC on October 29.

The papal address was centered on the UN climate-change conference that is opening in Glasgow. He said that the degradation of the environment poses “an immense cultural challenge,” and calls for a new perspective and new priorities. The UN conference, he said, has been “urgently summoned to provide effective responses to the present ecological crisis and in this way to offer concrete hope to future generations.”