Pope denounces 'terrible world war' against environment, climate injustice

Pope Francis has denounced a "terrible world war" against the environment, exhorting the people to take the side of the "victims of environmental and climatic injustice".

The head of the Catholic church will also release an update to his landmark 2015 environmental encyclical on October 4, the feast of his nature-loving namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, the Pope announced.

Francis said the document will be a follow-up to his landmark 2015 encyclical "Laudato Si" (Praised Be), in which Francis cast care for the environment in stark moral terms, calling for a bold cultural revolution to correct what he said was a “structurally perverse” economic system in which the rich exploited the poor, turning Earth into a pile of “filth” in the process.

An encyclical is the highest form of papal writing.

Calling nature a "sacred gift from the creator," the pope also called for an end to "the senseless war on our common home, it is a terrible world war".

Citing the deforestation of the Amazon, the melting of Arctic glaciers and the deaths of coral reefs, Francis rebuked “obstructionist” climate doubters and accused politicians of listening more to oil industry interests than Scripture, common sense or the cries of the poor.

The encyclical has inspired ecological movements around the world, been cited by presidents and patriarchs, and in many ways has formed the bedrock of Francis' 10-year papacy, which has prioritised the poor and marginalised.