The reasons for the deteriorating health of Pope Francis are named

Pope Francis cancels trip to climate summit in Dubai due to poor health. The Vatican says a “flu-like condition” will prevent the pontiff from making a historic visit to the summit, where he was expected to call for greater action to tackle the climate crisis.

Roman Catholic Church leader Pope Francis has canceled his upcoming trip to Dubai for the Cop28 climate talks on the advice of doctors concerned about his recent flu-like symptoms, the Vatican said.

The 86-year-old pope, who has made environmentalism a cornerstone of his 10-year papacy, was planning to become the first pontiff to attend a UN event since the process began in 1995, Agence France-Presse reported.

With Francis absent from the conference, which begins Thursday, Cop28 will lose a prominent environmentalist, a moral authority recognized on the world stage, whose words some say could spur leaders to take action, Agence France-Presse said.

On Saturday, the pope canceled events due to what the Vatican called “mild flu-like symptoms.” It said a CT scan had ruled out “the risk of pulmonary complications.” The pope was forced to recite the traditional Angelus prayer on Sunday from his residence rather than overlooking St. Peter’s Square.

On Tuesday, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a statement: “Although the Holy Father’s overall clinical picture has improved due to his flu-like condition and inflammation of the respiratory tract, doctors have asked the Pope not to make his planned trip to Dubai in the coming days. Pope Francis accepted the doctors’ request with great regret, and therefore the trip is cancelled.”

Matteo Bruni, who just hours earlier had told a briefing that the pope would be present, added that the pontiff would still like to take part in the discussions in Dubai, without specifying how.

Francis, who turns 87 next month, has suffered from a range of health problems in recent years, from knee and hip pain to colon inflammation, and most recently underwent surgery to remove a hernia in June.

But Bruni promised that the pope would hold his weekly audience on Wednesday morning as planned.

The leader of 1.3 billion Catholics, more than half of whom live in developing countries, Francis has long insisted on the link between the climate crisis and poverty, with the world’s most marginalized people paying the highest price for global heating.

In Dubai, the pope was expected to use the platform to condemn countries for inaction on the climate crisis and try to persuade them to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

It was also expected to play a role in restoring trust between countries vulnerable to climate change and wealthy polluters driven by consumerism.

Francis’ address to world leaders at the summit was to come just weeks after he issued a text in October warning that the world was “collapsing” and nearing a “tipping point” due to global warming.

The warning, which expressed frustration at governments’ inadequate response to the climate crisis, followed up his seminal 2015 environmental dissertation Laudato Si (Praise be to You), a passionate critique of man-made climate change and its impacts around the world that drew on science.

This is credited with helping to achieve a breakthrough at UN climate talks in Paris a few months later, when countries pledged to limit warming to “well below” two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, preferably to the safer limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Francis wrote in October that the Cop28 talks could “mark a change of direction” if participants reached binding agreements to transition away from fossil fuels to clean energy sources such as wind and solar.

In addition to addressing world leaders, Francis was expected to open the summit’s first-ever faith pavilion in a sign of religion’s growing involvement in climate change.