AFP

One of the Catholic Church's most senior prelates, Ghanaian Peter Turkson, has said that birth control could "offer a solution" to the impacts of climate change.

Cardinal Turkson, the Pope's leading adviser on climate issues, told the BBC that the Church had never been against natural family planning.

Speaking in Paris, the cardinal called for a strong agreement that would protect the most vulnerable nations.

He said climate change was a looming ecological disaster.

Cardinal Turkson is believed to have played a significant role in the drafting of "Laudato Si", the Pope's encyclical on climate change.

In a wide-ranging interview with the BBC, Cardinal Turkson suggested that birth control could help alleviate some of the impacts of climate change, particularly the lack of food in a warmer world.

"This has been talked about, and the Holy Father on his trip back from the Philippines also invited people to some form of birth control, because the church has never been against birth control and people spacing out births and all of that. So yes, it can offer a solution," he said.

AFP

Cardinal Turkson was at pains to stress that artificial birth control methods such as the contraceptive pill were still beyond the pale as far as the Church was concerned.

"You don't deal with one good with another evil: the Church wants people to be fed, so let's do what the Church feels is not right? That is a kind of sophistry that the church would not go for," he said.