Pope urges int. community to act in combating climate change

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Tuesday urged the international community to act without delay in combating climate change.

In a message to participants of the COP22 Climate Change meeting taking place in the Moroccan city of Marrakech, the Pope pointed out that all parties and stakeholders have a “serious ethical and moral responsibility to take action and implement last year’s Paris climate-change agreement.

Listen to the report by Linda Bordoni:

“The current situation of environmental degradation – Pope Francis said – which is strongly connected to the human, ethical and social degradation that we unfortunately experience daily, challenges us all, each of us with our own roles and competencies, and brings us together here with a renewed sense of awareness and responsibility”. 

Participants at the so-called COP22 Conference are being called to take the next step in the implementation of the Paris Agreement which saw world leaders pledge to make good on their promises for climate action and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

The Pope said that agreement represents “a significant acknowledgement of the fact that, when confronted with issues so complex as climate change, the individual and/or national action is no longer sufficient, but there is a need to implement a responsible collective response truly aimed at achieving ‘cooperation to build our common home”. 

He said we can and must direct our intelligence to guide technology, as well as to develop and limit our power, placing them ‘at the service of another type of progress, one that is more healthy, more human, more social and more integral’, and capable of placing the economy at the service of the human person, of building peace and justice, and of safeguarding the environment”.

Pope Francis said that the Paris Agreement has traced a clear path along which the whole international community is called to commit itself, and that the COP22 represents a central stage in this path, which has an impact on all of humanity, particularly the poorest and future generations who are the most vulnerable to the worrisome impact of climate change, and reminds us of the serious ethical and moral responsibility we have to act promptly, in a way as free as possible from political and economic pressures, going beyond personal interests and behaviours”.