According to Vatican Radio, the Pope on Sunday morning
prayed for the success of the UN climate summit in Paris.
Speaking to crowds in St
Peter’s Square he said he is following the talks closely.
He added he was reminded of
a question he asked in his recent encyclical, this morning saying: “What kind
of world do we want to pass on to those who come after us, to the children who
are growing up?”
The Pope also said:
"For the sake of the common home we share and for future generations,
every effort should be made in Paris to mitigate the impact of climate change
and, at the same time, to tackle poverty and to let human dignity flourish.”
According to Vatican Radio,
the Pope added: “Let us pray that the Holy Spirit will enlighten all who are
called to take such important decisions and give them the courage to do what is
best [for the] greater good of the whole human family.”
Reacting to the Pope’s intervention, Martin
Kaiser of Greenpeace said: “The Pope’s words are very
welcome indeed. He brings a powerful moral weight to this issue, and his
intervention will be felt in the halls of the conference centre. As we move
into the crucial final week, the Paris summit needs all the help it can get”.
The Pope has previously spoken on the need to phase-out
fossil fuels.
“But if we’re going to achieve that by 2050, as the
science says we must, then any deal in Paris needs to explicitly state it. This
conference is finely balanced, there’s no guarantee we’ll get a decent
agreement, and the opponents of progress will be plotting how to crash the
talks. It would be nice to think that the Pope’s words will give some of them
pause for thought,” noted Martin.
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