Francis made the appeal at a Vatican conference marking the third anniversary of his landmark environmental encyclical “Praise Be.” The document, meant to spur action at the 2015 Paris climate conference, called for a paradigm shift in humanity’s relationship with Mother Nature.
In his remarks, Francis urged governments to honor their Paris commitments and said institutions such as the IMF and World Bank had important roles to play in encouraging reforms promoting sustainable development.
“There is a real danger that we will leave future generations only rubble, deserts and refuse,” he warned.
The Paris accord, reached by 195 countries, seeks to avoid some of the worst effects of climate change by curbing global greenhouse gas emissions via individual, non-binding national plans. President Donald Trump has said the US will pull out of the accord negotiated by his predecessor unless he can get a better deal.
Friday’s conference was the latest in a series of Vatican initiatives meant to impress a sense of urgency about global warming and the threat it poses in particular to the world’s poorest and most marginalised people.
Recently, Francis invited oil executives and investors to the Vatican for a closed-door conference where he urged them to find alternatives to fossil fuels. He warned climate change was a challenge of “epochal proportions”.
Next year, Francis has called a three-week synod, or meeting of bishops, specifically to address the church’s response to the ecological crisis in the Amazon, where deforestation threatens what he has called the “lung” of the planet and the indigenous peoples who live there
On Friday, Francis also thanked aid groups that rescue and care for migrants and denounced the “sterile hypocrisy” of those who turn a blind eye to the world’s poor seeking security and a dignified life.
Francis celebrated a mass for migrants and those who care for them in St Peter’s Basilica, calling attention to their plight as Europe, the US and other countries increasingly closing their doors, ports and borders to them.
The intimate service marked the fifth anniversary of Francis’ landmark visit to Lampedusa, the Sicilian island that for years was the primary destination of migrants smuggled from Libya to Europe. During that trip, Francis’ first outside Rome after his 2013 election, he denounced the “globalisation of indifference” that the world showed migrants fleeing war, poverty and climate-induced natural disasters.
Speaking in his native Spanish, Francis thanked the representatives of aid groups in the pews for embodying the Good Samaritan “who stopped to save the life of the poor man beaten by bandits”.
“He didn’t ask where he was from, his reasons for travelling or his documents. he simply decided to care for him and save his life,” the pope said.
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