Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment provides a massive mobilising boost for efforts to reach a UN deal on climate change this year, green campaigners said today.
They hailed the 184-page document, “Laudato Si” as a milestone.
For many Catholics, they predicted, it could transform climate from a remote environmental problem into a pressing moral issue demanding action.
Its impact could be far-reaching in the effort to conclude a UN accord on curbing greenhouse-gases, due less than six months from now.
“The Pope’s message can only help strengthen the momentum toward an agreement in Paris,” said Elliot Diringer, executive vice president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES), a US thinktank.
“(He) is injecting a powerful moral voice into a debate usually mired in science, politics and economics.
“He speaks to our collective conscience, and while he’s unlikely to win over many skeptics, he’s educating countless others about the stakes and the urgency.”
Andrew Steer, head of another US thinktank, the World Resources Institute (WRI), pointed to the spiritual authority and mobilising clout of the Catholic church.
“It will speak not only to the 5,000 Catholic bishops nor only to the 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide, but to all people of goodwill who are open to the moral context of climate change,” he said.
The long-awaited encyclical named climate change as “one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day.”
“If present trends continue, this century may well witness extraordinary climate change and an unprecedented destruction of ecosystems, with serious consequences for all of us,” it warned.
It pounded out the message of inequality, saying poor countries that have least to blame for rising seas, worsening drought and flood will feel its impacts worst, and needed the help of rich economies.
Apportioning responsibility for tackling climate change is one of the thorniest and most complex issues in the troubled UN talks.
Rich countries admit they bear historical blame for emitting most of the greenhouse gases behind today’s warming.
But they argue tomorrow’s warming will come from emerging giants like China and India, which are voraciously burning oil, gas and coal.
These countries retort they are still fighting to rise out of poverty and, for now, still need cheap fossil fuels.