He Pope Francisco announced this Wednesday that At the beginning of December he will attend the climate summit (COP28) from Dubai, weeks after warning that time is running out to act against global warming.
This will be the first time that a head of the Catholic Church participates in person at a COP summit, an event that has been held annually since 1995.
“I’m going to Dubai. I think I’m leaving on December 1st, until the 3rd. I will be there for three days“said the Argentine Pontiff, 86, in an interview with Italian television Rai 1.
Since his election in 2013, the pope has made the defense of the environment a central theme of his pontificate.
In 2015, he dedicated his encyclical “Laudato si” (Praise You) to that issue, a 200-page manifesto in favor of a “integral ecology”.
Climate urgency
Last month, he published an assessment of the path taken since then, entitled “Laudate Deum” (Praise God), in which he urges the planet’s leaders to sign “binding” agreements in the face of climate urgency and warns that some damage is ” irreversible”.
“Laudato Si”, of almost 200 pages, was addressed not only to the 1.3 billion Catholics in the world, but to the entire planet, launching a call for global solidarity to protect everyone’s “house.”
With that document, he expressed his firm support, and that of the Church, for science, which blames human behavior for climate change.
In “Laudate Deum”, he stated: “with the passage of time I realize that we don’t have enough reactions while the world that welcomes us is falling apart and perhaps approaching a breaking point.
But this Wednesday, he pointed out that COP28 could represent “a turn” if a binding agreement were reached on the transition from fossil energies to less polluting ones such as wind and solar.
If that commitment is not achieved, there will be “a great disappointment,” Francis said.
Losing hope, a “suicidal” act
On October 11, the Argentine Pope received the president of COP28, Sultan Al Jaber, who is also Minister of Industry and head of the United Arab Emirates oil company, ADNOC, at the Vatican. The appointment of Al Jaber as president of COP28 was highly criticized by environmental activists.
In his text last month, Pope Francis alluded to these concerns, considering that although The United Arab Emirates is a “large exporter of fossil fuels”also made “significant investments in renewable energy.”
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“To say that there is nothing to wait for would be a suicidal act, because it would mean exposing all of humanity, especially the poorest, to the worst impacts of climate change,” he insisted.
This will be the 45th trip abroad of the Supreme Pontiff and the sixth this year. Weakened by his knee pain and the abdominal surgery he underwent in June, the pope moves around in a wheelchair.