ROME — Pope Francis took advantage of his visit to Bahrain Thursday to tout an upcoming United Nations climate conference in Egypt.
“How many trees are cut down, how many ecosystems are devastated, how many seas are polluted by our insatiable human greed, which then comes back to bite us!” the pontiff exclaimed in an address Thursday to Bahrain’s authorities and diplomats.
“Let us work tirelessly in confronting this dramatic emergency and enact concrete and farsighted decisions inspired by concern for coming generations, before it is too late and their future is compromised!” he exhorted.
“May the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27), to take place in Egypt a few days from now, mark a step forward in this regard!” he urged, in reference to the climate change summit to be held from November 6 to 18, 2022 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.
The pope has been an outspoken supporter of the series of U.N. climate conferences and their goal of reducing carbon emissions by phasing out fossil fuels.
Grand Imam of al-Azhar mosque Sheikh Ahmed Al-Tayeb (L), Pope Francis (C), and Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa (R), arrive for a meeting at Sakhir Royal Palace in the eponymous Bahraini city, on November 4, 2022. (MARCO BERTORELLO/AFP via Getty)
This past July, Francis Pope Francis urged greater efforts to combat climate change and also instructed the Holy See to sign onto the 2015 Paris Climate Accord, which it subsequently did.
Humanity must combat climate change by reducing emissions as well as by “assisting and enabling people to adapt to progressively worsening changes to the climate,” he stated in a message to participants in a conference on “Climate Stress.”
Climate change “has become an emergency that no longer remains at the margins of society,” he asserted. “Instead, it has assumed a central place, reshaping not only industrial and agricultural systems but also adversely affecting the global human family, especially the poor and those living on the economic peripheries of our world.”
The following month, Francis called for prayers “that the UN COP27 and COP15 summits may unite the human family in decisively addressing the twin crises of climate and biodiversity loss.”
“At the mercy of our consumerist excesses, our sister Mother Earth groans and begs us to stop our abuse and her destruction,” he said.
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