Cardinal Pietro Parolin has told world leaders in Egypt for the United Nations climate summit that they have a “a moral obligation” to safeguard the planet and to offer aid to people suffering the “humanitarian impacts caused by climate change”. Source: CNS.
The Vatican secretary of state led the Holy See’s official delegation to COP27, the 27th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh, on November 6–18.
The cardinal told world leaders yesterday that “the growing phenomenon of migrants being displaced” by climate change is something they must act on because “they lack access to international protection” recognising them as deserving special care.
And, he said, if it is not possible to give them special status as refugees, “it is important to recognise migration as a form of adaptation and to increase the availability and flexibility of pathways for regular migration”.
The time has come for “individual and collective conversion and for concrete decisions that can no longer be postponed”, Cardinal Parolin said.
While the pandemic and wars rightfully concern global leaders because of “their serious ethical, social and economic consequences” and the risk they pose to global security and to food security, he said, they cannot be allowed to overshadow the work of COP27.
“Climate change will not wait for us,” he said. “Our world is now far too interdependent and cannot permit itself to be structured into unsustainable isolated blocks of countries. This is a time for international and intergenerational solidarity. We need to be responsible, courageous and forward-looking not just for ourselves, but for our children.”
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Cardinal tells leaders at COP27 they have duty to act on climate change (CNS)
