At Vatican conference, world mayors urge action on climate change

Source: Reuters

Mayors and governors from major world cities on Tuesday will urge global leaders to take bold action at this year's U.N. climate change summit, saying it may be the last chance to tackle human-induced global warming. Pope Francis has invited some 65 local and regional leaders to attend a two-day conference on how cities can address what the Vatican calls the "interconnected emergencies" of climate change and human trafficking.

It is the Vatican's latest attempt to influence a United Nations summit in Paris in December aiming for a global deal to combat climate change after past failures. The pope issued an encyclical in April demanding swift action to save the planet from environmental ruin and urging world leaders to hear "the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor".

Mayors from South America, Africa, the United States, Europe and Asia will later on Tuesday sign a declaration stating that the Paris summit "may be the last effective opportunity to negotiate arrangements that keep human-induced warming below 2 degrees centigrade." Leaders should come to a "bold agreement that confines global warming to a limit safe for humanity while protecting the poor and the vulnerable...," says the declaration, a copy of which was seen by Reuters.

High-income countries should help finance the cost of climate change mitigation in low-income countries, it says. In a direct rejection of so-called climate change deniers, the declaration says: "Human-induced climate change is a scientific reality, and its effective control is a moral imperative for humanity."

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/21/us-climatechange-summit-vatican-idUSKCN0PV18A20150721

---

Pope Francis convenes world's mayors to discuss global warming

[img][/img]

Anyone who thought that Pope Francis was going to issue his climate change manifesto, and then recede quietly into the background on the issue was sorely mistaken.

In fact, judging from his agenda this week, it's clear that Francis intends to be a major player in spurring leaders to combat global warming, which he sees as inextricably linked to efforts to lift the plight of the world's poor.

snip...

Rodrigo Rosa, Paes' climate change adviser, told Mashable in an interview that Francis recognizes that while the international community has largely failed to take ambitious action on climate change, cities have stepped into the void. “We’re going beyond the climate talk and actually doing climate action,” Rosa said. “He sees that; he understands that.”

Rosa added that the pope is approaching climate change from a different perspective than any other prominent world figure, which he sees as beneficial. “It really touches the ethical reasons behind the economic development system around the world,” he said of Francis' encyclical.

http://mashable.com/2015/07/19/pope-francis-climate-meeting