VATICAN CITY (CNS): “The Holy Father has an enormous ability to convene people, to help generate energy” on climate change, John Kerry, the US special envoy for climate issues, told reporters following a private meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican June 19.
Kerry is counting on the pope’s support to get nations attending this November’s UN climate summit in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, to adopt bold measures to mitigate climate change
“My hope is that he is going to engage and be one of the people focused on this moment, which I think is almost equivalent to Paris,” he said, referring to the landmark 2015 UN climate summit in which 196 parties agreed to limit global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
The United States withdrew from the agreement in 2017 before rejoining it in 2021.
Kerry said Pope Francis has “remarkable leverage” in drawing attention to climate change and that the pope has “constantly been an outspoken and engaged advocate” on climate issues.
He recalled a meeting of nearly 40 leaders of the world’s major religions as well as top scientists at the Vatican in 2021 to call on world leaders to take seriously their obligation to curb emissions trends at that year’s UN climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland.
“I think it might be helpful to try to rekindle some of those embers and start to generate the focus now” before the summit Kerry said.
Meeting Pope Francis on the same day Antony Blinken, US secretary of state, met with China’s president, Xi Jinping, Kerry said he and the pope spoke about the United States and China’s roles in global emissions production. He said they discussed the responsibilities of both nations to take steps forward in reducing their carbon footprint.
Kerry said he also “chatted” with the pope about the war in Ukraine, though it was not the focus of their conversation, and said that the pope articulated “the degree to which [the war] is disturbing the ability to focus on other things at the same time,” such as the climate crisis.
Kerry said caring for the environment “goes to the heart of morality, of individual responsibility for your neighbours and for mother Earth.”
He cited the influence of Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si’, On Care for Our Common Home, in defining life in relationship to God, to neighbour and to the earth.
“Being Catholic involves finding ways to live that out, in my judgment,” Kerry said, calling skepticism before issues of climate change on the part of Catholics “a mistake.”
