In a 7,000-word Apostolic Exhortation, Pope Francis urges world politicians to speed up the transition to renewable energy ahead of the COP28 climate conference in Dubai next month. The document, Laudate Deum (Praise God) follows his encyclical on the environment from 2015, titled Laudato Si (Praise Be).
Pope Francis said Earth “may be nearing the breaking point” based on scientific facts and human factors contributing to climate change can no longer be ignored.
“With the passage of time, I have realized that our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing,” Pope Francis wrote in Laudate Deum.
He also warned against “investing too much trust in carbon capture technology” because “it did not address the root human causes of global warming,” EcoWatch reported.
“Some effects of the climate crisis are already irreversible, at least for several hundred years, such as the increase in the global temperature of the oceans, their acidification and the decrease of oxygen,” Pope Francis wrote.
He called the speed of climate change is happening to the world in “one generation — not centuries or millennia” and therefore, called on businesses and “certain countries” to end short-tern interested because climate change can no longer be denied.
Pope Francis also said environmentalists and activist groups are “filling a space left empty by society as a whole.”
“If we are confident in the capacity of human beings to transcend their petty interests and to think in bigger terms, we can keep hoping that COP28 will allow for a decisive acceleration of energy transition, with effective commitments subject to ongoing monitoring,” Pope Francis wrote.
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