(Vatican Radio) The United Nations hosted a high-level meeting on climate change on Friday in New York, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon opened the event by saying Governments must accelerate their efforts to reach a universal climate agreement in France next December.
The President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Cardinal Peter Turkson, conveyed the greetings and encouragement of Pope Francis, and drew attention to the new Papal encyclical on ecology, Laudato si’.
Cardinal Turkson said the problem facing leaders and representatives of the world’s nations is the “urgent need to develop policies which will drastically reduce emission of carbon dioxide and other highly polluting gases.”
The full text of Cardinal Turkson’s address is below
Statement by His Eminence Cardinal Peter K.A. Turkson
President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace
High Level Event on Climate Change
New York, 29 June 2015
Your Excellencies President of the United Nations General Assembly and Secretary-General of the United Nations, distinguished Moderators and Speakers, Ladies and Gentlemen:
It is my great honour to convey Pope Francis’ greeting of affection and encouragement to this extraordinary gathering and to the nations and people whom you represent. May today’s “forthright and honest debate” (Laudato si’ 16) bear fruit in the important decisions which await the world community.
The 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro proclaimed that “human beings are at the centre of concerns for sustainable development”[1] (167). Over two decades later, Pope Francis’s Encyclical Letter Laudato si’ insists that the plight of “the poor and the fragility of the planet” are intimately related, and so encourages the world’s governments to embrace integral ecology as the necessary approach to such development, inclusive of all and protective of the earth.
Through its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations has availed itself of the best scientific research available. We need to allow such scientific conclusions to “touch us deeply” (15) so that we see and hear how the poor suffer and how the earth is being mistreated.
Allow me to state the argument as the Holy Father presents it in Laudato si’:
“Climate change is a global problem with grave implications: environmental, social, economic, political and for the distribution of goods. It represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day. Sadly, there is widespread indifference to such suffering, which is even now taking place throughout our world. Our lack of response to these tragedies involving our brothers and sisters points to the loss of that sense of responsibility for our fellow men and women upon which all civil society is founded” (25).
“The climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all…” (23) But “If present trends continue, this century may well witness extraordinary climate change and an unprecedented destruction of ecosystems, with serious consequences for all of us” (24). Prudence and precaution must prevail (186) and humanity is called to recognize the need for changes of lifestyle, production and consumption (23).
In Laudato si’, the Holy Father gives many examples, at different levels, of what can be done to “to reverse the trend of global warming” (168, 175) and “to reduce some of the negative impacts of climate change” (26).
Facing us all – as leaders and representatives of the world’s nations, as adults today and in the name of our children and their children – is the “urgent need to develop policies so that, in the next few years, the emission of carbon dioxide and other highly polluting gases can be drastically reduced” (26). “The use of highly polluting fossil fuels – especially coal, but also oil and, to a lesser degree, gas – needs to be progressively replaced without delay” with intelligent and widespread access to and use of renewable sources of energy, facilitating this energy transition (165).
Overcoming poverty and reducing environmental degradation will require the human community seriously to review the dominant model of development, production, commerce and consumption. Yet the single biggest challenge is not scientific or even technological, but rather within our minds and hearts. “The same mindset which stands in the way of making radical decisions to reverse the trend of global warming also stands in the way of achieving the goal of eliminating poverty. A more responsible overall approach is needed to deal with both problems: the reduction of pollution and the development of poorer countries and regions.” (175)
Such a courageous review and reform will take place only if we heed “the call to seek other ways of understanding the economy and progress” (16). The political dimension needs to re-establish democratic control over the economy and finance, that is, over the basic choices made by human societies. This, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the path we are on, the one which leads to Paris and beyond.
Thank you very much.
[1] Rio Declaration on the Environment and Development (14 June 1992), Principle 1.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) The United Nations hosted a high-level meeting on climate change on Friday in New York, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon opened the event by saying Governments must accelerate their efforts to reach a universal climate agreement in France next December. The President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Cardinal Peter Turkson,…
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(Vatican Radio) On the feast day of Saints Peter and Paul, Pope Francis urged 46 new metropolitan archbishops to hear the first apostles’ call to prayer, to faith and to witness. The Pope’s words came during his homily at Mass in St Peter’s Basilica which included several significant ecumenical initiatives, as Philippa Hitchen reports:
Listen:
Every year on June 29th, solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, a high level delegation from the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul travels to the Vatican to celebrate this great feast of the patron saints of the Church in Rome. Just as a Vatican delegation travels to Istanbul each November 30th to celebrate the feastday of St Andrew with the Orthodox Church of the East.
Pope Francis had special greetings to the Orthodox delegation, led by Metropolitan John Zizioulas, who was also present in the Vatican just 10 days ago for the presentation of the papal encyclical on the environment, ‘Laudato Si’’.
Meanwhile, providing inspirational music for the Mass on Monday were choristers of the Anglican choir of New College, Oxford, who joined forces with the regular Sistine Chapel Choir to underline the ecumenical nature of this important feast day.
In his homily Pope Francis spoke of the courage of the Apostles and of the first Christian community, persecuted by the rulers of their day, just as believers continue to be the victims of “atrocious, inhuman and incomprehensible persecutions” in many parts of the world today.
The Pope focused his words on three ways in which the new metropolitan archbishops are called to model their lives on those first apostles. Firstly, by being men of prayer, just as the first Christian community was a Church at prayer, supported, sustained and always “moving forward”. Prayer, the Pope said, is the encounter with God, who never lets us down or leaves us alone.
Secondly, Pope Francis said, the new archbishops must respond to the call to faith, believing that despite all the difficulties “the Church remains alive and fruitful”. And finally he urged the archbishops to be men of witness, following the examples of so many other Christian witnesses throughout the history of the Church. “There is no witness,” he reminded them, “without a coherent lifestyle!”
Whereas in past years, the popes have placed the symbolic pallium around the neck of each new metropolitan, this year Pope Francis simply blessed the bands of white wool, embroidered with black, silk crosses. Each pallium will later be presented to the archbishops by the nuncio in their own country, in a ceremony underlining the importance of the local Churches and the synodality of all bishops, under the guidance of the successor of Saint Peter.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) On the feast day of Saints Peter and Paul, Pope Francis urged 46 new metropolitan archbishops to hear the first apostles’ call to prayer, to faith and to witness. The Pope’s words came during his homily at Mass in St Peter’s Basilica which included several significant ecumenical initiatives, as Philippa Hitchen reports: Listen: …
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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Monday asked prayers for his upcoming voyage to Ecuador, Bolivia, and Paraguay, scheduled for the coming 5 th to the 13 th of July. In remarks to the gathered faithful in St. Peter’s Square following the Angelus prayer after Mass to mark the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, patrons of the city of Rome, the Holy Father said, “I ask you all to accompany me with prayer, that the Lord will bless my journey on the continent of Latin America so dear to me, as you can imagine.”
Pope Francis went on to say, “I express to the dear peoples of Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay my joy at being in their homelands, and I ask you, in a particular way, to pray for me and for this trip, that the Virgin Mary might give us the gift of accompanying all of us with her maternal protection.”
(from Vatican Radio)…