Vatican joins Paris Climate Agreement

The Holy See wants to become more ecological. “At this particular moment in our history, marked by increasingly worrying conflicts, which jeopardise multilateralism, it is necessary to consolidate our efforts in favour of integral ecology. An issue, like climate change, risks being overshadowed”, said Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin. At the meeting, foreign ministers and UN representatives were present. This reports Vatican News.

Cardinal Michael Czerny, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, stressed the need for a lifestyle change. “The global situation is more desperate than it was seven years ago. Despite the Paris Agreement, the goal of limiting the temperature increase to only 1.5 °C is practically unattainable; the planet is already 1.2 °C warmer. Yet many new fossil fuel projects are being launched recklessly.”

Signing the Paris Climate Agreement also means that the Vatican has to dedicate itself to certain targets. For example, the governmental organisations within the Vatican State need to reduce emissions to zero in 2050. According to Cardinal Fernando Vérgez Alzaga, President of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State, the Vatican City State is planning “numerous environmental projects”.

As CNE reported earlier, the Vatican is working on making the world’s largest cathedral, the Saint Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, climate neutral by 2025. To make the transition to a building that does not emit carbon at all, the Vatican appointed a former environment activist, Walter Ganapini.