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Messaggio del Santo Padre ai partecipanti alla Conferenza sul Clima delle Nazioni Unite a Madrid (2–13 dicembre 2019) / Message of the Holy Father to the participants in the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Madrid (2–13 December 2019)

Messaggio del Santo Padre ai partecipanti alla Conferenza sul Clima delle Nazioni Unite a Madrid (2–13 dicembre 2019) / Message of the Holy Father to the participants in the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Madrid (2–13 December 2019)

Mes­sag­gio del San­to Padre

To Her Excel­len­cy, Mrs. Car­oli­na Schmidt,
Min­is­ter of Envi­ron­ment of Chile,
Pres­i­dent of the COP25, Twen­ty-Fifth Ses­sion of the Con­fer­ence of States Par­ties
to the Unit­ed Nations Frame­work Con­ven­tion on Cli­mate Change
(Madrid, 2–13 Decem­ber 2019)

On Decem­ber 12, 2015, the COP 21 adopt­ed the Paris Agree­ment, the imple­men­ta­tion of which “will require con­cert­ed com­mit­ment and gen­er­ous ded­i­ca­tion by each one”.[1]

Its rapid entry into force, in less than a year, and the numer­ous meet­ings and debates aimed at reflect­ing on one of the main chal­lenges for human­i­ty,[2] that of cli­mate change, and at iden­ti­fy­ing the best ways to imple­ment the Paris Agree­ment, showed a grow­ing aware­ness on the part of the var­i­ous actors of the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty of the impor­tance and need to “work togeth­er in build­ing our com­mon home”.[3]

Sad­ly, after four years, we must admit that this aware­ness is still rather weak, unable to respond ade­quate­ly to that strong sense of urgency for rapid action called for by the sci­en­tif­ic data at our dis­pos­al, such as those described by the recent Spe­cial Reports of the Inter­gov­ern­men­tal Pan­el on Cli­mate Change (IPCC).[4] These stud­ies show that the cur­rent com­mit­ments made by States to mit­i­gate and adapt to cli­mate change are far from those actu­al­ly need­ed to achieve the goals set by the Paris Agreement.

They demon­strate how far words are from con­crete actions!

Present­ly, there is a grow­ing agree­ment on the need to pro­mote process­es of tran­si­tion as well as a trans­for­ma­tion of our devel­op­ment mod­el, to encour­age sol­i­dar­i­ty and to rein­force the strong links between the fight against cli­mate change and pover­ty. This is fur­ther demon­strat­ed by the many ini­tia­tives imple­ment­ed or in progress, not only by Gov­ern­ments but also by local com­mu­ni­ties, the pri­vate sec­tor, civ­il soci­ety and indi­vid­u­als. There remains, how­ev­er, much con­cern about the abil­i­ty of such process­es to respect the time­line required by sci­ence, as well as the dis­tri­b­u­tion of the costs they require.

From this per­spec­tive, we must seri­ous­ly ask our­selves if there is the polit­i­cal will to allo­cate with hon­esty, respon­si­bil­i­ty and courage, more human, finan­cial and tech­no­log­i­cal resources to mit­i­gate the neg­a­tive effects of cli­mate change, as well as to help the poor­est and most vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions who suf­fer from them the most.[5]

Numer­ous stud­ies tell us that it is still pos­si­ble to lim­it glob­al warm­ing. To do this we need a clear, far-sight­ed and strong polit­i­cal will, set on pur­su­ing a new course that aims at refo­cus­ing finan­cial and eco­nom­ic invest­ments toward those areas that tru­ly safe­guard the con­di­tions of a life wor­thy of human­i­ty on a “healthy” plan­et for today and tomorrow.

All this calls us to reflect con­sci­en­tious­ly on the sig­nif­i­cance of our con­sump­tion and pro­duc­tion mod­els and on the process­es of edu­ca­tion and aware­ness to make them con­sis­tent with human dignity.

We are fac­ing a “chal­lenge of civ­i­liza­tion” in favour of the com­mon good and of a change of per­spec­tive that places this same dig­ni­ty at the cen­tre of our action, which is clear­ly expressed in the “human face” of cli­mate emer­gen­cies. There remains a win­dow of oppor­tu­ni­ty, but we must not allow it to close. We need to take advan­tage of this occa­sion through our respon­si­ble actions in the eco­nom­ic, tech­no­log­i­cal, social and edu­ca­tion­al fields, know­ing very well how our actions are interdependent.

Young peo­ple today show a height­ened sen­si­tiv­i­ty to the com­plex prob­lems that arise from this “emer­gency”. We must not place the bur­den on the next gen­er­a­tions to take on the prob­lems caused by the pre­vi­ous ones. Instead, we should give them the oppor­tu­ni­ty to remem­ber our gen­er­a­tion as the one that renewed and act­ed on — with hon­est, respon­si­ble and coura­geous aware­ness — the fun­da­men­tal need to col­lab­o­rate in order to pre­serve and cul­ti­vate our com­mon home. May we offer the next gen­er­a­tion con­crete rea­sons to hope and work for a good and dig­ni­fied future! I hope that this spir­it will ani­mate the work of COP25, for which I wish every success.

Receive, Madam Pres­i­dent, my warmest and most cor­dial greetings.

From the Vat­i­can, 1 Decem­ber 2019

FRANCIS

_____________________

[1] Words fol­low­ing the Angelus Address, 13 Decem­ber 2015.
[2]
Cfr. Lauda­to si’, n. 25.
[3]
Cfr. Lauda­to si’, n. 13. Cfr. Mes­sage to the COP 23, Mar­rakesh, 10 Novem­ber 2016.
[4]
Cfr. IPCC: Sum­ma­ry for Pol­i­cy­mak­ers of the Spe­cial Report on the impacts of glob­al warm­ing of 1.5°C above pre-indus­tri­al lev­els and relat­ed glob­al green­house gas emis­sion path­ways, in the con­text of strength­en­ing the glob­al response to the threat of cli­mate change, sus­tain­able devel­op­ment, and efforts to erad­i­cate pover­ty, 6 Octo­ber 2018. IPCC: Sum­ma­ry for Pol­i­cy­mak­ers of the Spe­cial Report on Cli­mate Change, Deser­ti­fi­ca­tion, Land Degra­da­tion, Sus­tain­able Land Man­age­ment, Food Secu­ri­ty, and Green­house Gas Flux­es in Ter­res­tri­al Ecosys­tems, 7 August 2019; IPCC: Sum­ma­ry for Pol­i­cy­mak­ers of the Spe­cial Report on The Ocean and Cryos­phere in a Chang­ing Cli­mate, 24 Sep­tem­ber 2019.
[5]
Cfr. Pope Fran­cis, Video Mes­sage to the Cli­mate Actions Sum­mit, New York, 23 Sep­tem­ber 2019.

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