Catholic bishops and cardinals from six continents said humankind has a moral and ethical obligation to protect the environment from climate change and urged climate negotiators to approve a transformational and legally binding global agreement that sets temperature-increase limits.
In a foreshadowing of inevitably difficult negotiations at the two-week Paris climate change conference that starts on Nov. 30, the Catholic Church did not insert a temperature threshold in its document. Scientists at the International Panel on Climate Change agree that potentially catastrophic climate change could be avoided only if global temperature increases are limited to two degrees Celsuis over preindustrial levels.
The church’s plea came as environmental groups, universities and non-governmental organizations, including the World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace, Christian Aid and indigenous people’s groups, publish recommendations for a successful outcome at the Paris conference. The church’s effort might carry more weight than most because of Pope Francis’s popularity among Catholics and non-Catholics alike and his message that Earth is an Eden that must be protected, not conquered, by man.
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