Source : NEW INDIAN EXPRESS NEWS
– ‘A moral compass’ –
“In the climate debate, he has always been with the poor, with indigenous people,” said Oscar Soria, an Argentine activist who has taken part in climate talks.
“He was also an Amazonian pope, a pope for the forests, for the oceans,” added Soria.
Even before becoming pope, Francis raised climate themes at a 2007 conference of Latin American bishops, Soria said.
A few months after Francis’s “Laudato Si” document, the Paris climate accord on seeking to limit the global temperature rise to two degrees Celsius was adopted at the COP21 talks. Soria said the pope had an influence.
Francis was “a pope that supported different environmental causes when these causes needed a powerful voice,” said Soria.
“He has been a moral compass in the negotiations always since 2015 onwards, he’s always been practising quiet diplomacy,” said the activist.
“In moments where we were almost about to lose consensus in the climate agreement, he made all the different calls necessary to protect the Paris Agreement.”
– Critical of climate sceptics –
Laurence Tubiana, one of the architects of the Paris accord, said that “Laudato Si” had “inspired” a new generation of Christian climate activists. The encyclical clearly stated that human action had brought the world to the “point of rupture”.
The encyclical set off a global debate that religious texts have rarely achieved in recent times. His moral message slammed consumerism, individualism and the reckless pursuit of economic growth that ignored the planet’s plight.
His apostolic exhortation to the faithful, “Laudate Deum”, came out just before the COP28 talks in Dubai.
He called on Catholics to divert investment away from fossil fuel and for the Vatican to pursue carbon neutrality.
Francis attacked climate sceptics — “certain dismissive and scarcely reasonable opinions that I encounter, even within the Catholic Church”.
Poor health prevented Francis from going to Dubai, but on a trip to Indonesia in September 2024 he again raised the “environmental crisis”.
“He created not just a movement but a spirituality and a sensitivity towards the earth, towards the most vulnerable.”
SOURCE :- NEW INDIAN EXPRESS
