By
Reuters
June 9,
2018 | 11:50am
Pope
Francis AP
VATICAN
CITY – Pope Francis warned that climate change risked destroying humanity on
Saturday and called on energy leaders to help the world to convert to clean
fuels to avert catastrophe.
“Civilization
requires energy but energy use must not destroy civilization,” the pope told
top oil company executives at the end of a two-day conference in the Vatican.
Climate
change was a challenge of “epochal proportions”, he said, adding that the world
needed an energy mix that combated pollution, eliminated poverty and promoted
social justice.
The
conference, held behind closed doors at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences,
brought together oil executives, investors and Vatican experts who, like the
pope, back scientific opinion that climate change is caused by human activity.
“We
know that the challenges facing us are interconnected. If we are to eliminate
poverty and hunger … the more than one billion people without electricity today
need to gain access to it,” the pope told them.
“Our
desire to ensure energy for all must not lead to the undesired effect of a
spiral of extreme climate changes due to a catastrophic rise in global
temperatures, harsher environments and increased levels of poverty,” he said.
The
oil and gas industry has come under growing pressure from investors and activists
to play a bigger role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions to meet goals set out in a 2015 climate agreement signed
in Paris.
Companies
are betting on increased demand for gas, the least polluting fossil fuel, and
to a lesser extent on renewable power such as wind and solar to meet global
targets of net zero emissions by the end of the century.
Among
the some 50 participants were Darren Woods, CEO of ExxonMobil, Claudio
Descalzi, head of Italy’s ENI, Bob Dudley of BP, Eldar Saetre, CEO of Norwegian
oil firm Equinor (formerly called Statoil), Vicki Hollub of Occidental
Petroleum, and investors including Larry Fink of BlackRock.
Francis,
who wrote a major document called “Laudato Si” (Praised Be) on protecting the environment from global warming
in 2015, said it was “worrying” that there still was a continuing
search for new fossil fuel reserves.
He
said the transition to accessible and clean energy was “a duty that we owe
towards millions of our brothers and sisters around the world, poorer countries
and generations yet to come”.
The
pope also called for a global, long-term common project:
“Environmental
and energy problems now have a global impact and extent,” he said.
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"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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