Pope Francis implicitly criticised the United States on Monday for
pulling out of the Paris agreement on climate change, praising it as a
means to control the devastating effects of global warming.
The United States is the only country out of 195 signatories to
have withdrawn from the accord, which aims to cut emissions blamed for
the rise in temperatures.
U.S. President Donald Trump announced the decision in June shortly
after visiting the pope, a strong supporter of the deal. At the time a
Vatican official said the move was a “slap in the face” for the pope and the Vatican.
“We see consequences of climate change every day,” the pope said in an address to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) at its headquarters in Rome.
“Thanks to scientific knowledge, we know how we have to
confront the problem and the international community has also worked out
the legal methods, such as the Paris Accord, which sadly, some have
abandoned,” he said.
Under the deal, United States had committed to reducing its own
emissions by 26 to 28 percent, compared with 2005 levels, by 2025. Many
world leaders have criticised Trump for deciding to pull out.
In his Spanish-language address to the U.N. agency, Francis denounced “negligence
toward the delicate equilibriums of the ecosystems, the presumption of
manipulating and controlling the limited resources of the planet, and
the greed for profit.”
Agriculture ministers and diplomats from the Group of Seven (G7)
world power nations attended the gathering, which marked FAO’s World
Food Day.
“We can’t be satisfied by saying ‘someone else will do it,'” the pope said.
Ending local conflicts and curbing the effects of climate change were two of the “prerequisites” for dealing with world food security, Francis also said.
“The yoke of poverty caused by the often tragic movement of
migrants can be removed by prevention, consisting of development
projects that create jobs and offer the capacity to respond to climactic
and environmental changes,” he said.
- tori
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