Bishops urge ban on fossil fuels

Catholic bishops from across the world have come together to call for an end to fossil fuel use, and increased efforts to secure a global climate treaty. The statement issued from the 20th UN Climate Change Conference (COP20) in Lima, Peru, on 10 December was the first time that bishops from every continent shared their thoughts on climate change in one document. The bishops said they want a “deepening of the discourse at the COP20 in Lima, to ensure concrete decisions are taken at COP21 [in Paris next year] to overcome the climate challenge and to set us on new sustainable pathways”.

The Archbishop of Ayacucho,  Salvador Piñeiro García-Calderón, who is president of the Peruvian Bishops’ Conference, said in Lima: “We bishops from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe have engaged in intense dialogue on the issue of climate change, because we can see it’s the poorest people who are impacted the most, despite the fact they’ve contributed the least to causing it. They’re the ones who respect the planet, the Earth, the soil, the water and the rainforests.”

“Lima is a milestone on the way to Paris,” he said, “and Paris has to deliver a binding agreement.”

The bishops said nations should aim to keep the rise in global temperatures below 1.5°C – a harder position than that of many campaigners, who say that 2°C represents the threshold for dangerous climate change.

Pope Francis also sent a statement to the meeting in Peru. “The time to find global solutions is running out,” he wrote to Peru’s Minister of the Environment who hosted the conference. “We can find solutions only if we act together and agree.” The Pope stressed that the issues being discussed affect all humanity, especially the poor and future generations.

Rob Elsworth, climate policy analyst at the aid agency Cafod, who worked alongside the ­bishops in Lima, said: “You could tell the significant impact the bishops’ statement had in the climate change talks by how much delegates at the conference were discussing it and how people were very keen to talk about the Catholic Church’s wider response to climate change.” However, Mr Elsworth said, the Lima agreement “still leaves a huge amount of work to be done before Paris”.

Pope Francis is expected to issue a papal encyclical on the environment next year.
(Read Rob Elsworth’s blog at www.thetablet.co.uk)