By Hannah Brockhaus
Vatican City – Thursday, November 14, 2024, 11:00 a.m.
Referring to the concept of “climate finance,” Pope Francis said in a message to the U.N. climate summit on Wednesday that both ecological debt and foreign debt affect a nation’s future. Francis warned that both types of debt are “a mortgage on the future” of nations.
“Effort should be made to find solutions that do not further undermine the ability to develop and adapt to many countries already burdened with crippling economic debt,” the pope’s message said.
A “new collective quantified climate finance target” is one of the objectives of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29), taking place in Baku, Azerbaijan, from November 11 to 22.
The term climate finance refers to local, national or transnational finance that supports measures to mitigate climate change.
Cardinal Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who represents the Holy See at the conference, read the pope’s message to the congregation on November 13.
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In the message, Francis said that today there is great indifference to environmental problems: “We cannot wash our hands in innocence, with distance, with negligence, with disinterest. This is the real challenge of our century.” He emphasized that indifference is “an accomplice of injustice.”
The UN Climate Change Conference has been held annually since 1995 to discuss the objectives of the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The Holy See acceded to this Framework Convention, as well as the 2015 Paris Agreement, in 2022.
Pope Francis said the Holy See continues to support the efforts of COP29, particularly in the area of integral ecology education and in raising awareness of the environmental problem as a human and social problem.
“It is important to strive for a new international financial architecture that is people-centered, bold and creative, and based on the principles of equality, justice and solidarity,” said the pontiff. “A new international financial architecture that can secure for all countries, especially the poorest and those most vulnerable to climate disasters, both low-carbon and solidarity-based development pathways that enable all to reach their full potential and respect their dignity.”
Translated and edited from the original by Catholic News Agency (CNA), the English-speaking partner agency of CNA Deutsch.
