Holy See joining UN climate change convention, Paris Agreement

We need a genuine conversion and a decisive will to set out

The Holy See, in the name and on behalf of Vatican City State, is joining the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and when possible, the Paris Agreement.

With this decision, the Holy See “intends to contribute and to give its moral support” to States’ efforts to respond to “the challenges posed by climate change to humanity and to our common home.”

In an announcement from the Vatican press office, these challenges are specified as having relevance, “not only environmental, but also ethical, social, economic and political.”

As has often been repeated by the Pope, the Vatican statement stresses that those most affected are the “poorest and most fragile.”

The Holy See recalls Pope Francis’ urgent call

“for a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet. We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all” (Encyclical Letter Laudato si’ on care for our common home, § 14).

The statement says that Holy See is hoping these two documents would help promote agreement about the:

“urgent need for a change of direction, a decisive resolve to pass from the ‘throwaway culture’ prevalent in our societies to a ‘culture of care’ for our common home and its inhabitants, now and in the future […]
Humanity possesses the wherewithal to effect this change, which calls for a genuine conversion, individual as well as communitarian, and a decisive will to set out on this path … (Pope Francis Message to UNFCC’s COP26, 29 October 2021).