reu-2018-06-09 Pope Francis on energy-transition
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-oil-vatican-conference-pope/pope-tells-top-oil-executives-world-must-convert-to-clean-fuel-idUSKCN1J50BD?il=0
Pope tells top oil executives world must convert to clean fuel
Reuters Staff
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis, addressing top oil company
executives, said on Saturday that the world must convert to clean energy
and warned that climate change risked destroying humanity.
FILE PHOTO: Pope Francis attends a meeting with faithful of the diocese
of Rome at Saint John Lateran Basilica in Rome, Italy May 14, 2018.
REUTERS/Tony Gentile/File Photo
"Civilization requires energy but energy use must not destroy
civilization," he told the high-profile group at the end of a two-day
conference in the Vatican.
He said climate change was a challenge of "epochal proportions", adding
that the world needed to come up with an energy mix that combated
pollution, eliminated poverty and promoted social justice.
The unprecedented 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 and that global warming must be
curbed.
"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.
"But that energy should also be clean, by a reduction in the systematic
use of fossil fuels. 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.
Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Crispian Balmer