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Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Cardinal Parolin: when the future of the planet is at stake, there are no political frontiers, barriers and walls that can protect us from environmental and social degradation


Vatican City, 20 May 2015 (VIS) – Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin has sent a message to the participants in the conference “The New Climate Economy: how economic growth and sustainability can go hand in hand”, held today in the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, in collaboration with the Pontifical Council “Justice and Peace” the World Resource Institute, the New Climate Economy and the embassy of the Netherlands to the Holy See.

The conference takes place in the context of two key steps in the preparatory process adopted by the United Nations: the UN Summit to adopt the post-2015 development agenda and the 21st conference on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to be held in Paris next December, to adopt a new agreement to face the adverse effects of climate change. “Both of them represent the serious ethical and moral responsibility that each of us has towards the whole human family, especially the poor and future generations”, observed the cardinal.

“When the future of the planet is at stake, there are no political frontiers, barriers or walls behind which we can hide to protect ourselves from the effects of environmental and social degradation. There is no room for the globalisation of indifference, the economy of exclusion or the throwaway culture so often denounced by Pope Francis. Of course, the path is not easy, since this ethical and moral responsibility calls into question the resetting of the development model, requiring a major political and economic commitment. However, as I said to the UN Climate Summit on 23 September 2014, 'the technological and operational bases needed to facilitate this mutual responsibility are already available or within our reach. We have the capacity to start and strengthen a true and beneficial process which will irrigate, as it were, through adaptation and mitigation activities, the field of economic and technological innovation where it is possible to cultivate two interconnected objectives: combating poverty and easing the effects of climate change'”.

Cardinal Parolin concluded by conveying Pope Francis' best wishes to the participants, and his hope that “the discussions and reflections of this Conference may contribute to further and deepen reflection on the meaning of the economy and its goals, as well as to finding ways to guarantee access to a truly integral human development for all, especially the poor and the future generations”.


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