Pope Francis has called out some countries while speaking on Climate change and its present and future impact on the earth.
In an updated environmental treatise published this week, he made a desperate plea for collective action.
“Over time, I have realized that our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point,” he writes in “Laudate Deum,” which was issued at the start of a major gathering of bishops and lay people at the Vatican.
“If we consider that emissions per individual in the United States are about two times greater than those of individuals living in China and about seven times greater than the average of the poorest countries, we can state that a broad change in the irresponsible lifestyle connected with the Western model would have a significant long-term impact.”
“The United Arab Emirates will host the next Conference of the Parties (COP28). It is a country of the Persian Gulf known as a great exporter of fossil fuels, although it has made significant investments in renewable energy sources,” the pope writes.
“Meanwhile, gas and oil companies are planning new projects there, with the aim of further increasing their production.”
The past year has been plagued with extreme weather around the globe, from wildfires in Canada and Hurricanes in the US to flooding in Libya and China.
He also talked about the rising concentration of greenhouse gas parts per million in the atmosphere, noting that the data has been confirmed by “the Mauna Loa observatory, which has taken daily measurements of carbon dioxide since 1958.”
“To suppose that all problems in the future will be able to be solved by new technical interventions is a form of homicidal pragmatism,” he writes, “like pushing a snowball down a hill.”
New York is the new homeland for raging waves. New research in the journal Nature shows that humans now inhabit more than twice as much land in flood-prone areas as they did four decades ago.
“Ideally, what we would like to see is that human settlements are avoiding these flood zones,” said Jun Rentschler, a World Bank economist and lead author of the new study.
“What we find is, on average globally, it’s the opposite that’s happening: Rather than gradually reducing exposure to flood hazards, many countries are rapidly increasing it.”
