Pope Francis tells oil bosses world must reduce fossil fuel use

Pontiff says clean energy is needed as climate change risks destroying humanity


Reuters in Vatican City

Sat 9 Jun 2018 08.36 EDT Last modified on Sat 9 Jun 2018 09.23 EDT

 

Pope Francis made his comments at an unprecedented Vatican conference. 

Photograph: Evandro Inetti/ZUMA Wire/REX/Shutterstock

Pope Francis has told oil company chiefs that the world must switch to clean energy because climate change risks destroying humanity.

“Civilisation requires energy, but energy use must not destroy civilisation,” he said at the end of a two-day conference at the Vatican.

The pontiff said climate change was a challenge of epochal proportions, and that the world needed to come up with an energy mix that combatted 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. Like the pope, they 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 1 billion people without electricity today need to gain access to it,” Francis 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.

Source

Pope to address oil majors in Vatican climate conference

FRI JUN 1, 2018 / 12:56 PM EDT

Philip Pullella

FILE PHOTO: Pope Francis arrives to lead the Wednesday general audience in Saint Peter's square at the Vatican, May 23, 2018.
REUTERS/STEFANO RELLANDINI/FILE PHOTO



(Reuters) - The Vatican will host executives of the world's top oil companies for a conference next week on climate change and the transition away from fossil fuels, a Vatican source said on Friday.

Pope Francis, who wrote a major document on protection of the environment from global warming in 2015, is expected to address the group on the last day of the June 8-9 conference.

The conference, organized by the University of Notre Dame in the United States, is expected to be attended by the heads or senior executives of companies including Exxon Mobil, Eni, BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Pemex, the source said.

The chief executive officers of Exxon, BP and Norway's Equinor will attend the event, the companies confirmed. Shell declined to comment.

The oil and gas industry has come under increasing pressure from investors and activists to play a bigger role in reducing the emission of greenhouse gases in order to meet goals set out in a 2015 climate agreement signed in Paris.

Companies are betting on increased demand for gas, the least polluting fossil fuel, and to a lesser extent on renewable power such as wind and solar, to meet global targets of net zero emissions by the end of the century.