VATICAN CITY (AP) – Dozens of environmentally friendly mayors from around the world will be signing off on a Vatican declaration Tuesday calling for their national leaders to approve a “bold climate agreement” that keeps global warming at a safe limit for humanity, The Associated Press has learned.
Some 60 mayors are attending a two-day climate conference at the Vatican featuring an audience with Pope Francis, whose recent environment encyclical is aimed at keeping up pressure on world leaders in the run-up to Paris climate negotiations in December.
The final declaration, a copy of which was seen by the AP, states that “human-induced climate change is a scientific reality and its effective control is a moral imperative for humanity.”
The document calls for financial incentives to transition to low-carbon and renewable energy and to shift public financing away from the military to “urgent investments” in sustainable development, with wealthy countries helping poorer ones.
And it says political leaders have a “special responsibility” at the Paris talks to approve a “bold climate agreement that confines global warming to a limit safe for humanity, while protecting the poor and the vulnerable from ongoing climate change that gravely endangers their lives.”