Pope Francis: Climate Crisis ‘Leading the World Towards Disaster’

Pope Francis painted a frightening picture of a global climate emergency Monday, saying we humans must “correct our path before it is too late.”

“Around the world, we are seeing heat waves, droughts, forest fires, floods and other extreme meteorological events, rising sea levels, the emergence of diseases and further problems that are only a dire premonition of things much worse to come, unless we act and act urgently,” the pope told a group of leaders assembled at the Vatican for a meeting titled “Climate Change and New Evidence from Science, Engineering, and Policy.”

“Time is of the essence,” the pope told the group, which included the president of the General Assembly of the United Nations and the finance ministers of various nations. “You are here today to reflect on how to remedy this profound crisis caused by a confusion of our moral ledger with our financial ledger. You are here to help stop a crisis that is leading the world towards disaster.”

The pontiff said that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is at “the highest level ever recorded,” a phenomenon that must be reversed before it is too late.

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“The effects of global inaction are startling,” he said. “About two weeks ago, several scientific research centres recorded the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – one of the key global causes of global warming linked to human activity – as having reached 415 parts per million, the highest level ever recorded.”

“The signs today are not good,” he said. “Investments in fossil fuels continue to rise, even though scientists tell us that fossil fuels should remain underground.”

Moreover, “investments in clean energy fell again for the second consecutive year, even though experts have consistently demonstrated the benefits to the human environment provided by clean energy from wind, sun, and water,” he said.

The cause of this deadly inaction on climate change, he said, are bad reasoning as well as pressure from powerful interest groups.

“We continue along old paths because we are trapped by our faulty accounting and by the corruption of vested interests,” he said. “We still reckon as profit what threatens our very survival.”