Pope: Climate change is ‘one of humanity’s greatest challenges’

Pope Francis had declared climate change to be “one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day.”

Pope Francis had declared climate change to be “one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day”. In his essay on the environment released yesterday, the Pontiff said the climate was a common good: it belonged to all and was meant for all.

“A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system,” he said.

“In recent decades, this warming has been accompanied by a constant rise in sea level, and it would appear, by an increase of extreme weather events, even if scientifically determinable cause cannot be assigned to each particular phenomenon.”

His essay mirrors the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and will enable the Pope to take an active role in the politics of climate change in the lead-up to landmark meeting in Paris in December.

“Humanity is called to recognise the need for changes of lifestyle, production and consumption, in order to combat this warming or at least the human causes which produce or aggravate it,” he said.

It was true that there were other contributing factors. But, he said, a number of scientific studies indicate that most global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases released mainly as a result of human activity.