“CLIMATE CHANGE AND NEW EVIDENCE FROM SCIENCE, ENGINEERING, AND POLICY” MEETING WITH FINANCE MINISTERS FROM VARIOUS NATIONS
Original address published by The Vatican
“CLIMATE CHANGE AND NEW EVIDENCE FROM SCIENCE, ENGINEERING, AND POLICY”
MEETING WITH FINANCE MINISTERS FROM VARIOUS NATIONS
ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
Casina Pio IV
Monday, 27 May 2019
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I extend a cordial welcome to each of you here: the President of the General Assembly of the United Nations and Ministers of Finance from various nations. I am grateful that you have come to the Vatican to discuss an issue of great importance for humanity and the whole of creation. We live at a time when profits and losses seem to be more highly valued than lives and deaths, and when a company’s net worth is given precedence over the infinite worth of our human family. 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.
Today’s global interdependence obliges us to think in terms of one world with a common plan (Laudato Si’, 164). In 2015, the nations of the world joined, by mutual consent, in supporting two important agreements: the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Agreement COP21. As the financial leaders of your nations, you have the responsibility of working to achieve the goals that your governments have adopted, for the sake of humanity today and in the future. This is a basic commitment. We must achieve what we have agreed upon, for our survival and wellbeing depend on it.