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VATICAN CITY, December 14, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — “The moment has come for a change of direction,” Pope Francis urged the world in a video to the U.N. virtual Climate Ambition summit on Saturday, before begging viewers not to “rob the new generations of their hope in a better future.” The summit, attended by numerous state leaders, was held to mark five years since the creation of the Paris Climate Agreement.
In his address, Francis promised that the “Vatican City State is committed to reducing net emissions to zero by 2050,” to be achieved by “intensifying the efforts at environmental management that have already been in process for some years.”
Furthermore, he promised that the “Holy See is committed to promoting education in integral ecology,” explaining that this means that “[p]olitical and technical measures must be united with an educational process that favors a cultural model of development and sustainability.”
Francis neglected to mention Jesus Christ, or anything remotely religious, in his appearance at the summit, instead basing his statements on “fraternity and the alliance between the human being and the environment.”
“Integral ecology” is a term featured in Francis’s talks on climate change, most notably in his encyclical Laudato Si. According to Francis, the idea behind an “integral ecology” is that we are “interdependent on each other, as well as on our Mother Earth.” Only by “reflecting on our lifestyle and our ideals” can we “recover a serene harmony with creation,” since the “environment is … on loan to each generation, which must then hand it on to the next.”
These words echo the Pope’s TED talk from October of this year, wherein he called the world to “urgent action,” lest we initiate “radical and catastrophic climate change.” Francis announced here that our goal should be to create “a world where we can meet the needs of the present generations, including everyone, without compromising the possibilities of future generations.” No mention of eternal salvation or the need to spread the Gospel was made throughout the course of the 13-minute video.
The secretary general of the U.N., António Guterres, also had some strong words to say at Saturday’s virtual summit. He opened by warning that “[f]ive years after Paris we are still not going in the right direction,” in reference to the Paris Climate Agreement. According to Guterres, “commitments are not being met,” leading to “carbon dioxide levels [being] at record highs.”
“If we don’t change course, we may be headed for a catastrophic temperature rise of more than 3.0 degrees this century,” Guterres lamented. He went on to call “on all leaders worldwide to declare a state of climate emergency in their countries until carbon neutrality is reached.”
Former vice president Joe Biden offered his full support to the summit, claiming that the “United States will re-join the Paris Agreement on day one of [his] presidency” and will convene with “the leaders of major economies for a climate summit within [his] first 100 days in office.”
Upon hearing of Biden’s plan to re-join the Paris Agreement, Guterres said: “[We] look forward for a very active U.S. leadership in climate action from now on. The United States is the largest economy in the world, it’s absolutely essential for our goals to be reached.”
The Paris Climate Agreement advances many moral evils, including abortion and contraception. Within the agreement’s Sustainable Development Goals is a 2030 target to have achieved “universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights,” a well known euphemism for abortion, contraception, and sterilization.
The United Nations Population Fund states that “sexual and reproductive health” includes access for all to “the safe, effective, affordable and acceptable contraception method of their choice,” which can include types of contraception that are abortifacient. Voice of the Family have prepared a detailed and chilling report on the extent to which the Paris Agreement advances pro-abortion and pro-contraception agendas, often obscured by inoffensive language.
Notwithstanding the moral concerns regarding the Paris Climate Agreement, the Francis pontificate still offers its full support to the accord, seemingly without qualification.