US. climate envoy John Kerry said he believes the upcoming United Nations’ COP28 climate conference has the potential to be as significant as the landmark 2015 Paris climate summit and that he’d like Pope Francis to play a leading role in rallying religious leaders to push for environmental action.
Kerry’s remarks came on June 19 directly following a private meeting with the pope at the Vatican, where he said Francis signaled an openness to attending the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference or 28th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, better known as COP28, in person. The high-level meeting will take place Nov. 30-Dec. 12 in Dubai.
In a joint-interview with reporters from the National Catholic Reporter, Catholic News Service, Crux and the Wall Street Journal, Kerry recalled that ahead of the 2015 Paris climate accord, known as COP21 — which led to historic global commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions — the pope helped build critical momentum for that meeting.
Now, he said, is the time to “rekindle some of those embers and start to generate focus.”
The release of the pope’s 2015 letter “Laudato Si‘, on Care for Our Common Home,” which became the first-ever papal encyclical on the theme of ecology, was intentionally timed to build support for the historic 2015 Paris meeting.
“This moment is almost equivalent to Paris,” Kerry said of the COP28 meeting.
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