To the Heads of State and the Governments of the nations participating in the 21st International Climate Change Conference, scheduled from November 30 to December 15, 2015 in Paris, France
On behalf of our children, who without your commitment and action will inherit a degraded and dangerous planet.
On behalf of the poor of the planet, the first to be victimized by pollution and the most vulnerable to the impact of climate change.
On behalf of the whole human family, for which we all have a responsibility to care without regard to national borders or social divisions.
I ask you to welcome the appeal made by Pope Francis in the encyclical “Laudato Si’” on the “care for our common home,” in which he states that humanity still has time to avoid an ecological catastrophe, and asks you to implement concrete measures aimed at “an authentic human ecology.”
In your deliberations at the Climate Change Conference, I ask you to be guided by Pope Francis’ appeal to respect the climate as “a common good, belonging to all and meant for all” (n. 23).
In his encyclical, the Pope states that “climate change is a global problem with grave implications: environmental, social, economic, political and for the distribution of goods. It represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day. Its worst impact will probably be felt by developing countries in coming decades” (n. 25).
Pope Francis therefore makes this appeal, which I whole-heartedly support: “There is an urgent need to develop policies so that, in the next few years, the emission of carbon dioxide and other highly polluting gases can be drastically reduced, for example, substituting for fossil fuels and developing sources of renewable energy” (n. 26).
We still have time to save the planet we will hand on to our children. That is why I am signing this petition and ask you to respond with policies that will follow the Pope’s guidance.
