Church leaders urged governments around the world to ramp up their climate action efforts on Friday (26 October), calling for “ambitious implementation” of the Paris Agreement.
In a joint appeal, the presidents of the Catholic continental bishops’ conference, which represents church leaders from five continents, insisted that the international community has a “moral duty” to meet the targets of the landmark climate accord.
According to the appeal, launched today in Rome, the six presidents said that the upcoming UN climate change summit in Poland this December should act as a “milestone on the path set out in 2015 in Paris”.
In a sub-section of the appeal called “1.5°C to stay alive”, the bishops highlighted that “the effects of climate change are not evenly distributed” and warned that “many millions of migrants will follow” because of its impact.
It comes off the back of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s watershed-moment report on the effects of global warming, which warned that a so-called 2 degrees world would be more affected than previously thought.
