COP29: Card Parolin warns the climate crisis cannot be tackled without debt forgiveness
In his speech at the UN Conference underway in Baku, the Vatican Secretary of State reiterated Pope Francis’s appeal for the 2025 Jubilee. “A new international financial architecture” is needed “that can truly ensure for all countries, especially the poorest and those most vulnerable to climate disasters, both low-carbon and high-sharing development pathways”.
Baku (AsiaNews/Agencies) – The Vatican Secretary of State, Card Pietro Parolin, addressed, on behalf of Pope Francis, the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP29) underway in Baku, Azerbaijan.
“When discussing climate finance, it is important to remember that ecological debt and foreign debt are two sides of the same coin, mortgaging the future,” Card Parolin said.
Speaking before the representatives of the countries of the world gathered to discuss, among other things, how to share the financial burdens needed to fund strategies to adapt to climate change, Card Parolin noted that efforts must be “made to find solutions that do not further undermine the development and adaptive capacity of many countries that are already burdened with crippling economic debt.”
The Vatican secretary of state cited the appeal Pope Francis issued in the bull Spes non confundit published ahead of next year’s Jubilee. In it, the pontiff urges the richest nations to “acknowledge the gravity of so many of their past decisions and determine to forgive the debts of countries that will never be able to repay them.”
“More than a question of generosity, this is a matter of justice. It is made all the more serious today by a new form of injustice which we increasingly recognize, namely, that ‘a true ‘ecological debt’ exists, particularly between the global North and South, connected to commercial imbalances with effects on the environment and the disproportionate use of natural resources by certain countries over long periods of time’.”
To this end, Card Parolin said that COP29 should lead to “a new international financial architecture that is human-centered, bold, creative and based on the principles of equity, justice and solidarity. A new international financial architecture that can truly ensure for all countries, especially the poorest and those most vulnerable to climate disasters, both low-carbon and high-sharing development pathways that enable everyone to reach their full potential and see their dignity respected.”
The premise of all this is awareness that “that the preservation of creation is one of the most urgent issues of our time. We have also to recognize that it is closely interrelated with the preservation of peace.”
“Selfishness – individual, national and of power groups – feeds a climate of mistrust and division that does not respond to the needs of an interdependent world in which we should act and live as members of one family inhabiting the same interconnected global village.”
Ultimately, Card Parolin stressed, “We cannot ‘pass by and look the other way’. Indifference is an accomplice to injustice. I appeal, therefore, that, with the common good in mind, we can unmask the mechanisms of self-justification that so often paralyze us”.
Finally, “For an ambitious agreement, for every initiative and process aimed at truly inclusive development, I assure you of my support and that of the Holy Father in order to render an effective service to humanity, so that we can all take responsibility for safeguarding not only our own future, but that of all.”
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10/12/2023 15:49
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