MADRID, 28 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Pope Francis has canceled on medical recommendation his trip to Dubai next Friday to participate in the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Climate Change, better known as ‘COP’, which will celebrate its twentieth this year. eighth meeting in Dubai (United Arab Emirates) from November 30 to December 12.
The Press Office of the Holy See has reported that, although the Pope’s general clinical condition with respect to flu and respiratory tract inflammation has improved, doctors have asked him not to make the planned trip to the ‘COP ‘.
“Pope Francis has accepted the doctors’ request with great regret, so the trip is cancelled,” said the statement, which also clarified that the Pontiff will continue to be available to the summit in the debates that will take place in the coming days, so “the modalities by which this can be carried out will be defined as soon as possible.”
In this sense, the Pope planned to give a speech at COP28 and also hold thirty bilateral meetings at Expo City in the Emirates: twenty with as many heads of State and Government, who are present at COP28, and the rest, with representatives of associations that work on the climate crisis, as well as other personalities and representatives of episcopal conferences and religious communities.
In addition, on Sunday, December 3, the Pope was going to attend the inauguration of the ‘Faith Pavilion’ (Pavilion of Religions) at ‘Expo City’, which will be attended by the president of the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and the Grand Sheikh of al-Azhar, Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, with whom he signed a document on brotherhood between peoples in February 2019 in Abu Dhabi.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) confirmed to Europa Press that this was going to be “the first time” that a Pope attends a COP although it remembers that, in the past, other religious leaders have attended the same.
In any case, Francis has sent messages to the participants, like last year (COP27, in Egypt), when he asked them for “courage” and determination” to comply “with the path outlined by the Paris agreement.”
Furthermore, in 2021, Bergoglio explained that he would have liked to be present at the Climate Summit held in Glasgow (COP26), but it was not possible. In any case, he urged participants to seek “effective responses to the unprecedented ecological crisis.”
However, Francis was not the first to mention the need for an ‘ecological conversion’; it was John Paul II, on January 17, 2001. “It is necessary, therefore, to stimulate and sustain the ‘ecological conversion’, which in these recent decades has made humanity more sensitive to the catastrophe towards which it was heading,” he stressed in a general audience.
Benedict XVI also earned the nickname ‘Eco-friendly Pope’ for his calls to protect the “common home” – a term that Francis later used – and for his example, with actions such as the installation of solar panels in the Nervi Hall of the Vatican, or the adoption of a Hungarian forest, so that the Vatican would be carbon neutral, as recalled on its website by the Laudato Si’ Movement, which brings together Catholic organizations from around the world.
Furthermore, many years earlier, the Vatican already participated in the Earth Summit held in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, which played a fundamental role in launching the UN’s efforts to address climate change, and which was the seed of the COPs.
At that Earth Summit, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was signed, a treaty that establishes the basic obligations of States (or parties) and the European Union to combat climate change.
The COPs are held annually and bring together almost two hundred countries that seek to negotiate joint actions. The objective is to review the status of implementation of the Convention and propose, evaluate and approve other instruments that support its establishment in the face of climate change.
