‘Green’ Pope committed to action on climate

THE VATICAN AND CLIMATE CHANGE
BY CAROL GLATZ IN ROME
THE VATICAN was committed to getting countries aligned with the Copenhagen Accord on climate change according to the first Vatican cable to appear on WikiLeaks.
The confidential cable claimed that a Vatican official at the Secretariat of State would support US government “efforts to have countries associate themselves with the Copenhagen Accord by the January 31 deadline” as well as “encourage other countries discreetly to associate themselves with the Accord as opportunities arise”.
The cable, dated January 21 2010, came from the US Embassy to the Vatican and was sent to the US government’s Bureau of Oceans, Environment and Science. It was one of more than 250,000 alleged diplomatic cables that WikiLeaks said it would be releasing over the coming months. Sources in Rome said that 850 documents concern communications between the US State Department and the US Embassy to the Vatican.
The cable, named “‘Green’ pope supports US path forward from Copenhagen”, was based in part on discussions an embassy official had with Paolo Conversi, a Vatican of ficial at the Secretariat of State, and with Mgr James Reinert of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
The one-page document made no mention of Pope Benedict XVI’s speech to diplomats in which he was critical of the lack of real commitment to mitigating climate change. He told ambassadors that have diplomatic relations with the Holy See, including US Ambassador to the Vatican Miguel Diaz, that he shared “the growing concern caused by economic and political resistance to combating the degradation of the environment”.
He said the problem was evident during the UN summit on climate change in Copenhagen in December 2009. The UN Copenhagen conference ended with an agreement on some objectives but failed to reach a comprehensive, binding accord on reducing global emissions. The Pope said he hoped that follow-up conferences in 2010 would lead to effective international policies for protecting the environment because “the very future of some nations is at stake, particularly some island states”.
The cable simply mentioned that Mr Conversi “was pleased overall with the process leading to Copenhagen and with the conference itself. He said expectations were too high before the event,” according to the cable.