Pope Francis Urges Urgent Action on Clean Energy Transition Ahead of Upcoming Climate Conference in UAE.

Pope Francis, head of the Roman Catholic Church, has said that the “necessary transition” to clean energy and the ‘abandonment” of fossil fuels are not progressing “at the necessary speed” in a statement titled “Laudate Deum” which comes before next month’s conference of 197 nations that have signed on to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The Pope expressed hope that next month’s Conference of the Parties (COP), to be held in the United Arab Emirates, will be “historic event” setting “binding” terms for the energy transition that are “efficient, obligatory and readily monitored,” and beginning a new process that is “drastic, intense, and counts on the commitment of all.” The Pope also said he encounters “certain dismissive and scarcely reasonable opinions, even within the Catholic Church” about the correlation between global climate phenomena and “the accelerated increase”in greenhouse gas emissions.Catholics constitute 23% of the U.S. population. After the Pope”s 2015 visit, 59% of Americans and 64% of American Catholics said they were concerned about global warming, up 8 points and 11 points, respectively.