Sixty city mayors from around the world were invited to attend a two-day conference on the climate change. They gathered to announce new measures to fight global warming and bask in Pope Francis’ ecological star power. Climate change is real, they said.
The aim of the conference was to keep up pressure on world leaders ahead of the UN climate meeting in Paris in December and promote the pope’s encyclical.
The pope and the mayors each signed a declaration stating that “human-induced climate change is a scientific reality and its effective control is a moral imperative for humanity.”
Cities are key to reducing global warming. They account for approximately three-quarters of human emissions. Francis told the gathering “You are the conscience of humanity.”
“We have a very powerful opposition that, at least in my country, spends billions on trying to keep from office people such as yourselves and elect troglodytes and other deniers of the obvious science,” said California Governor Jerry Brown, to a rousing applause. Brown, who was also in attendance, is a former Jesuit seminarian.
Many of the mayors made individual pleas for the world to change its ways.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that New York City is going to reduce its emission by 40 percent by 2030. He urged other cities to follow suit.
San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee announced that his city would transition its municipal fleet of fire trucks, buses and trucks from petroleum diesel to renewable energy sources by the end of this year.
Stockholm Mayor Karin Wanngard said that the Paris “climate negotiators must dare to push boundaries and exclude fossil fuels as an option and reward solutions that are long-term sustainable and renewable,” she said.
“All the world wondered…” Revelation 13:3
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