In an address delivered to the COP29 climate change conference today, Pope Francis urged the international community to respond swiftly to climate change and to implement climate-oriented “finance” plans.
“The scientific data available to us do not allow any further delay and make it clear that the preservation of creation is one of the most urgent issues of our time,” began Pope Francis’ message to the United Nations’ COP29 climate conference today. “We have also to recognize that it is closely interrelated with the preservation of peace.”
Francis’ letter, delivered by his Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, focused on his call for climate finance plans, as the Pontiff’s regular climate rhetoric addressed a practical aspect being discussed by the COP29 attendees.
Papal backs UN’s global climate-finance goal
The pontiff criticized “economic development” for having “favored the prioritization of profit and special interests at the expense of the protection of the weakest” and “contributed to the progressive worsening of environmental problems.”
In order to combat this and promote “a culture of respect for life and of the dignity of human person,” Francis urged that the global leaders and philanthropists present speedily enact a “New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance.”
This aim Francis described as being “among the most urgent of this Conference.”
The Pope also urged “affluent 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.” This, he said, was a “matter of justice”in response to the “ecological debt.”
“It is essential to seek a new international financial architecture that is human-centered, bold, creative and based on the principles of equity, justice and solidarity,” Francis wrote. The new “international financial architecture” must ensure that “all countries” reach their “full potential,” he added.
The Pontiff also stressed that the COP29 event must influence the “political will” in line with this result and “direct these resources towards this noble goal for the common good of humanity today and tomorrow.”
What is the the U.N.’s new goal?
COP29’s “New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance” (NCQG) is indeed set to become the dominant subject of the meetings. The U.N. states that the new goal – born out of the 2015 Paris Agreement, and agreed upon in 2021 by COP members – will start from an operational base of $100 billion “per year prior to 2025.”
However a far greater sum is required, according to a 2021 U.N. report. It suggests that almost $6 trillion will be needed to “implement developing countries’ climate action plans by 2030.”
It will be aimed at “meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation, taking into account the needs and priorities of developing countries” with regards “climate impact” and the Paris Agreement’s goal to “hold the global average temperature well below 2 ℃ above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 ℃ above pre-industrial levels.”
The U.N. further states that the NCQG aims to bolster its “climate change” response by “sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty, including by making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.”
Previous editions of the annual COP conferences have been quietly working on formulating such a financial agreement, and now the COP29 event will discuss the framework for a “draft negotiating text” on how to govern the global financial sphere in accordance with the climate-oriented aims of the U.N.
The proposals to be discussed include a mandatory financial contribution from COP member states to “developing countries,” relating to combatting “climate” issues.
Such finance would be doled out in line with “meaningful action and ambition,” meaning the alignment of recipient nations’ with the U.N. climate agenda. Should the COP29 members agree on how to implement the NCQG then its progress will be assessed in their future annual meetings.
Francis’ alignment with UN climate finance
As international pressure to implement various climate-related goals, such as the pro-abortion 2015 Paris Climate Accord, so too does the rhetoric involving the demand to have the global financial sphere aligned with such climate policies – as previously highlighted by this correspondent on LifeSite.
Pope Francis has also joined secular, global leaders in making this call: most recently he called for “obligatory and readily monitored” climate measures in his COP28 message; for “obligatory” climate measures in his 2023 Laudate Deum; and for a “global financial charter” at a Vatican conference on “climate change” this May.
Francis’ oft-repeated lines on the subject have repeatedly born similarities to the sentiments expressed by key globalist and founder of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Klaus Schwab, whose proposed anti-Catholic “Great Reset” is underpinned by a focus on a “green” financial agenda, as he mentions the “withdrawal of fossil-fuel subsidies” and a new financial system based on “investments” that advance “equality and sustainability” and the building of a “‘green urban infrastructure.”
The Paris Climate Accord (also known as the Paris Agreement) – which numerous members and observers of the U.N. including the Holy See, have agreed to – stipulates that the future of global finance is directly connected to the various climate change efforts laid out in the Paris Agreement. It reads: “Making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.”
In the future envisaged by multinational bodies such as the the U.N. and the WEF, financial future at every level will be determined by adherence to climate policies, according to the Great Reset architect, Klaus Schwab, who said:
“Governments led by enlightened leaders will make their stimulus packages conditional upon green commitments. They will, for example, provide more generous financial conditions for companies with low-carbon business models.”
Schwab also described hypothetical scenarios in which businesses – particularly ones consuming fossil fuels – would effectively be shut down if they were not “green enough.”
While such suggestions may appear implausible, they are not far-fetched; many members of the global financial community have signed up to implement such policies. The almost unknown Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) was born at the Paris “One Planet Summit” in December 2017, with the purpose of transforming the global economy in alignment with “green” climate change policies.
The NGFS already numbers 141 members, with an additional 21 observer organizations, including leading national and international banks such as the “Bank of Canada; Bank of England; Banque de France; Dubai Financial Services Authority; European Central Bank; Japan FSA; People’s Bank of China; Swiss National Bank; U.S. Federal Reserve.”
Francis’ message to the U.N.’s COP29 climate conference thus lends the official support of the Holy See to the supra-national body’s aim to rework the world and its finance in line with “green” policies.