{"id":3406,"date":"2015-07-23T07:20:08","date_gmt":"2015-07-23T11:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=3406"},"modified":"2020-01-04T01:50:56","modified_gmt":"2020-01-04T06:50:56","slug":"mayors-at-vatican-cities-play-very-vital-role-in-addressing-climate-poverty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=3406","title":{"rendered":"Mayors at Vatican: Cities play ‘very vital role’ in addressing climate, poverty"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . .<\/p>\n

An article by Brian Roewe , National Catholic Reporter<\/a><\/p>\n

Mayors from around the world meeting at the Vatican this week issued a manifesto that recognized the reality of human-induced climate change and underscored the \u201cmoral imperative\u201d for action, both in within their cities and the global community. The two-day summit was held Tuesday and Wednesday [July 21-22] and hosted by the Pontifical Academies of Sciences and Social Sciences. In their joint declaration issued Tuesday, 64 mayors and government officials said they came together in the context of Pope Francis\u2019 encyclical, \u201cLaudato Si\u2019: on Care for Our Common Home,\u201d to discuss issues related to \u201ctwo dramatic and interconnected emergencies: human-induced climate change and social exclusion in the extreme forms of radical poverty, modern slavery and human trafficking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"pope\"<\/a>
\n(Photo from Catholic News Service\/Paul Haring)
\n<\/center>
\nEarlier that day, Francis emphasized to the assembly that his encyclical is not merely a \u201cgreen\u201d document, but rather \u201cit is a social encyclical.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is true that everything revolves around \u2026 this culture of care for the environment. But this \u2018green\u2019 culture — and I say that in a positive sense — is much more than that. Caring for the environment means an attitude of human ecology. In other words, we cannot say: the person and Creation, the environment, are two separate entities. Ecology is total, it is human \u2026 you cannot separate humanity from the rest; there is a relationship of mutual impact, and also the rebound effect when the environment is abused,\u201d Francis said.<\/p>\n

Those attending the Vatican summit presented a cross-section of the globe, with 31 countries represented: among them Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Indonesia, Iran, Ivory Coast, Botswana, Gabon, Italy, Jamaica, Germany, Poland, Sweden, and France — which in Paris will host the U.N. climate summit (COP 21) in December. <\/p>\n

Ten U.S. mayors also participated, hailing from Boston, Boulder, Colo.; Birmingham, Ala., Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York City, Portland, Ore., San Francisco, San Jose and Seattle. California Gov. Jerry Brown was also a participant.<\/p>\n

In their declaration, the mayors, who joined the pope in signing it, said their cultural traditions each affirmed the beauty of the natural world and the \u201cmoral duty to steward rather than ravage\u201d the planet, and committed to developing more sustainable cities that better protect their most vulnerable residents.<\/p>\n

Among the declaration\u2019s highlights:<\/p>\n

\u201cHuman-induced climate change is a scientific reality, and its effective control is a moral imperative for humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cToday humanity has the technological instruments, the financial resources and the know-how to
\nreverse climate change while also ending extreme poverty, through the application of sustainable development solutions, including the adoption of low-carbon energy systems supported by information and communications technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe financing of sustainable development, including the effective control of human-induced climate change, should be bolstered through new incentives for the transition towards low-carbon and renewable energy, and through the relentless pursuit of peace, which also will enable a shift of public financing from military spending to urgent investments for sustainable development.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Article continued in right column.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Question for this article:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

\n

Despite the vested interests of companies and governments, Can we make progress toward sustainable development?<\/a> <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

(Article continued from the left column)<\/p>\n

The Paris climate talks \u201cmay be the last effective opportunity\u201d to negotiate a global agreement to limit human-induced warming below 2 degrees Celsius, and \u201cPolitical leaders of all UN member States have a special responsibility to agree at COP21 to a bold climate agreement that confines global warming to a limit safe for humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe high-income countries should help to finance the costs of climate-change mitigation in low-income countries as the high-income countries have promised to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs mayors we commit ourselves to building, in our cities and urban settlements, the resilience of the poor and those in vulnerable situations and reducing their exposure to climate-related extreme events and other economic, social and environmental shocks and disasters, which foster human trafficking and dangerous forced migration.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the same time, we commit ourselves to ending abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of modern slavery, which are crimes against humanity, including forced labor and prostitution, organ trafficking, and domestic servitude; and to developing national resettlement and reintegration programs that avoid the involuntary repatriation of trafficked persons.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to the declaration, several mayors used the Vatican summit as occasion to announce local plans of action. De Blasio said New York City has committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030 along its way to achieving 80 percent reductions by 2050, a goal he announced in September.<\/p>\n

But the purpose of the gathering wasn\u2019t to congratulate one another on their progress, he said, but \u201cto take Laudato Si’ and give it life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur hope is that each of us — and thousands more like us all over the world — will act boldly, and in doing so, will jolt our national paradigms and the collective global paradigm,\u201d de Blasio said.<\/p>\n

Portland Mayor Charlie Hales told NBC News that there was excitement in his city for his Vatican trip, particularly among the young people.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey say, \u2018He\u2019s our pope.\u2019 He\u2019s the \u2018Portland pope,\u2019 because his values about the environment and about social justice so closely match the young people who\u2019ve moved to Portland \u2026 And they read this document, maybe the first encyclical they\u2019ve ever read, and say, \u2018He\u2019s one of us,\u2019\u201d Hales said. <\/p>\n

At the summit\u2019s second day, the mayors turned their attention toward city planning that simultaneously promotes economic growth, equality and environmental protection. According to Catholic News Service, many of the mayors discussed the growing number of poor people in their cities and the increasing wealth gap.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe live in one valley, but two worlds,\u201d said Sam Liccardo, mayor of San Jose, Calif., which sits in the tech capital Silicon Valley, but has witnessed a growing homeless population.<\/p>\n

CNS reported that De Blasio asked his fellow mayors why they remained committed to outdated economic growth models when that \u201cmodel of development is slowly killing us.\u201d He challenged them to create sustainable cities that address poverty while reducing pollution, even when such work becomes uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy setting the high goal, we actually force ourselves day by day to take action related to it,\u201d de Blasio said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . . An article by Brian Roewe , National Catholic Reporter Mayors from around the world meeting at the Vatican this week issued a manifesto that recognized the reality of human-induced climate change and underscored the \u201cmoral imperative\u201d for action, both in within their cities and the global community. The two-day … Continue reading Mayors at Vatican: Cities play ‘very vital role’ in addressing climate, poverty<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,10],"tags":[11],"class_list":["post-3406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-global","category-sustainable","tag-global"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3406\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}