Environmental leaders, activists and advocates gathered in Vatican City on July 5 with Pope Francis to kick off a two-day Vatican-organized conference with a sense of urgency and unity. Together they hope to emerge with a momentum for greater action and a shared vision for protecting our planet.
Inspired by the third anniversary of the Pope’s seminal encyclical on the issue – titled Laudatosi’– political and religious leaders, scientists, economists and heads of civil society organizations came together to discuss how to awaken people to the gravity of the situation and inspire a “massive movement” of cooperative action and moral responsibility to our planet.
UN Environment’s Executive Director, Erik Solheim will address the convocation on the second day of these meetings titled ‘Acting Together to Save our Common Home’.
“The challenges we face around climate change, biodiversity loss and deforestation are daunting. The science – as so ably outlined in Laudatosi’ – is unambiguous,” Erik Solheim wrote in his remarks for the conference. “We are reaching, surpassing and ignoring global environmental tipping points that are causing enormous problems for humanity and hitting the poorest and most vulnerable the hardest.”
