Pope Francis blesses the crowd as he recites the Angelus noon prayer from the window of his studio overlooking St.Peter’s Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, 1 July 2018. Pope Francis has lamented intensified attacks in southern Syria, asking that people be spared more suffering. Photo: Alessandra Tarantino / AP Photo

By Nicole Winfield
6 July 2018
VATICAN CITY (AP) – Pope Francis urged governments on Friday to make good on their commitments to curb global warming, warning that climate change, continued unsustainable development and rampant consumption threatens to turn the Earth into a vast pile of “rubble, deserts, and refuse.”
Francis made the appeal at a Vatican conference marking the third anniversary of his landmark environmental encyclical “Praise Be.” The document, meant to spur action at the 2015 Paris climate conference, called for a paradigm shift in humanity’s relationship with Mother Nature.
In his remarks, Francis urged governments to honor their Paris commitments and said institutions like the IMF and World Bank had important roles to play in encouraging reforms promoting sustainable development.
“There is a real danger that we will leave future generations only rubble, deserts and refuse,” he warned. […]Next year, Francis has called a three-week synod, or meeting of bishops, specifically to address the church’s response to the ecological crisis in the Amazon, where deforestation threatens what he has called the “lung” of the planet and the indigenous peoples who live there.“It grieves us to see the lands of indigenous peoples expropriated and their cultures trampled on by predatory schemes and by new forms of colonialism, fueled by the culture of waste and consumerism,” Francis said Friday. [more]

Pope warns climate change turning Earth into desert, garbage