“The way we are moving is a suicide,” United Nations Secretary General António Guterres said in an interview Nov. 30, and humanity’s survival will be “impossible” without the United States rejoining the Paris Accord, reported The Nation Dec. 2.
Pope Francis has expressed his concern about climate change, and the infringement of free-market enterprises upon the environment, in his encyclicals Fratelli Tutti and Laudato Si.
In Fratelli Tutti he wrote, “The right of some to free enterprise or market freedom cannot supersede the rights of peoples and the dignity of the poor, or, for that matter, respect for the natural environment” (FT 122).
In Laudato si’, the pope said we are “faced … with global environmental deterioration” (LS, 3), and, “If present trends continue, this century may well witness extraordinary climate change and an unprecedented destruction of ecosystems, with serious consequences for all of us” (LS, 24).
Guterres said he had been in touch with Joe Biden and looked forward to welcoming the U.S. into a “global coalition for net zero by 2050” according to The Nation, implying that Biden will re-enter the U.S. into the Paris Accord.
A total of 110 countries, including The European Union, Japan, the United Kingdom, and China have already joined the coalition.
The Paris Accord was forged in 2015 as an international attempt to reduce greenhouse gases. President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the agreement in 2017, stating it was not fair to “the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers.” He also said he would look to re-enter the Accord and “see if we can make a deal that’s fair.”
