This month we would like to encourage you to learn about the upcoming United Nations Conferences which will take place this October and November. Please follow this link to add your name to a petition addressing world leaders and encouraging them to make commitments to reduce global warming and fund opportunities for poor countries to meet their commitments. You can learn more at:
https://thecatholicpetition.org/
The UN Biodiversity Conference will discuss action needed to reverse biodiversity loss and its impact on ecosystems, species, and people around the globe. This conference, COP15, will take place October 11-24, in Kunming, China. Nations and organizations will report on their success in meeting meaningful targets to protect creation.
The UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) will take place November 1-12 in Glasgow, Scotland. (This can sound complicated; the COP numbers represent the number of conferences on that topic. For example, this year’s November Climate Change Conference (COP26) will be the 26th conference of this type.) The goal is to de-carbonize by 2030, or 2050 at the very latest.
Signatories to the Paris Agreement of 2015, known as COP21, agreed to set carbon emissions to limit global warming to well below an increase of 2 degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels, and ideally, to keep that increase in warming to only 1.5 degrees centigrade. Each country decides how it will accomplish this goal in NDC, their Nationally Determined Contribution. Lower temperature increases carry important implications for food and water shortages, economic growth, pollution, disease, malnutrition and sickness related to exposure to extreme heat.
More information will be forthcoming as the Laudato Si’ Goals and Action Plan are introduced in the coming months.