Pope Francis says COP26 must deliver ‘concrete hope’ on climate action

Ahead of the COP26 summit this weekend, Pope Francis said Friday world leaders need to "offer concrete hope to future generations" when it comes to climate action.

Leaders of the 20 richest countries will acknowledge the existential threat of climate change and will take urgent steps to limit global warning, a draft communique seen ahead of the COP26 summit.

As people around the world prepared to demonstrate their frustration with politicians, Pope Francis lent his voice to a chorus demanding action, not mere words, from the meeting starting in Glasgow, Scotland, on Sunday.

The United Nation’s COP26 summit runs from Oct. 31 to Nov. 12 in Glasgow, Scotland, and Pope Francis called for a “renewed sense of shared responsibility for our world” to spur action.

“It is essential that each of us be committed to this urgent change of direction,” he said on BBC Radio.

“The political decision makers who will meet at COP26 in Glasgow are urgently summoned to provide effective responses to the present ecological crisis and in this way to offer concrete hope to future generations.”

The Group of 20, whose leaders gather on Saturday and Sunday in Rome beforehand, will pledge to take urgent steps to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).

While the 2015 Paris Agreement committed signatories to keeping global warming to “well below” two degrees above pre-industrial levels, and preferably to 1.5 degrees, carbon levels in the atmosphere have since grown.

“We commit to tackle the existential challenge of climate change,” the G20 draft, seen by Reuters, promised.