Pope to Big Oil: Rethink energy strategies
Francis advocates diversifying sources, touts sustainables
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis told leading oil executives Saturday that the transition to less-polluting energy sources “is a challenge of epochal proportions” and warned that satisfying the world’s energy needs “must not destroy civilization.”
The Vatican said Francis held a two-day conference with the executives as a follow-up to his encyclical three years ago that called on people to save the planet from climate change and other environmental ills.
Participants included the CEOs of Italian oil giant ENI, British Petroleum, Exxon Mobil and Norway’s Statoil as well as scientists and managers of major investment funds. Their remarks on the first day of the closed-door conference were not released by the Vatican.
Francis lauded the oil executives for embedding an assessment of climate change risks into their planning strategies, but he also put them on notice for their “continued search for fossil fuel reserves,” 2½ years after the Paris climate accord “clearly urged keeping most fossil fuels underground.”
“Civilization requires energy, but energy must not destroy civilization,” he said.
Energy experts and those who advocate fighting climate change expressed doubts before the conference that it would amount to anything other than a PR opportunity for the companies to burnish their image without making meaningful changes.
In his remarks, the pope said he hoped the meeting gave participants the chance to “re-examine old assumptions and gain new perspectives.”
Francis said that modern society with its “massive movement of information, persons and things requires an immense supply of energy.” And still, he said, as many as 1 billion people lack electricity.
The pope said meeting the energy needs of everyone on the planet must be done in ways “that avoid creating environmental imbalances, resulting in deterioration and pollution that is gravely harmful to our human family, both now and in the future.”
Francis also recalled his appeal in the “Laudato Si” encyclical for an energy policy “aimed at averting disastrous climate changes that could compromise the wellbeing and future of the human family, and our common home.” That includes transitioning to efficient, clean energy sources.
“This is a challenge of epochal proportions,” he said Saturday. “At the same time it is an immense opportunity to encourage efforts to ensure fuller access to energy by less developed countries … as well as diversifying energy sources and promoting the sustainable development of renewable forms of energy.”
The pope called for a “longterm global strategy to provide energy security,” along with “precise commitments” to tackle the challenge of climate change.