San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Pope to Big Oil: ‘No time to lose’ to make changes
He urges they care for all the world
ROME — Three years ago, Pope Francis issued a sweeping letter that highlighted the global crisis posed by climate change and called for swift action to save the environment and the planet.
On Saturday, the pope gathered money managers and titans of the world’s biggest oil companies during a closed-door conference at the Vatican and asked them if they had gotten the message.
Pressure has been building on oil and gas companies to transition to less polluting forms of energy, with the threat of fossil-fuel divestment sometimes used as a stick.
“There is no time to lose,” Francis told them Saturday.
Though oil and gas companies have made “commendable” progress and were “developing more careful approaches to the assessment of climate risk and adjusting their business practices accordingly,” he said, those actions were not enough.
“Will we turn the corner in time? No one can answer that with certainty,” the pope said. “But with each month that passes, the challenge of energy transition becomes more pressing.”
He called on the participants “to be the core of a group of leaders who envision the global energy transition in a way that will take into account all the peoples of the Earth, as well as future generations and all species and ecosystems.”
In an era when the White House is viewed by many scientists as hostile to the idea of climate change, with President Donald Trump announcing the U.S.’ withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, Francis is seen as an influential voice to nudge oil executives to take action on the issue.
Among those summoned to a 16th-century villa in the Vatican gardens were the chairman of Exxon Mobil, the CEO of Italian energy giant Eni and the CEO of BP
U.S, Japanese, British, French and Norwegian money managers were also on the list, according to news accounts, as well as the CEO of investment firm BlackRock and a former energy secretary under President Barack Obama.