Pope Francis, who has made the fight against global warming one of the banners of his pontificate, announced on Wednesday that he will attend the COP28 climate summit that begins on November 30 in Dubai.
"I'm going to Dubai. I think I'll go out on December 1st, until the 3rd. I will be there for three days," the 86-year-old Argentine pontiff said in an interview with Italian television Rai1.
From 30 November to 12 December, Dubai will host the UN climate conference, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help developing countries cope with the consequences of climate change.
According to the pope, this conference could represent "a turning point" if it reaches a binding agreement on the transition from fossil fuels to less polluting ones such as wind and solar. If that compromise is not achieved, there will be "great disappointment," Francis said.
Since his election in 2013, the pope has made the defense of the environment a central theme of his pontificate. In 2015, he dedicated his encyclical "Laudato si" (Praise be to you), a 200-page manifesto in favor of an "integral ecology," to that question.
Last month, it published an assessment of the road traveled since then, entitled "Laudate Deum" (Praise God), in which it urges the world's leaders to sign "binding" agreements in the face of the climate emergency.
"With the passage of time, I realize that we do not have enough reactions while the world that welcomes us is crumbling and perhaps approaching a breaking point," Francis warns in the 12-page text.
This will be the first time a head of the Catholic Church will participate in person at a COP summit, an event that has been held annually since 1995.
It will also be the pontiff's 45th trip abroad and the sixth this year. Weakened by knee pain and the abdominal operation he underwent in June, the pope is in a wheelchair.
- Pope Francis I