"Pope Francis was very supportive of the work we are doing to engage Catholics around the world in a coordinated response to climate change", said Tomás Insua, co-founder of the GCCM from Argentina. "The Pope even joked that we were competing against his encyclical. His endorsement of our work is extremely important to raise awareness within Catholic circles globally, and to collect more signatures."  The idea for the petition came as a response to Pope Francis' call last December: "On climate change there is a clear, definitive and ineluctable ethical imperative to act." The signatures will be presented to world leaders in December 2015, when they will meet at the United Nations climate summit in Paris.

Following protocol, Pope Francis asked the Pontifical Ceremonieri, Monsignor Guillermo Karcher, to sign the petition on his behalf to emphasise his endorsement and encourage Catholics to sign as well. The Pope also presented GCCM with the book "The Sun's Energy in the Vatican" as a gift to emphasise the Holy See's commitment to renewable energy as a means to address the climate crisis.

"The support of Pope Francis to the petition is very important as climate change is a great and urgent moral issue," said Allen Ottaro, director of CYNESA based in Kenya and co-founder of GCCM. "Climate change hits the poorest first and hardest, and will leave an unnecessarily dire legacy for future generations. We Catholics need to step up against climate change and raise a strong voice asking political leaders to take action urgently. I encourage all to sign the  petition on our website: "

SIGN THE PETIOIN HERE

About the GLOBAL CATHOLIC CLIMATE MOVEMENT

Concerned about human-made climate change and united by our Catholic faith, we came together as a movement of almost 100 Catholic organizations to care for God’s creation, for the poor–who are the most vulnerable to climate disruption–and for our children, who will face the worst impacts in the coming years. We encourage Catholics to renew our relationship with creation and with our brothers and sisters in poverty, and we urge our political leaders to commit to ambitious climate action to solve this urgent crisis and keep the global temperature increase below 1.5 degree Celsius (relative to pre-industrial levels).