Pope Leo and Arnold Schwarzenegger Demand Climate Action

TIME

Pope Leo XIV gave his first major address on climate change on Wednesday, during a conference marking the 10th anniversary of Laudato Si', a landmark papal document written by his predecessor Pope Francis. In it, he spoke to the importance of the document, known as an encyclical, which called for the care of our environment and specifically addressed climate change. And he urged society to demand more from governments around the world to tackle the challenge.  Arnold Schwarzenegger headlined the three-day climate conference that included an estimated 1,000 representatives from environmental and indigenous groups.

Transcript

00:00The Catholic Church has 1.4 billion members, 1.4 billion Catholics out there, 400,000 priests,

00:17600,000 nuns, 200,000 churches. Now think about that.

00:30That power. And for that to be involved in our movement, in our environmental movement,

00:40to terminate pollution. To terminate pollution. And of course,

00:50I'm very honored to be here because I'm next to an action hero.

01:00Now you're laughing because he doesn't look maybe like one, like you see in the movies with the

01:11muscles and with the guns and all that stuff. No. But the reason why I call him an action hero is

01:16because as soon as he became the Pope, he ordered the Vatican to put solar panels on top of the

01:23buildings. What must be done now to ensure that caring for our common home and listening to the

01:29cry of the earth and the poor do not appear as mere passing trends, or worse still, that they be seen

01:37and felt as divisive issues. In line with Laudato Si, the apostolic exhortation Laudate Deum published two

01:48years ago noted that some have chosen to deride the increasingly evident signs of climate change,

01:57to ridicule those who speak of global warming, and even to blame the poor for the very thing

02:04that affects them the most. Besides spreading the message of the encyclical, it is now more important

02:12than ever to return to the heart. Pope Francis emphasized that the most effective solutions

02:21will not come from individual efforts alone, but above all, from major political decisions on the

02:27national and international levels. Everyone in society, through non-governmental organizations and

02:35advocacy groups, must put pressure on governments to develop and implement more rigorous regulations,

02:42procedures, and controls. Citizens need to take an active role in political decision-making at national,

02:51regional, regional, and local levels. Only then will it be possible to mitigate the damage done to the

02:59environment. Local legislation will also be more effective if neighboring communities support the same

03:06environmental policies.

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