Pope Francis has ordered the Vatican to install a solar plant to provide electricity for the entire city, in a sign of readiness to combat climate change.
Pope Francis, a longtime supporter of environmental protection, issued an official letter demanding the creation of an "agri-voltaic" plant in Santa Maria di Galeria, an extraterritorial area of Vatican land north of Rome.
Agri-voltaic projects combine solar power generation and agriculture, with panels typically installed over crop fields or pastures.
"We must move towards a model of sustainable development that reduces greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere in order to achieve the goal of climate neutrality," the Pope wrote in the June 21 letter.
He said the plant would produce enough energy to power not only the Vatican Radio transmission center already on site, but also to provide "the full energy sustenance of the Vatican state."
The letter does not specify when the plant will be installed or become operational.
Pope Francis said he intends "to contribute to the efforts of all countries to offer, in accordance with their respective responsibilities and capacities, an adequate response to the challenges that climate change poses to humanity and our common home."
In 2022. The Vatican has joined the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Climate Agreements, which in 2015 set a goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.
Pope Benedict XVI launched the Vatican's green initiatives in 2008 by installing solar panels on the audience hall.
But it was the 87-year-old Pope Francis who decried man-made climate change and the fact that the world's most marginalized people are paying the highest price for global warming.
Last year, the Vatican issued its first Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) - an effort to reduce emissions under the Paris Agreements - in which it pledged to cut greenhouse gases to 20% below 2011 levels by 2030.
Pope Francis has also drawn up a "2030 Ecological Conversion" plan for carbon-neutral projects and technologies, including a switch to electric vehicles, even though the city-state's contribution to global emissions is already negligible. | BGNES
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