Pope Francis was about to take a major step backing the science behind human-driven global warming, and Philippe de Larminat was determined to change his mind.
A French doubter who authored a book arguing that solar activity — not greenhouse gases — was driving global warming, de Larminat sought a spot at a climate summit in April sponsored by the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Nobel laureates would be there. So would U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, U.S. economist Jeffrey Sachs and others calling for dramatic steps to curb carbon emissions.
After securing a high-level meeting at the Vatican, he was told that, space permitting, he could join. He bought a plane ticket from Paris to Rome. But five days before the April 28 summit, de Larminat said, he received an e-mail saying there was no space left. It came after other scientists — as well as the powerful Vatican bureaucrat in charge of the academy — insisted he had no business being there.
“They did not want to hear an off note,” de Larminat said.
The incident highlights how climate-change doubters tried and failed to alter the landmark papal document unveiled last week — one that saw the leader of 1 billion Catholics fuse faith and reason and come to the conclusion that “denial” is wrong.
It marked the latest blow for those seeking to stop the reform-minded train that has become Francis’s papacy. It is one that has reinvigorated liberal Catholics even as it has sowed the seeds of resentment and dissent inside and outside the Vatican’s ancient walls.
Yet the battle lost over climate change also suggests how hard it may be for critics to blunt the power of a man who has become something of a juggernaut in an institution where change tends to unfold over decades, even centuries. More than anything, to those who doubt the human impact of global warming, the position staked out by Francis in his papal document, known as an encyclical, means a major defeat.
“This was their Waterloo,” said Kert Davies, executive director of the Climate Investigations Center, who has been tracking climate-change deniers for years. “They wanted the encyclical not to happen. And it happened.”
In January, Francis officially announced his goal of drafting the encyclical — saying after an official visit to the Philippines that he wanted to make a “contribution” to the debate ahead of a major U.N. summit on climate change in Paris in December.
But several efforts by those skeptical of the scientific consensus on climate change to influence the document appear to have come considerably later — in April — and, maybe, too late.
In late April, the Chicago-based Heartland Institute, a free-market group that serves as a hub of skepticism regarding the science of human-caused global warming, sent a delegation to the Vatican. As a Heartland news release put it, they hoped “to inform Pope Francis of the truth about climate science: There is no global warming crisis!”
It was meant to coincide with the same April meeting that de Larminat was trying to attend. Heartland’s activists were not part of the invited contingent, either, Heartland communications director Jim Lakely said.
“It was a side event,” he said. “We were outside the walls of the Vatican. We were at a hotel — literally, I could throw a football into St. Peter’s Square.”
Seven scientists and other experts gave speeches at the Heartland event, raising doubts about various aspects of the scientific consensus on climate change, even as several also urged the pope not to take sides in the debate. It’s impossible to know how that influenced those in the Vatican working on the pope’s document — which one Vatican official said was at “an advanced stage.” But Lakely said his group did not see much of its argument reflected in the final document.
One member of the Heartland delegation was E. Calvin Beisner, a theologian and founder of an evangelical group called the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation. In April, the group launched an “open letter” to the pope, signed by more than 100 scholars and theologians, arguing that climate-change models “provide no rational basis to forecast dangerous human-induced global warming, and therefore no rational basis for efforts to reduce warming by restricting the use of fossil fuels or any other means.”
Beisner said he thinks that “between a quarter and a third” of the signers were Catholic. He said he is not totally unhappy with the pope’s encyclical — he appreciates the sections on the need to help the poor and “the sanctity of human life.” But as for the climate section, he said, Francis is “writing in an area that is not his own background, and it looks to me as if he was poorly served by his adviser.”
During Francis’s 27 months as pope, something of a conservative resistance has formed to his more progressive tone.
Some conservatives, including U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke, have publicly denied a rift with the pope while also openly warning of a liberal strain coursing through the church. And a number of leaks in the Italian news media — including of the encyclical itself — have sparked a flurry of intrigue over possible conspiracies inside the Vatican.
Luigi Vicinanza, editor of the magazine L’Espresso, which published the leaked draft of the encyclical, said he had personally obtained it from a source. He would not identify the source but said he did not think the person was “out to harm the pope.”
Still, some pope watchers blame several leaks on an anti-Francis cabal inside the Vatican walls. Others say that not enough evidence has emerged to pin the leaks on a specific agenda.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is a hero to the Russian people for standing up to the West. He might be gaining a whole new Hellenic fan base, and that’s bad news for the United States and Europe.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras left a Thursday meeting with Europe’s finance ministers in Luxembourg no closer to paying the International Monetary Fund the $1.8 billion his government owes than when he arrived. As the prospect for a payment deal by the July 1 deadline grows bleak, experts predict Tsipras will turn to Moscow for help.
Tsipras was set to meet with Putin on Friday at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum. Ahead of the meeting, Greece energy ministry officials said they would sign a pipeline deal with Gazprom, Russia’s national energy company, a sign of Moscow’s growing influence there.
At a previous meeting with Putin in April, Tsipras undermined NATO’s position when he said European and American sanctions on Russia for its actions in Ukraine would lead to a new cold war in Europe. At the same gathering, Russia said it would pay for infrastructure projects in the cash-strapped Mediterranean nation.
So far, Russia has largely stayed out of the European financial crisis. But the Greek conundrum provides a tasty incentive to dive in.
If Moscow does, it would transform a five-year economic crisis into a geopolitical one.
Ahead of the Friday meeting, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said he “cannot comment on specific decisions” when asked if Moscow would rescue Athens.
This puts German Chancellor Angela Merkel into a difficult spot. Her own conservative party, the German people, and bankers in Frankfurt have all made clear they don’t want to continue to pay for Greece if Athens doesn’t heed calls to reform. But she’s under pressure from Washington to maintain an alliance that won’t upset the apple cart when it comes to sanctions.
“She doesn’t love the idea that Putin would be presented with a gift if Greece is alienated from Western Europe,” Mallaby said.
Meanwhile, it appears as if Greece and its European partners are entering an endgame that could isolate Athens from the European monetary club. Greece insists that it has the money to pay back the IMF and the European Central Bank, but would only do so if Europe drops its demands for pension reform.
Speaking after the Luxembourg meeting, IMF chief Christine Lagarde made clear there would be no extension of the deadline for Greece to pony up the cash it owes.
Now, European leaders have called an emergency meeting for Monday, in yet another attempt to get Greece to agree to pay. For her part, Merkel left a path for a deal open, saying Thursday in Berlin that she was “still convinced” a deal is possible.
But CFR’s Mallaby thinks that outcome is unlikely. He said giving Greece any wiggle room would sent a bad signal to other European nations, like Spain and Portugal, struggling under the weight of years of unserviced debt.
“The personal relationship between Tsipras and his counterparts has just turned poisonous,” Mallaby said. “He’s misplayed this game quite badly.”
“If Greece had a very functional government, we wouldn’t be in this position in the first place.”
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ReplyDeleteIf Greece leaves the uro zone this will effect everyone in some way. Perhaps our beautiful fallen angel stands present, center stage .
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