Vatican 'may' consider divestment from fossil fuels, despite pope's call to arms
Source: The Guardian
Vatican 'may' consider divestment from fossil fuels, despite pope's call to arms
Activist Naomi Klein, who is in an ‘unlikely alliance’ with Vatican on climate
change, says she believes a possible divestment policy is under discussion
Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Vatican City
Wednesday 1 July 2015 20.34 BST
The Vatican may consider, but is not committed to, divesting its holdings in fossil fuels, a Catholic church official has said, despite Pope Francis’s call for bold action to fight climate change and global warming.
The statement – made at a press conference on Wednesday to discuss the pope’s recently released encyclical on the environment – is likely to disappoint climate activists, who have praised Pope Francis’s essay stressing that climate change is mostly a man-made problem.
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The hesitancy to act may reflect internal divisions about whether investment decisions by the Institute for Religious Works (IOR)– the official name of the Vatican bank – which has about €6bn (£4.25bn) under management, ought to reflect Pope Francis’s values, particularly ones that might still be considered contentious within the church’s hierarchy.
George Pell, the Australian cardinal who serves as the pope’s chief economic minister, is known to be a climate-change denier. In a speech in 2011, he said that “evidence” that had led the scientific community to conclude that the earth is warming was “insufficient to achieve practical certainty on many of these scientific issues”.
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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/01/vatican-may-consider-divestment-from-fossil-fuels-despite-popes-call-to-arms
