Pope Francis’ visit to Washington next week will give President Obama a real chance to breathe new life into a climate change agenda that faces several obstacles, including growing opposition in Congress and doubts from foreign leaders that a deal on global warming can be reached at the end of the year in Paris.
The pope has been a prominent supporter of actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that many scientists blame for causing the Earth’s temperature to rise, causing more floods, droughts and other catastrophes.
Francis has framed climate change as a moral issue. Obama will likely use the pope’s time in Washington to draw attention to the challenge of global warming, and the need for putting away political differences in support of actions to reduce emissions.
The pope will also address a joint session of Congress following talks at the White House. In that address, he is expected to underscore points he made earlier this year in issuing his climate change “encyclical,” which outlines his thoughts on the issue of global warming. In the encyclical, he advocates for reductions in manmade emissions from fossil fuels.
Republicans have been nearly unanimous in opposing Pope Francis’ encyclical on the issue, and many in the Republican leadership say the pope shouldn’t get involved in an issue that they see as primarily political. At the same time, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is readying a major legislative push to attempt to derail the centerpiece of President Obama’s climate agenda, regulations for power plants called the Clean Power Plan. The plan places states on the hook to reduce emissions by a third over the next 15 years.
But White House officials are downplaying those policy differences ahead of the pope’s visit, emphasizing instead that climate change is about caring for the “least among us” and protecting the Earth.
Pope Francis has “been an outspoken advocate for protecting God’s creation in terms of how we care for our environment and also the efforts that need to be taken to combat climate change,” said Ben Rhodes, White House deputy national security adviser, on a call with reporters Thursday previewing the visit. The pope “has brought I think a moral clarity to how he addresses that issue and calls on all of us to care for the least among us.”
The pope’s mission in Washington also dovetails with a major United Nations summit being held ahead of world leaders attending the General Assembly meeting at the end of the month in New York, according to Rhodes. President Obama is expected to join Francis there amid discussions on how to reach a global deal on climate change in Paris in December, say observers.
Rhodes suggested the president will discuss the Paris talks with the pope during face-to-face talks Sept. 23 at the White House. The pope’s encyclical “comes at a time when countries around the world are preparing for an important international meeting at the end of the year in Paris,” Rhodes said. “And that I think provides an important moral backdrop to the type of policy decisions that individual leaders will make on climate change.”
But climate talks in the run-up to Paris have been marred by problems. Countries have complained that negotiations to hash out the preliminaries to a deal in December are moving too slowly. They also say key decisions on policy issues required to reached by the time countries meet in Paris have stalled.French President Francois Hollande, who has been advocating for success in Paris, said recently that the talks will likely flounder if key decisions aren’t made soon. “There will not be an agreement if there is no firm commitment on financing,” Hollande told journalists earlier this month. France is hosting the talks.
French President Francois Hollande, who has been advocating for success in Paris, said recently that the talks will likely flounder if key decisions aren’t made soon. “There will not be an agreement if there is no firm commitment on financing,” Hollande told journalists earlier this month. France is hosting the talks.
The U.S. and the European Union are said to be holding back on commitments to ramp up a $100 billion a year fund meant to help developing countries cope with the effects of climate change, say negotiators. The fund has been a key sticking point that many say would likely derail the talks entirely.
Observers say the climate talks surrounding the U.N. General Assembly meeting this month in New York must be used to make progress, or there won’t be a deal by the time countries assemble in Paris. Activists say there might be a deal in December without agreement on the funding, but it won’t be worth much.
The Obama administration hasn’t been that vocal about the funding problems. It instead has focused on promoting the Clean Power Plan as key in demonstrating the U.S. is serious in lowering its emissions and abide by the U.N. agreement.
Rhodes tried to distance next week’s talks between the pope and Obama from being about any one domestic policy regarding climate change. Instead, he said climate change is a global issue that all nations are concerned about.
The issue is “kind of broader than some specific issues that might be before the President or Congress,” said Rhodes. “So these are broad, thematic messages that the pope has delivered that really go beyond even individual policies and get at how do we approach issues and how do we approach one another.”
A group of ten Republicans in the House took a big leap on Thursday by introducing a resolution in the House that acknowledges global warming as manmade, while opening the door to work on items that would address the issue of climate change. The non-binding resolution from Rep. Chris Gibson of New York does not endorse any sort of policy to address global warming. Faith groups and environmentalists praised the effort, and hope see more GOP lawmakers sign up as co-sponsors to the resolution.
But Arizona Republican Rep. Paul Gosar, a noted Catholic, in an open letter posted on Townhall.com Friday stated that he would be boycotting the pope’s Sept. 24 address to a joint session of Congress. Gosar says he won’t attend because “His Holiness … intends to focus the brunt of his speech on climate change — a climate that has been changing since first created in Genesis.”
