EVEN as hope for a better deal to safe the earth’s environment has arisen, mayors from around the world have endorsed a final declaration, calling on all political leasers and stakeholders to ensure their actions and inactions do not further worsen the climate situation in the globe.

The mayors at the Vatican last week declared that climate change is real, man-made and must be stopped as a matter of moral imperative. Their gathering at the Vatican was to announce new measures to fight global warming and bask in Pope Francis’ ecological star power.

The Vatican invited the 60 mayors, including New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, to a two-day conference to keep up pressure on world leaders ahead of U.N. climate negotiations in Paris later this year.

The meeting also aimed to promote Francis’ environment encyclical, which denounced what he calls a fossil fuel-based world economy that exploits the poor and destroys the Earth.

One by one, the mayors lined up to sign a final declaration stating that “human-induced climate change is a scientific reality and its effective control is a moral imperative for humanity.”

Francis told the gathering that he had “a lot of hope” that the Paris negotiations would succeed, but also warned the mayors: “You are the conscience of humanity.”

Experts have long said that cities are key to reducing global warming since urban areas account for nearly three-quarters of human emissions.
Mayor after mayor made an individual plea last week for the world to change its ways.

Drawing rousing applause, California Gov. Jerry Brown denounced global warming deniers who he said were “bamboozling” the public and politicians with false information to persuade them that the world isn’t getting warmer. California has enacted the toughest greenhouse gas emissions standards in North America.

“We have a very powerful opposition that, at least in my country, spends billions on trying to keep from office people such as yourselves and elect troglodytes and other deniers of the obvious science,” said Brown, a former Jesuit seminarian.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced new greenhouse gas emissions targets for the Big Apple – committing the city to reducing its emissions 40 percent by 2030 – and urged other cities to follow suit.

“The Paris summit is just months away,” de Blasio said. “We need to see it as the finish line of a sprint, and take every local action we can in the coming months to maximize the chance that our national governments will act boldly.”

De Blasio is a founding member of an alliance of world cities that have committed to reducing emissions by 80 percent by 2050 or sooner.

San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee announced new measures of his own, saying the city that takes its name from the pope’s nature-loving namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, would transition its municipal fleet of fire trucks, buses and trucks from petroleum diesel to renewable energy sources by the end of the year.

Stockholm Mayor Karin Wanngard said the Paris climate talks in December must take fossil fuels off the table and focus instead on renewable energy sources.

“Climate negotiators must dare to push boundaries and exclude fossil fuels as an option and reward solutions that are long-term sustainable and renewable,” she said.

Stockholm is one of the world’s leaders in using renewable energy sources, with 75 percent of the city’s public transport network running on renewable energy. Wanngard’s goal is to make the Swedish capital fossil fuel-free by 2040.

The climax of the inaugural session was the afternoon audience with Francis, who has become a hero to the environmental movement and has used his moral authority and enormous popularity to focus world attention on climate change and its effects on the poor.

Francis’ other main priority has been to raise awareness about human trafficking.

The Vatican conference is aimed at showing how both are related: The exploitation of the Earth and its most vulnerable people, with global warming often responsible for creating “environmental refugees” forced to flee homes because of drought or other climate-induced natural disasters.

Francis told the gathering that while he had high hopes about the Paris climate negotiations, he also wanted the United Nations to focus more on human trafficking.

“The United Nations has to deal with this,” he said.

The Vatican is angling for the U.N.’s new Sustainable Development Goals, to be finalized in September, to make a solid reference to the problems of human trafficking and modern-day slavery.