The Daily Populous

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis warned that climate change risked destroying humanity on Saturday and called on energy leaders to help the world to convert to clean fuels to avert catastrophe.

“Civilization requires energy but energy use must not destroy civilization,” the pope told top oil company executives at the end of a two-day conference in the Vatican.

Climate change was a challenge of “epochal proportions”, he said, adding that the world needed an energy mix that combated pollution, eliminated poverty and promoted social justice.

The conference, held behind closed doors at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, brought together oil executives, investors and Vatican experts who, like the pope, back scientific opinion that climate change is caused by human activity.

If we are to eliminate poverty and hunger ... the more than one billion people without electricity today need to gain access to it,” the pope told them.

He said the transition to accessible and clean energy was “a duty that we owe towards millions of our brothers and sisters around the world, poorer countries and generations yet to come”.

FILE PHOTO: Pope Francis attends a meeting with faithful of the diocese of Rome at Saint John Lateran Basilica in Rome, Italy May 14, 2018. »