“Every year seven million people die because of pollution. We must all cooperate together to end it.” With these words Arnold Schwarzenegger, former governor of California and president of the USC Schwarzenegger Institute, opened the press conference today at the Vatican to present the international event Raising Hope for Climate Justice, to be held 1-3 October at Castel Gandolfo in the presence of Pope Leo XIV and 400 religious and civic leaders from around the world.
Schwarzenegger stressed the crucial role of the Catholic Church in the climate challenge: “With 1.4 billion faithful and 400,000 priests, the communicative power that can be manifested is immense. If every Catholic became an environmental crusader, we could really change things.” The former Hollywood actor, a practising Catholic, spoke of a “moral mission”: “God put us in this world to leave it better than we found it.”
To spiritual reflections, the former governor wove political ones: “We must never listen to the prophets of doom. When I was governor of California, they told us we were crazy, that you couldn’t safeguard the economy and the environment together. And instead we reduced pollution by 70 per cent whilst the economy grew more than the national average. We proved that it can be done.” Schwarzenegger also recalled the legal battles against the Bush administration, which was trying to block California’s environmental laws: “We never gave up, we went on until we won. Hasta la vista, baby!”
But for Schwarzenegger, the real battle is won on the ground: “We don’t always wait for federal governments or presidents. Let’s look at the Vatican: it didn’t just talk the talk, it installed solar panels. Action. That’s what it takes. We can all do the same: turn off the lights when we go out, reduce waste, favour zero-mile products.”
The Castel Gandolfo summit coincides with the 10th anniversary of Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato si’. Pope Leo XIV, the first U.S. pontiff, has already strongly revived the Church’s ecological doctrine, inaugurating an environmental education centre in the papal gardens of Castel Gandolfo this month.
Speakers, in addition to Schwarzenegger, will include Brazil’s environment minister, the director of the UN Faith for Earth coalition, the CEO of the European Climate Foundation, and representatives from countries already dramatically affected by the climate crisis such as Tuvalu. “This is not a problem of the future,” warned the Pacific island’s Climate Minister Maina Talia. “We are already sinking. Our survival depends on global solidarity.”
Schwarzenegger concluded with a personal appeal, “The challenge is too great to face alone. But together we can defeat pollution. It is an order from above: leave the planet better than we inherited it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arnold Schwarzenegger at Vatican for climate summit with Pope Leo XIV: “Seven million deaths each year from pollution. Every Catholic can be an environmental crusader. We can save economy and planet together, leaving it better than we inherited it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":11673,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"googlesitekit_rrm_CAowscnaCw:productID":"","_app_feed_target":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1707,1596,1794],"tags":[1767,1852,1851],"class_list":["post-11672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-activism","category-climate","category-people","tag-climate","tag-schwarzenegger","tag-vatican"],"yoast_head":"\n