Catholics continue to press Trump on climate change

Brian Roewe | Feb. 22, 2017

In separate letters last week, more than 100 Catholic leaders, among them bishops and university presidents, continued to voice their conviction that the Trump administration maintain three signature climate change policies reached under former President Barack Obama.

One letter from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops addressed the Paris climate accord and the international Green Climate Fund. Another, organized by Catholic Climate Covenant, sought protection of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan.

President Donald Trump, a climate skeptic who has referred to it as a "hoax," is expected as early as this week to order a rewriting, and weakening, of the EPA rules on emissions for coal- and gas-fired power plants. It remains up in the air how under his leadership the U.S. will participate in the two international efforts to address climate change.

The bishops' letter, dated Feb. 17 and written by Bishops Oscar Cantu of Las Cruces, N.M., and Frank Dewane of Venice, Fla., along with Catholic Relief Services President and CEO Sean Callahan, was directed at Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Dewane is chair of the bishops' conference Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, while Cantu chairs the Committee on International Justice and Peace.

https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/eco-catholic/catholics-continue-press-trump-climate-change