Pope calls for global commitment to put climate pact into action

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis on Sunday urged the countries that signed the landmark Paris agreement on climate change to join in a concerted commitment to put it in practice and to remember the poor as they do so.

"The climate change conference has just ended in Paris with the adoption of an agreement that many have called historic. Putting it into practice will need a concerted commitment and a generous dedication on the part of all. In the hope that particular attention will be guaranteed for the most vulnerable populations, I exhort the entire international community to move forward urgently along the path that has been taken in a sign of solidarity that becomes ever more feasible," he told tens of thousands of people in St. Peter's Square for his noon address.

Francis, who last May issued a major encyclical on the need to protect the environment and arrest global warming, also made an appeal to countries participating in the Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization in Nairobi to pay particular attention to those most vulnerable.

"Next Tuesday, December 15th, in Nairobi, which I recently visited, Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization will start. I appeal to the participating countries, that the decisions that they make take into account the needs of the poor and the most vulnerable, as well as the legitimate aspirations of the least developed countries and the common good of the entire human family," said the pope.

Francis has made advocacy for the poor a center point of his tenure, born out of his time spent in slums and soup kitchens as a church leader before becoming pope in 2013. During the Kenya-leg of his Africa trip last month, he visited a slum in Nairobi. — Reuters