‘84% of young people concerned climate crisis will endanger future’

By Deborah Castellano Lubov

“Consider that in recent research of the International Renewable Energy Agency, it emerged that 84% of the 10,000 young people interviewed, consider the climate crisis a key danger threatening their future. Therefore, they need practical tools to intervene and make a difference.”

In an interview with Vatican News on the sidelines of a high-level presentation at Rome’s iconic Palazzo Orsini, Dr. Cristina Finocchi Mahne, an advisory board member of Fordham’s Gabelli School of Business in New York and Professor at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, made this observation.

The academic, also involved in the Vatican Foundation Centesimus Annus, had been speaking at the event organized by the Embassy of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta to the Holy See, on Monday, 16 September.

High-level panel discussion at Palazzo Orsini

While stressing that energy transition is a key way to involve the new generation in changes “that can really improve the world,” also in terms of “social inclusion,” not just on an economic level, she asked what this requires, “in practical terms?”

“We have, in a way, a sort of superpower that we can use with the new generation,” she marveled, noting they can be “a crucial part of this process in terms of new professions that this sector will bring to life,” and by providing “opportunities” related to “a common language and process among the new generation all over the world.”

The young generation possessing such practical tools, she stressed, will make a difference not only in energy transitioning, but also in economic and social environments.

“In the Spirit of Laudato Si. Toward COP 29

The event, entitled “In the Spirit of Laudato si. Toward COP 29: Energy Transition as an Opportunity for Social and Employment Inclusion,” presented the MAIRE Foundation’s study and developments leading up to COP 29 in Azerbaijan. Italy’s Interior Minister, Matteo Piantedosi, was also among the speakers.

The research, presented during COP 28 in Dubai, involved 1,700 respondents from ten countries, including Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, China, India, Algeria, and Chile.

The MAIRE Foundation study, whose complete findings can be consulted here, was conducted in collaboration with the multinational market research and consulting firm IPSOS.

Concreteness required to offer generations sustainable future

Given the bleak findings, the organization is appealing for energy conversion from fossil fuels to renewable and circular energy sources, and is stressing that new skills and the reskilling of the current workforce are critical to this transition.

Moreover, it calls for a disruptive change in the way people are trained to achieve net zero and move toward carbon neutrality.

The study reveals a growing awareness of the importance of skill development to tackle the energy transition, particularly in emerging countries in Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and South America, in order to “ensure a sustainable future for generations to come.”

Father Fortunato: ‘Big Question? What future will we leave our children?’

Father Enzo Fortunato, the communications director of St. Peter’s Basilica, who had a key role in the ‘Economy of Francesco’ encounters of Assisi, spoke to Vatican News about the world’s responsibility to the next generation, and that “the future of the world” depends on it.

“The big question,” he said is: “What future we will give our children?”

Fr. Enzo Fortunato

He highlighted that we must recognize our individual responsibility.

“Man,” Fr. Fortunato said, “is not the ‘Dominus,’ I say in Latino ‘Dominus,’ the owner of the world, but rather man is supposed to be the one who makes the world come together.”

Ambassador Zanardi Landi: Order of Malta interested in great problems afflicting societies

Ambassador Antonio Zanardi Landi of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta to the Holy See shared with Vatican News’ the Order’s motivation behind the encounter.

“Even though we are not particularly ‘expert’ on energy transition, we are eager,” he explained, “to get involved, and have the audience involved, in the most sensitive and important themes which are present in our societies and world today.”

While “the Order of Malta has great, very ancient traditions,” he observed, “it also feels the need to live in today’s society, to try to understand how it can get involved and bring help, small or large, to the success of the great problems that afflict European and non-European societies.”

‘A junction’ between two worlds

“We will try to continue to work with large Italian societies that do good things inspired by the Magisterium of the Church, perhaps without realising it, and we will try to act as a junction between these two worlds,” Ambassador Zanardi Landi said.

‘In the Spirit of Laudato Si. Toward COP29’ event in Rome