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

By Deborah Castellano Lubov

“A recent study by the International Renewable Energy Agency found that 84% of 10,000 young people surveyed see the climate crisis as a major threat to their future. They need practical tools to take action and make a difference.”

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

The academic, also involved in the Vatican Foundation Centenary Year, He was speaking at the event organised by the Embassy of the Sovereign Order of Malta to the Holy See on Monday 16 September.

While stressing that the energy transition is an essential way to involve the new generation in changes “that can really improve the world”, also in terms of “social inclusion”, and not only at the economic level, she asked what this requires, “in practical terms”.

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

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

“In the spirit of Laudato Si. Towards COP 29”

The event, titled “In the Spirit of Praise be to you. Towards COP 29: the energy transition as an opportunity for social and professional inclusion”, presented the MAIRE Foundation study and the developments in view of COP 29 in Azerbaijan. The Italian Minister of the Interior, Matteo Piantedosi, was also among the speakers.

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

The study of the MAIRE Foundation, of which Full results can be viewed herewas carried out in collaboration with the multinational market research and consulting firm IPSOS.

Concrete action needed to offer generations a sustainable future

Given these discouraging results, the organization calls for a conversion from fossil energy to renewable and circular energy sources, and stresses that new skills and the retraining of the current workforce are essential to this transition.

Additionally, it calls for a radical change in the way individuals are trained to achieve net zero emissions and move towards carbon neutrality.

The study reveals a growing awareness of the importance of skills development to address 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: “The big question? What future are we going to leave to our children?”

Father Enzo Fortunato, communications director of St. Peter’s Basilica, who has played a key role in the “Economy of Francis” meetings in Assisi, spoke to Vatican News about the world’s responsibility to the next generation and how “the future of the world” depends on it.

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

He stressed that we must recognize our individual responsibility.

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

Ambassador Zanardi Landi: The Order of Malta is interested in the major problems that afflict societies

Ambassador Antonio Zanardi Landi of the Sovereign Order of Malta to the Holy See shared with Vatican News the Order’s motivations behind this meeting.

“Even if we are not particularly “experts” in energy transition, we are keen,” he explained, “to get involved and to involve the public on the most sensitive and important issues that are present in our societies and in the world today.”

If “the Order of Malta has great and 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 provide help, small or large, to the success of the great problems that afflict European and extra-European societies.”

“A junction” between two worlds

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