Pope Benedict on Thursday took up the environmentalist banner in the worldwide debate on climate change, urging nations to adopt lifestyles that respect "creation".
The 80-year-old pope said that the main victims of global warming would be the earth's poorest inhabitants and that this made the issue an ethical one as well as an economic and political one.
The pontiff issued his call for greater efforts to promote sustainable development in a message to a two-day seminar in the Vatican on climate change. The event was attended by 80 experts from 20 countries.
Benedict said he hoped the seminar would help spur research and "promote lifestyles, models of production and consumption based on respect for creation and the real needs of sustainable progress".
The two-day debate was focusing on problems of "substantial importance, with repercussions above all on the weakest members of society," he added.
Earlier this month the world's top climate experts issued a bleak report on the impact of global warming, predicting effects ranging from widespread hunger in Africa to a fast thaw in the Himalayas.
The report by the UN's climate panel, which includes experts from 100 countries, increased pressure on governments to act quickly.
It said warming, widely blamed on human emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, would cause desertification, droughts and rising seas and would hit hard in the tropics, from sub-Saharan Africa to Pacific islands.
Opening the Vatican conference on Thursday, Cardinal Renato Martino said that humankind's domination of the earth, although wanted by God, "must not be despotic and senseless".
"Looking after the environment is a universal duty" deriving from the fact that the earth belongs to "everyone," he said.
HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY.
Comments by the pope and Cardinal Martino appeared to indicate that the Vatican accepted the idea that human activity was largely responsible for climate change.
But not everyone at the seminar agreed.
"It has not been demonstrated that what is happening is the fault of humans," said Italian physics professor Antonino Zichichi, president of an international association of scientists based in Erice, Sicily.
He said that human activity accounted for no more than 10% of the factors affecting the earth's weather conditions, adding that scientists still needed to study the area much more comprehensively.
Zichichi's doubts were firmly dismissed by Britain's environment minister, David Milibrand, who said there was "scientific consensus" that climate changes were caused by human activity.
He said it was important for governments to move quickly in educating and informing public opinion so that society could make necessary changes to longstanding habits.
"The Catholic Church, with over a billion believers around the world, can play a very important role," Milibrand said.
The Vatican conference came amid worldwide preparations for 'Live Earth' pop concerts in cities around the world on July 7. The concerts, promoted by former US Democrat presidential candidate Al Gore, are aimed at promoting worldwide awareness of climate issues.
