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Vatican to become eighth country to achieve 100% green energy

Posted on by darion

The Vatican will become the eighth country in the world to produce 100% electricity from renewable sources after Pope Francis announced plans to build a solar power plant.

In an apostolic letter, the pope said the project would be built on a 424-hectare Vatican-owned property outside Rome, boosting the efficiency of existing solar panel installations in the city.

“We must move towards a model of sustainable development that limits greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, with the goal of climate neutrality,” wrote Pope Francis in a letter titled Fratello Sole, or Brother Sun.

“Humanity has the technological means to confront the transformation of the environment and its devastating ethical, social, economic and political consequences, and solar energy plays a fundamental role.”

Thanks to this project, the smallest country in terms of land area will become completely energy independent, and its entire electricity demand will be met by solar energy.

Once completed, the Vatican will join Albania, Bhutan, Nepal, Paraguay, Ethiopia, Iceland and the Congo as countries that generate more than 99.7% of their electricity from renewable sources, according to data compiled by Stanford University professor Mark Z. Jacobson earlier this year.

Another 40 countries obtain at least 50 percent. electricity from renewable energy sources such as geothermal, hydro, solar and wind.

“We don’t need miracle technologies,” Professor Jacobson said Independent in April. “We need to stop emissions by electrifying everything and providing electricity from wind, water and solar (WWS), which includes onshore wind, solar photovoltaics, concentrated solar power, geothermal energy, small hydro and large hydro.”

The environment has been a central theme of the pontificate of Pope Francis, who in 2015 stated that human-induced climate change was one of his main concerns for the future of the planet.

The Vatican joined the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2022, which aims to address “dangerous human interference with the climate system.”

In May, the Pope said the climate crisis had “reached a point of no return,” describing its current trajectory as “a path to death.”

In an interview with CBS News, he said: “It’s very difficult to create awareness of this. (World leaders) call a conference, everyone agrees, everyone signs, and then they say goodbye. “But we have to be very clear, global warming is alarming.”