Solar energy will be the Vatican’s sole energy source, Pope decides
Pope Francis has ordered the Vatican to install a solar power plant that will provide electricity to the entire city-state as the pontiff does his part to tackle climate change.
Francis, a longtime advocate of environmental protection, issued an official letter on Wednesday demanding the creation of an “agrivoltaic” factory in Santa Maria di Galeria, an extraterritorial area of Vatican City north of Rome.
Agrivoltaic projects combine solar energy production and agriculture, with panels usually installed over fields or pastures.
“We must transition to a model of sustainable development that reduces greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere in order to achieve the goal of climate neutrality,” the pope wrote in the June 21 letter.
He said the plant would produce enough energy to not only power the Vatican radio transmission center already on the site, but also to guarantee “the full energy supply of the Vatican City State.”
The letter did not specify when the plant would be installed or become operational.
Francis said he intended to “contribute to the efforts of all states, in accordance with their respective responsibilities and capabilities, to provide an adequate response to the challenges posed by climate change to humanity and our common home.”
In 2022, the Vatican joined the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Climate Accords, which in 2015 aimed to limit the world to a temperature increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) compared to pre-industrial levels.
Pope Benedict XVI started the Vatican’s green initiatives in 2008 by installing solar panels in the audience hall.
But it has been the 87-year-old Francis who has criticized man-made climate change and the fact that the world’s most marginalized are paying the highest price for global warming.
Last year, the Vatican published its first Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) – efforts to reduce emissions under the Paris Accords – in which it pledged to cut greenhouse gases to 20 percent below 2011 levels by 2030.
Francis has also set out an ‘Ecological Conversion 2030’ plan for carbon-neutral projects and technologies, including the switch to electric vehicles, although the city-state’s contribution to global emissions is already negligible.
