A group of 23 Polish people embarked on the first-ever electric-car pilgrimage, taking on around 1,300 miles as a concrete response to Pope Francis' encyclical, Laudato si'.
MARCIN SCHMIDT
“The pilgrimage is also the idea to awake Christians to be responsible for our environment. Like Pope Francis said, the climate is for the good of everybody and we have to take care, everyone of us, to care for our climate.”
The theme of the five-car entourage was “Driving Change Together.” They stopped at major basilicas in various countries along the way, but the highlight of the trip was presenting one of the cars to Pope Francis.
'To give you this small electric car.”
MICHAŁ TADEUSZ KURTYKA
Poland's Energy and Environment Ministry
“Forty-three countries in the world are supporting electro-mobility.”
The Minister of Poland's Energy and Environment knows this after he hosted the COP24 meeting in Poland in December. COP24 is the UN Conference on Climate Change, and its goal is to work toward a greener planet.
From the meeting, the “Katowice Rulebook” was created, which Michał Kurtyka presented to Pope Francis at the end of August.
MICHAŁ TADEUSZ KURTYKA
Poland's Energy and Environment Ministry
“It succeeded in creating a new set of rules for the global climate policy after 2021. We will replace the Kyoto Protocol with the rules based on Paris Agreement and Katowice Rulebook. Katowice Rulebook is quite a heavy work - 100 pages of legal documents which were adopted by the global community. I handed it to the pope saying that we listened to his call in Laudato si'.”
Thus it only seemed fitting that at the end of the visit with the Holy Father, they gave him a copy of COP24's final document on sustainable development and implementation of Laudato si'.
“Laudato si'.”
“Grazie.”
