Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, and Massachusetts Climate Chief Melissa Hoffer will speak about climate change at an international conference at the Vatican next month. The announcement was made on Monday, Earth Day, a global event to support environmental protection, which has been celebrated since 1970.
Pope Francis, who has sharply noted the disproportionate impacts of climate change on the world’s poor and called for collective action to reduce economies’ reliance on fossil fuels, will preside over the Vatican summit. In a statement, Healey called the invitation to attend “an immense honor.”
The theme of the event is discussing how to shift the focus from climate crisis to climate resilience (climate resilience generally refers to how communities can prepare for, adapt to, and respond to the impacts of climate change, including extreme heat and intense flooding).
Advertisement
“Climate change is one of the principal challenges facing society and the global community,” Pope Francis wrote in his invitation to the summit. “The effects of climate change are borne by the most vulnerable people, whether at home or around the world.”
The Vatican event was organized by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences and will take place from May 15 to 17 in Rome. University of Massachusetts Boston chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco is on the executive committee of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences and has helped organize the conference.
Both Healey and Wu have made responding to climate change major priorities of their administrations. Healey created the state’s first cabinet-level climate chief to coordinate climate policy across all executive agencies. Wu’s administration last week announced Boston will soon have a similar role to oversee climate policy at the city level.
During their Vatican visit, Healey will speak about “governing in the age of climate change,” and Wu will speak about “governance, health and energy.”
Advertisement
In February, Healey proposed setting aside $1 billion in an economic development bill to invest in the climate tech industry over the next 10 years.
Wu has also promised new investments to spur climate action: Her 2025 budget includes the creation of a $75 million fund to leverage state and federal grants that would help the city adapt to climate change. Wu said in a statement that she’s grateful the trip to Rome will allow her to share Boston’s progress on climate action and learn from other mayors.
“We are one of the most vulnerable regions of the world, in New England, when it comes to how quickly flooding and changing weather patterns are going to affect our community,” Wu said in an interview on WBUR on Monday. “And, we’ve also harnessed a lot of the collaborative spirit and resources in this area to implement things, such as ... electric school buses and electric vehicles.”
The visit to the Vatican comes as Massachusetts aims to jumpstart an energy transition from burning fossil fuels to using renewable resources, such as wind and solar power, while at the same time, protecting residents from the worsening impacts of climate change, particularly flooding.
Healey earlier this year proposed creating a new disaster resilience fund in her budget that relies on excess revenues from capital gains taxes; the fund would typically get about $70 million per year, according to Hoffer, the state’s climate chief.
Advertisement
“We are very focused on getting specific financing plans in place to pay for our top resilience needs,” Hoffer said in an interview during an Earth Day panel at UMass Boston on Monday.
On Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency said that the Commonwealth will receive $156 million in grant dollars for residential solar energy programs. The grants are funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, the nation’s largest federal investment in renewable energy in US history. Massachusetts has a goal to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
Erin Douglas can be reached at erin.douglas@globe.com. Follow her @erinmdouglas23.