Pope tells top oil execs world must convert to clean fuel or risk destruction

Pope Francis warned thatclimate change risked destroying humanity on Saturday and calledon energy leaders to help the world to convert to clean fuels toavert catastrophe.

"Civilization requires energy but energy use must notdestroy civilization," the Pope told top oil company executives at the end of a two-day conference in the Vatican.

Climate change was a challenge of "epochal proportions,"hesaid, adding that the world needed an energy mix that combattedpollution, eliminated poverty and promoted social justice.

Our desire to ensure energy for all must not lead to the undesired effect of a spiral of extreme climate changes due to a catastrophic rise in global temperatures, harsher environments and increased levels of poverty.- Pope Francis

The conference, held behind closed doors at the PontificalAcademy of Sciences, brought together oil executives, investorsand Vatican experts who, like the Pope, back scientific opinionthat climate change is caused by human activity.

"We know that the challenges facing us are interconnected.If we are to eliminate poverty and hunger ... the more than onebillion people without electricity today need to gain access toit," the Pope told them.

"Our desire to ensure energy for all must not lead to theundesired effect of a spiral of extreme climate changes due to acatastrophic rise in global temperatures, harsher environmentsand increased levels of poverty," he said.

Climate goal

The oil and gas industry has come under growing pressurefrom investors and activists to play a bigger role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions to meet goals set out in a 2015 climateagreement signed in Paris.

Companies are betting on increased demand for gas, the leastpolluting fossil fuel, and to a lesser extent on renewable powersuch as wind and solar, to meet global targets of net zeroemissions by the end of the century.

Among the some 50 participants were Darren Woods, CEO of ExxonMobil, Claudio Descalzi, head of Italy's ENI, Bob Dudley of BP, Eldar Saetre, CEO of Norwegian oil firm Equinor (formerly called Statoil), Vicki Hollub of Occidental Petroleum, and investors including Larry Fink of BlackRock.

Francis, who wrote a major document in 2015 called Laudato Si(Praised Be) on protecting the environment from global warming, said it was "worrying" that there still was acontinuing search for new fossil fuel reserves.

He said the transition to accessible and clean energy was "a duty that we owe toward millions of our brothers and sisters around the world, poorer countries and generations yet to come."

The Pope also called for a global, long-term common project. "Environmental and energy problems now have a global impact and extent," he said.