Mass. Gov. Healey, Boston Mayor Wu to attend Vatican climate conference - MassLive.com

Mass. Gov. Healey, Boston Mayor Wu to attend Vatican climate conference - masslive.com

Two of Massachusetts’ most senior elected officials will head to Rome next month, where they’re expected to tout the progress the Bay State has made on climate change and meet with other global leaders on the issue.

Gov. Maura Healey and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu both are slated to attend the Vatican Climate Summit, which runs from May 15 to May 17.

The event is organized by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences under the leadership of University of Massachusetts Boston Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco and Ram Ramanathan, a renowned researcher who discovered the greenhouse gas effect of halocarbons in the 1970s. Climate Chief Melissa Hoffer is also scheduled to speak at the summit, State House News Service reported.

Speaking to WBUR’s “Radio Boston” program on Tuesday, Healey said she looked forward to showcasing the progress the Bay State has made on such fronts as wind energy and the hiring of the state’s first climate czar.

“I’m really excited to have this opportunity. It’s a really significant convening,” Healey told the station.

”This is an opportunity to join with other leaders around the world on climate change,” and discuss what they have they have accomplished, and can accomplish in the future, Healey said.

In a separate interview with WBUR on Monday, Wu offered a similar sentiment.

“We have a lot to share, both in terms of what is possible, and how urgent [climate change] is,” Wu said, referring to the city’s challenges as a coastal city.

Wu’s office announced last week that it had tapped Brian Swett, a city hall veteran, as Boston’s first chief climate officer, WBUR and other outlets reported.

“We have firm 2030 targets in a lot of different areas that need to be met in order for us to really bend the curve in a positive direction on climate action,” Swett said, according to WBUR. “And I think the alignment of city, state and federal is phenomenal right now. You know, so if we can’t do this in Boston, where else in the country or the world can we?”

The conference’s website also hits on those themes, noting that “the Climate Crisis is upon us.”

“It will get lot worse over the next few decades as planetary heating shoots past 1.5C by early 2030s. The warming curve is likely to bend around the latter half of this century in response to global scale actions to mitigate emissions of the heat trapping pollutants,” the Vatican’s website further asserted.

“We no longer have the luxury of relying just on mitigation of emissions,” the Vatican said on its website. “We need to embark on building climate resilience so that people can bend the emissions curve and bounce back from the climate crisis safer, healthier, wealthier to a sustainable world.”