![Catholic Church leader Pope Francis in Rome, Italy, March 8, 2024 [Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters]](/Uploads/Images/News/2024/3/Image-2336-20240312072317.jpeg)
Moscow said the pope’s comment was ‘quite understandable’ while NATO said ‘it’s not the time to talk about surrender’.
The Kremlin has said Pope Francis’s call for talks to end the war in Ukraine was “quite understandable”, while NATO’s secretary general said now was not the time to talk about “surrender”.
Pope Francis said in an interview recorded last month that Ukraine should have “the courage of the white flag” to negotiate an end to a war that is now in its third year.
As Russia makes gains on the battlefield, the West grapples with how to support Ukraine and the prospect of a dramatic change in United States policy if Donald Trump wins November’s presidential election.
“It is quite understandable that he [the pope] spoke in favour of negotiations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday.
He said Russian President Vladimir Putin had repeatedly said his country was open to peace talks.
“Unfortunately, both the statements of the pope and the repeated statements of other parties, including ours, have recently received absolutely harsh refusals,” he said.
India’s economy will become carbon neutral by the year 2070, the country’s prime minster has announced at the COP26 climate crisis summit in Glasgow. The target date is two decades beyond what scientists say is needed to avert catastrophic climate impacts. India is the last of the world’s major carbon polluters to announce a net-zero target, with China saying it would reach that goal in 2060, and the United States and the European Union aiming for 2050.
China's carbon emissions are vast and growing, dwarfing those of other countries. Experts agree that without big reductions in China's emissions, the world cannot win the fight against climate change. In 2020, China's President Xi Jinping said his country would aim for its emissions to reach their highest point before 2030 and for carbon neutrality before 2060. His statement has now been confirmed as China's official position ahead of the COP26 global climate summit in Glasgow. But China has not said exactly how these goals will be achieved.
China's carbon emissions are vast and growing, dwarfing those of other countries. Experts agree that without big reductions in China's emissions, the world cannot win the fight against climate change. In 2020, China's President Xi Jinping said his country would aim for its emissions to reach their highest point before 2030 and for carbon neutrality before 2060. His statement has now been confirmed as China's official position ahead of the COP26 global climate summit in Glasgow. But China has not said exactly how these goals will be achieved.
A crucial U.N. conference heard calls on its first day for the world's major economies to keep their promises of financial help to address the climate crisis, while big polluters India and Brazil made new commitments to cut emissions. World leaders, environmental experts and activists all pleaded for decisive action to halt the global warming which threatens the future of the planet at the start of the two-week COP26 summit in the Scottish city of Glasgow on Monday. The task facing negotiators was made even more daunting by the failure of the Group of 20 major industrial nations to agree ambitious new commitments at the weekend.