According to The Guardian :

The Vatican is hosting a climate change summit that will focus on the need for decisive action to combat global warming as a moral imperative and Christian duty, especially given its impact on poor people.

The Protect the Earth, Dignify Humanity meeting in Rome on Tuesday is a precursor to the release of Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment, which is due out in June or July and is expected to centre on the duty of the faithful to address climate change, whatever its causes.

Pope Francis is not scheduled to speak at the summit but was due to have a private meeting with the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, who will be delivering the keynote address. The planned remarks by Cardinal Peter Turkson, the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, will also be closely followed because of his role drafting the encyclical.

The summit – which will include speakers and representatives from all major religions – has brought about a rare meeting of minds between scientists and religious officials on climate change, even if they frame their arguments in different ways.

Teresa Berger, a professor at the Yale Divinity School, said she believed the encyclical would have an overarching theological vision: one of “a God-sustained universe, anchored in a theology of creation as articulated in the biblical witness. And based on this, Pope Francis will probably not mince words, but note as evils, for example, the sin of exploiting the Earth.”

Full story here.