(ANSA) - ROME, NOV 13 - No further delays are allowed in tackling climate change and the safeguard of the environment is closely connected to the preservation of peace, Pope Francis said in a message to the COP29 climate summit in Baku delivered Wednesday by Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who is attending the UN gathering.
    "The scientific data available don't allow further delays and make clear that the preservation of creation is one of the most urgent issues of our time.
    "We also need to recognize that it is closely tied to the preservation of peace", said the message.
    "We must act and live like members of one family" cohabiting "in the same interconnected global village", the pope said in the appeal.
    His message also highlighted the "ecological debt", in particular between the world's North and South, Cardinal Parolin recalled.
    Such debt is "connected to trade imbalances" that affect the environment and to the "disproportionate use of natural resources by some countries for long periods of time", according to the pontiff. (ANSA).