Vatican contemplates legal action following failure of ‘climate forest’

April 23, 2010

Three years after it was announced that the planting of a forest in Hungary would allow the Vatican would become the world’s first carbon-neutral state, the Vatican is contemplating legal action over the failure of the project.

Cardinal Paul Poupard, then president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, accepted a donation in 2007 from Planktos, Inc., and KlimaFa to plant enough trees to offset the Vatican’s carbon-dioxide emissions. Following the failure of Planktos, not a single tree has been planted, leading the mayor of an impoverished Hungarian village to lament, “We felt honored because the Vatican chose our village. Now we feel sorry.”

 

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Further information:

• Carbon offsets: How a Vatican forest failed to reduce global warming (Christian Science Monitor)
• Vatican accepts donation to make it first carbon-neutral state (CNS, 2007)