Pope calls for action on climate change

WASHINGTON— Pope Francis says climate change is an urgent problem that “can no longer be left to a future generation.”

Francis waded into that hot-button political issue in remarks at the White House, where President Barack Obama and a crowd of thousands welcomed him.

The pope praised Obama for focusing on the environment and the need to cut air pollution, calling it “encouraging.”

Francis cast climate change as a peril to what he called our “common home” in a speech that also called for safeguarding religious liberty and rejecting discrimination.

On climate change, he says time remains to make changes that are needed but also warns that “we are living at a critical moment of history.”

Climate change is one of several issues on which the pope and the president agree, though Republicans in Congress have blocked many of Obama’s efforts to address the issue by law.

Francis is on his first visit to the US.