Following Pope Francis’s announcement of a new solar plant, Vatican City is on track to become the eighth country in the world to generate 100% of its electricity from renewable energy.
This project will be built on 424 hectares of Vatican-owned property outside Rome, adding to the existing solar installations within the city-state.
In an apostolic letter titled Fratello Sole (Brother Sun), Pope Francis emphasised the need for a transition towards sustainable development to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and achieve climate neutrality:
“Humanity has the technological means necessary to face this environmental transformation.”
This initiative will make Vatican City, the smallest country by land mass, entirely energy independent, meeting all its electricity needs with solar power.
In competition, Vatican City will join Albania, Bhutan, Nepal, Paraguay, Ethiopia, Iceland, and Congo as countries generating more than 99.7% of their electricity from renewables, according to data from Stanford University Professor Mark Z. Jacobson.
Additionally, 40 other countries generate at least 50% of their electricity from renewable sources like geothermal, hydro, solar, or wind.
Environmental stewardship has been a central focus for Pope Francis. In 2015, he identified human-induced climate change as a major concern for the planet’s future.
Having joined the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2022, Vatican City is partaking in the initiative’s goal of addressing “dangerous human interference with the climate system.”
