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“Collectively, these leaders will influence the planet’s future, perhaps more than any in the world,” said Father John Jenkins, president of the U.S. University of Notre Dame, which organized the meeting.

A small group of demonstrators gathered outside a Vatican gate. One held a sign reading “Dear Oil CEOs — Think of Your Children.”

Francis, who has made many calls for environmental protection and has clashed over climate change with leaders such as U.S. President Donald Trump, said the ecological crisis “threatens the very future of the human family.”

He criticized those who, like Trump, doubt the science that shows human activity is causing the earth to heat up.

“For too long we have collectively failed to listen to the fruits of scientific analysis, and doomsday predictions can no longer be met with irony or disdain,” Francis said. Discussion of climate change and energy transition must be rooted in “the best scientific research available today.”

Trump, asked in an interview if he accepted climate science, said last week: “I believe there’s a change in weather, and I think it changes both ways.”

He has said the United States will withdraw from the Paris accord, a 2016 global agreement to fight climate change.

Francis, who wrote a church document in 2015 on environmental protection, and strongly supports the Paris accord, said time was running out to meet its goals.

“Faced with a climate emergency, we must take action accordingly, in order to avoid perpetrating a brutal act of injustice towards the poor and future generations,” he said.

Companies including Royal Dutch Shell, BP and Total have laid out plans to expand their renewable energy business and reduce emissions. Critics say such gestures are minor parts of businesses that overwhelmingly depend on an economy that continues to pollute.