French climate change doubter was ‘uninvited’ from Vatican summit weeks before Pope declared global warming a man-made problem

Booked flight to Rome but was then told there was no space left for him

A well-known climate change doubter almost made it to a key Vatican summit on the issue before his invitation to attend was withdrawn at the last minute, it was claimed last night.

French writer Philippe de Larminat – who believes that solar activity rather than greenhouse gases are causing global warning – had been keen to get a place at the Vatican-sponsored event in April.

After he obtained a meeting with officials at the Vatican, Mr de Larminat was told that he could attend the summit, space-permitting – and booked a plane ticket from Paris to Rome.

But five days before the event, he received an email claiming there was no space left – which arrived after other scientists said that he should not attend, reported The Washington Post.

Speaking to journalists Anthony Faiola and Chris Mooney, Mr de Larminat told the newspaper: ‘They did not want to hear an off note.’

The event, sponsored by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, was attended by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and others calling for huge steps to reduce carbon emissions.

Mr de Larminat was given an indication that a space would made for him at the summit after meeting Cardinal Peter Turkson in March.

But Pontifical Academy of Sciences chancellor Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo effectively vetoed Mr de Larminat’s attendance less than a week before the summit on April 28.

The bishop told The Washington Post that this was because Mr de Larminat is ‘not an academic authority in this field, neither a religious authority nor a UN authority’.

And in the end, Mr de Larminat – like many other climate change doubters – would have been saddened to hear Pope Francis come to the conclusion last week that ‘denial’ is wrong.

Last week, in an eagerly-awaited message, the Pope issued a stark warning over the urgent need to tackle ‘extraordinary climate change and an unprecedented destruction of ecosystems’.

In the first papal encyclical Pope Francis has written, he said climate change was mostly down to human activity and policies were urgently needed to cut carbon emissions.

In the face of opposition from climate sceptics, including many Catholics, the Pope spelt out human responsibility for climate change.

‘A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system,’ he wrote.

‘Humanity is called to recognise the need for changes of lifestyle, production and consumption, in order to combat this warming or at least the human causes which produce or aggravate it.’