Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby reportedly issued an apology Monday after criticizing world leaders for failing to take sufficient action on climate change by comparing their inertia on the issue to nations failing to act on the rise of Nazi Germany.
Welby is the worldwide leader of Anglican Communion, giving him leadership for nearly 85 million Christians. He made his apology while speaking in Glasgow, Scotland at the United Nations’ COP26 climate summit, according to Reuters.
The archbishop also put a tweet out of his apology, writing “It’s never right to make comparisons with the atrocities brought by the Nazis, and I’m sorry for the offence caused to Jews by these words.”
In his initial quote to the BBC, Welby said, “People will speak of them in far stronger terms than we speak … of the politicians who ignored what was happening in Nazi Germany because this will kill people all around the world for generations. It will allow a genocide on an infinitely greater scale. I’m not sure there’s grades of genocide, but there’s width of genocide, and this will be genocide indirectly, by negligence, recklessness.”
He also said that world leaders will be “cursed” if they fail to come to an agreement to combat and offset the effects of climate change, according to Reuters.
COP26, which began Sunday, has brought together leaders from around the world to discuss efforts to fight climate change and curb its effects. The meeting is the first of its kind in two years due to COVID-19 delays.
United Nations experts cite a report that if the countries adopt their proposals, emissions could be cut that could put the world on track for 2.7 degrees of warming by the century’s end.