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British archbishop apologizes for comparing climate change to Nazi genocide of Jews

Climate change “will allow a genocide on an infinitely greater scale” than the Holocaust, the archbishop said.

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

A British archbishop who came under fire for saying that the death toll that could potentially come from climate change will be worse than the Nazi genocide of Jews during the Holocaust apologized on Tuesday for his remarks.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, who is the leader of the Anglican church with some 85 million adherents, spoke to the BBC at the Cop26 climate change summit, warning that world leaders who do not immediately enter crisis mode will be “cursed.”

When questioned about his use of the word, Welby said that history would harshly judge politicians who do not place climate change at the forefront of their agendas.

“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,” he said.

“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.”

“I unequivocally apologize for the words I used when trying to emphasize the gravity of the situation facing us at COP26,” Welby wrote on Twitter on Monday.

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“It’s never right to make comparisons with the atrocities brought by the Nazis.”

Earlier in the day, Israel’s Energy Minister, Karine Elharrar, was excluded from the entire day of events at the conference because the facilities are not accessible for physically disabled people.

“I went to the International Climate Conference to promote the common fight against the climate crisis through meetings with my counterparts around the world,” Elharrar, who has muscular dystrophy and uses a wheelchair, said in a statement.

“Unfortunately this was not possible due to an accessibility problem, which in 2021 no longer has a place.”