At a climate change conference at the Vatican, California Governor Jerry Brown expressed his support for Pope Francis' recent encyclical, Laudato Si, which strongly described the Pope's belief that climate change is exacerbating the global poverty problem. Calling on both top-down, particularly from the United Nations as the Paris Summit approaches, and local leadership, Pope Francis' message was met with support from other political leaders as well. Representatives from Houston, New York, New Orleans and San Francisco echoed the importance of local action to address climate change. Brown and other local leaders signed a declaration stating that “human-induced climate change is a scientific reality, and its effective control is a moral imperative for humanity.”