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Mayor Walsh Will Travel To Vatican City For Meeting With Pope Francis

BOSTON (CBS) – Mayor Marty Walsh will be making a trip to Vatican City next week for a meeting with the pope.

Walsh's office confirmed that the Boston mayor will travel to a conference to discuss human trafficking and climate change with Pope Francis. Several other leaders from around the world will also attend the conference.

"I look forward to sharing Boston's progress with my peers from around the world and exploring how we can work together to prepare our cities for the future," Walsh said in a statement released Wednesday.

The workshops, titled "The Modern Slavery and Climate Change" and "Prosperity, People, and Planet: Achieving Sustainable Development in Our Cities" will bring government and religious leaders together to ask the United Nations to consider modern slavery and human trafficking a crime against humanity, as well as put pressure on the UN to approve new sustainable development goals.

Walsh is one of 11 mayors in a network launched in February called Cities Empowered Against Sexual Exploitation.

CEASE Boston targets men who are buying sex on the streets, and quietly using the Internet to solicit sex. The program seeks to reduce online demand activity by 20 percent, as well as street-level activity by 80 percent, over the next two years.

In January, Walsh released the Greenovate Boston 2014 Climate Action Plan Update, taking steps to prepare Boston for the effects of climate change and celebrating the city's progress toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050. The plan gives Greenovate Boston a framework for building a greener, healthier and more prosperous city.

He will also attend a reception with U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican, Ken Hackett.

The mayor leaves on Sunday for the July 20-to-22 conference, and he will return on Thursday.

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