Leaves 27 (10) - October 2025

        Newsletter of the
         INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENT FORUM
         Volume 27, Number 10 --- 15 October 2025

Website: iefworld.org
Article submission: newsletter@iefworld.org Deadline next issue 10 July 2024
Secretariat Email: ief@iefworld.org Christine Muller General Secretary 
Postal address: 12B Chemin de Maisonneuve, CH-1219 Chatelaine, Geneva, Switzerland
Download the easier to read pdf version

From the Editor, Request for information for upcoming newsletters

This newsletter is an opportunity for IEF members to share their experiences, activities, and  initiatives that are taking place at the community level on environment, climate change  and sustainability. All members are welcome to contribute information about related  activities, upcoming conferences, news from like-minded organizations, recommended  websites, book reviews, etc. Please send information to newsletter@iefworld.org.

Please share the Leaves newsletter and IEF membership  information with family, friends and associates, and encourage interested persons to consider becoming a member of the IEF.

Members Corner

We welcome our new IEF members and associates:

Members: 
Patricia Lacefield (USA) 
Judy Baker (USA) 
Nadia Shahgholi (Australia) 
Francisco Arsenio Gonzales Méndez (Bolivia) 
Sophie Crump (Greenland)

Associates:
Kantha Kumarb Ramasamy (Malaysia) 
Zhi Wei Ngion (China) 
Adelia Mullings (USA) 
Simona Dunn (USA)

Passing of IEF Member

We regret to inform you that IEF member Adrian Salter from Queensland, Australia, passed away in March of this year.

How Does the International Environment Forum Function?

All members of IEF, but not Associates, participate in the administration of IEF. At present, since a physical meeting of members in over 90 countries for the General Assembly is impractical, an annual election of the Governing Board is held over the Internet, with all members eligible to vote and be voted for. Voting is according to Bahá'í electoral principles, by secret ballot without nominations or campaigning.

The Governing Board consists of 7 members elected annually from the membership. At its first meeting after the election, the Governing Board may determine if it will co-opt one or more members, who participate in its consultations without a right to vote. The Governing Board elects a President and a General Secretary.

The Governing Board prepares an Annual Report to the membership. This is considered, along with any other motions or decisions, at an Annual General Assembly of the membership, which is now organised online to be accessible to all. In addition to validating the election of the Governing Board, the General Assembly can make recommendations to the Governing Board on the Forum's activities and work plan, approve amendments to the Statutes and By-laws, and sustain or reject appeals to decisions of the Governing Board.

The next IEF General Assembly will be held on Saturday 29 November 2025, with the online voting for the Governing Board during the month of November at dates to be announced. All IEF members are encouraged to participate actively in the life of the IEF. Members wishing to propose issues for consideration by the General Assembly should submit them to the Governing Board in advance so that they can be included in the agenda.

How does the IEF Board meet?

The IEF Board meets via a written online Agenda and Consultation that lasts for approximately 10 days to 3 weeks. In addition, it also meets via Zoom to consult about the more comprehensive agenda items. At its 30 September Zoom meeting, the IEF Board celebrated the attendance of the entire Board by taking a screenshot. While there is generally a very good attendance at Board meetings, it is not easy to get full attendance because of the different time zones and the many other commitments of its members.

On the picture you can see the seven regular members and the two non-voting members.

IEF Members Contributions to the Pre-Cop30 Dialogues, the Global Ethical Stocktake

IEF members have been organising contributions to the Global Ethical Stocktake. As emphasized by IEF member Sherri Kelly in Ottawa, Canada, these dialogues are a “unique process of democracy” in which civil society can contribute to consultations on the international level. All the reports are sent to Brasil Participativo, and are also posted on the IEF website. Here are the reports that have already come in:

The Future We Want: From Bangsar to Belem, a productive dialogue in Malaysia on 21 September 2025 with a very complete report on all five questions.

Aotearoa New Zealand GES Consultation on 21 September, with detailed responses to the five questions including Indigenous perspectives

Ottawa Environment Forum Dialogue for GES, 27 September 2025

Below we are featuring an excerpt from the report of the Dialogue held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, with thanks to IEF Member Yuet Mee Ho for its organization.

The Future We Want: From Bangsar to Belem

In response to the International Environment Forum's invitation to organise a dialogue addressing the GES questions, a diverse group of 23 participants, ranging in age from 20 to 75 years gathered on 21 September 2025 in Bangsar, a neighbourhood in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This gathering examined both the systemic barriers to climate action and potential pathways for transformation applying Bahá'í principles to inform and offer meaningful climate solutions. The workshop uncovered both spiritual and systemic barriers to meaningful action, while offering pathways forward grounded in principles of justice, stewardship, and the oneness of humanity.

Below you can read the summary of the workshop’s responses to two of the five key questions. To read the summary responses to the other three questions, or for a link to the detailed report, go here: https://iefworld.org/index.php/GES_Malaysia

1. Why do we so often deny or ignore what science and traditional knowledge say about the climate crisis and share or tolerate misinformation, even knowing lives are at risk? The workshop identified that we treat people as passive recipients rather than active participants in understanding scientific information, creating a fundamental knowledge-power disconnect that enables misinformation to flourish.
The persistent spread of climate misinformation stems from treating people as passive recipients rather than active participants in understanding scientific information. Our current approach positions communities as mere consumers of data rather than empowering them to critically evaluate and apply climate knowledge to their lives.
This top-down flow of knowledge creates a fundamental disconnect between scientific warnings and public action. When combined with economic systems that prioritise short-term growth over environmental sustainability, we create structural barriers that prevent meaningful climate engagement. The relentless focus on economic growth often conflicts directly with environmental needs, while consumerism drives behaviours that prioritise immediate gains over long-term planetary health.
Perhaps most concerning is the spiritual dimension of this crisis. Spiritual advancement has not kept pace with material progress, creating a disconnect that manifests in several critical ways. Without spiritual grounding, people focus on immediate needs rather than longer-term solutions, undermining our ability to interpret and apply scientific understanding meaningfully. This spiritual vacuum leaves society vulnerable to materialism and instant gratification culture, which prevent the long-term thinking essential for addressing planetary challenges. When spiritual values like stewardship, justice, and interconnectedness are absent from our decision-making frameworks, we default to systems that prioritize individual gain over collective wellbeing, making sustainable climate action nearly impossible to achieve.

2. Why do we continue with production and consumption models that harm the most vulnerable and are not aligned with the 1.5ºC mission?
The persistence stems from materialistic worldviews and systems where decision-makers remain insulated from consequences while vulnerable communities bear the costs.
Despite overwhelming climate science, we continue with production and consumption models that harm the world's vulnerable populations. This paradox stems from materialistic worldviews that assume human selfishness, creating systems where decision-makers are insulated from consequences while vulnerable communities bear the costs.
The "vulnerability gap" represents one of our most troubling moral hazards. Those most affected by climate change—the global poor, indigenous communities, and future generations—have the least power to influence the systems driving environmental destruction. Meanwhile, when immediate material needs dominate our attention, we lose sight of deeper questions about meaningful living and our relationship with the natural world.
This spiritual disconnection makes it easy to pursue lifestyles we intellectually know are unsustainable. We have lost sight of true prosperity, which extends far beyond consumption and material accumulation to encompass spiritual well-being, meaningful relationships, harmony with nature, and thriving communities.

At the G20 Interfaith Forum (IF20) in Cape Town, South Africa, Mrs. Bani Dugal, Principal Representative of the Bahá’í International Community to the United Nations, joined a panel on “Ubuntu in Action: Focus on Vulnerable Communities.”

In her reflections, she emphasized: “As long as one part of humanity is suffering, the whole cannot flourish. The next stage in our social evolution is inescapable: building a global society where material progress and spiritual principles advance hand in hand.”

She added: “Technical skills alone cannot heal a divided world; only when justice, generosity, and mutual assistance guide our efforts can true development take root.”

The Forum brought together leaders of faith and thought to explore how values of solidarity and justice can guide responses to today’s most pressing challenges.

Two IEF board members, Monica Maghami and Arthur Dahl, serve on the G20 Interfaith Forum working group on the environment, and contribute actively to the work of the Forum.

SOURCE: based on a Bahá'í International Community LinkedIn post

Hot or Cool Institute and partner organisations - the Club of Rome, Sitra, Medwaves, and PS Lifestyles project - launched their new report "A Climate for Sufficiency: 1.5-Degree Lifestyles" on 7 October 2025.

The remaining carbon budget is now so limited that, at current burn rates, the planet will cross the critical 1.5°C warming limit within the next five years. But what does approaching or crossing the 1.5°C threshold mean for our consumption and ways of living?

1.5°C is not a random number arbitrarily pulled out of thin air. The 1.5-Degrees Lifestyles report series grounds climate change and its impacts on people's lifestyles and consumption, and helps governments, civil society and businesses understand what decisions would shape future ways of living in a prosperous direction.

As climate change has progressed so has growing inequality in society, youth anxiety about future prospects, and general decline in wellbeing. Whereas dominant "solutions" towards climate change have focused on technology and economic interventions, climate change is both driven and impacted by consumption and lifestyles. Through consumption and lifestyles, climate solutions can ensure legitimacy, buy-in and contribution from citizens towards radical changes needed as we cross ecological thresholds.

At this threshold, how much can we afford to use the remaining carbon budget in a manner that is fair, to support human flourishing while achieving climate stability. This new report "A Climate for Sufficiency: 1.5-Degree Lifestyles" demonstrates that a sufficiency approach is essential, especially as we appear on course to transgress the 1.5°C environmental ceiling while a large share of humanity remains below the floor of essential consumption.

This report demonstrates that the challenge of 1.5°C is inseparable from the challenge of lifestyles. Current levels of consumption are driving ecological overshoot while leaving billions without the means for a decent life. The concept of the fair consumption space highlights a dual imperative: cut overconsumption while raising under-consumption to sufficiency levels.

The analysis shows that lifestyle carbon footprints must decline by 80–90% in high-income countries, and substantially in all others, if global warming is to be limited in line with the Paris Agreement goals. Sufficiency living offers a pathway to achieve this, combining well-being with ecological responsibility. While the remaining carbon budget is rapidly shrinking, it is still possible to reduce overshoot and avoid the most dangerous consequences.

Solutions are available – what is needed is courage and leadership to act. Reductions in food, transport, and housing emissions can each save more than 1 tonne of CO₂e per person annually, while also delivering co-benefits for health, affordability and quality of life. Progressive taxation and wealth caps, alongside global governance mechanisms, are essential to ensure fairness and enable systemic transformation. Individuals and households also play a role by refusing harmful consumption, supporting sustainable alternatives and spreading sufficiency practices.

New and bold recommendations in this report show that there is yet room to avert worse outcomes, granted we make some transformational, and yet possible, shifts today.

Arthur Dahl adds: the Hot or Cool Institute is led my old friend and former student Lewis Akenji, now a member of the Club of Rome, and it combines scientific and ethical approaches with an emphasis on social justice which is often lacking in purely scientific approaches to climate change action. I can highly recommend this report.

Download the report at https://hotorcool.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/A_Climate_for_Sufficiency_report_FULL_REPORT-1.pdf 

‘Planetary health diet’ could save 40,000 deaths a day, landmark report finds

Diet allows modest meat consumption and would also slash food-related climate emissions by half, says report by 70 leading experts from 35 countries

The Guardian, 2 October 2025 

Adoption of a plant-rich “planetary health diet” could prevent 40,000 early deaths a day across the world, according to a landmark report.

The diet – which allows moderate meat consumption – and related measures would also slash the food-related emissions driving global heating by half by 2050. Today, a third of greenhouse gas emissions come from the global food system and taming the climate crisis is impossible without changing how the world eats, the researchers said. Food production is also the biggest cause of the destruction of wildlife and forests and the pollution of water.

The planetary health diet (PHD) sets out how the world can simultaneously improve the health of people and the planet, and provide enough food for an expected global population of 9.6 billion people by 2050.

The diet is flexible, allowing it to be adapted to local tastes, and can include some animal products or be vegetarian or vegan. However, all versions advise eating more vegetables, fruits, nuts, legumes and whole grains than most people in the world currently eat. In many places, today’s diets are unhealthy and unsustainable due to too much meat, milk and cheese, animal fats and sugar.

People in the US and Canada eat more than seven times the PHD’s recommended amount of red meat, while it is five times more in Europe and Latin America, and four times more in China. However, in some regions where people’s diets are heavily reliant on starchy foods, such as sub-Saharan Africa, a small increase in chicken, dairy and eggs would be beneficial to health, the report found.

Severe inequalities in the food system must also be ended to achieve healthy and sustainable diets, the researchers said. The wealthiest 30% of the world’s population generates more than 70% of food-related environmental damage, it found. Furthermore, 2.8 billion people cannot afford a healthy diet and 1 billion are undernourished, despite enough food being produced globally. The food system is also failing the 1 billion people living with obesity, the report said.

The report recommends shifting taxes to make unhealthy food more costly and healthy food cheaper, regulating the advertising of unhealthy food and using warning labels, and the shifting of today’s massive agricultural subsidies to healthier and more sustainable foods. “What we put on our plates can save millions of lives, cut billions of tonnes of emissions, halt the loss of biodiversity, and create a fairer food system,” said Prof Johan Rockström, who co-chaired the EAT-Lancet Commission that produced the report. “The evidence is undeniable: transforming food systems is not only possible, it’s essential to securing a safe, just, and sustainable future for all.”

“This is not a deprivation diet,” said Prof Walter Willett of the Harvard TH Chan school of public health, and another commission co-chair. “This is something that could be delicious, aspirational and healthy. It also allows for cultural diversity and individual preferences, providing flexibility.”

You can read the entire article here:  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/02/planetary-health-diet-could-save-40000-deaths-a-day-

Source: The Guardian, 2 October 2025 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/02/planetary-health-diet-could-save-40000-deaths-a-day-
Link to the report

Ocean agreements in force

Two important agreements for the protection of the oceans and their living resources have now come into force: the High Seas Treaty, and the WTO Fisheries Subsidies Agreement.

High Seas Treaty

The ocean makes up nearly 70% of the planet’s surface, but beyond national exclusive economic zones, much of the ocean is the High Seas, thus no one's responsibility.

After nearly 20 years, governments, scientists and ocean advocates have finally secured a global treaty to protect marine life in the ocean areas that lie beyond countries’ individual jurisdictions. These vast, mostly unregulated waters, known as the high seas, hold huge importance to the health of the planet.

On 19 September 2025, Morocco became the 60th country to ratify the Treaty for the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ agreement), under the UN Law of the Sea Convention (UNCLOS). Commonly known as the High Seas Treaty, it will enter into force 120 days from its 60th ratification.

Now the first Conference of Parties (BBNJ-COP) is being planned, where the details on how this treaty will be fully implemented will be discussed. Included in these discussions will be the designation of high seas marine protected areas, environmental impact assessment procedures for activities in areas beyond national jurisdiction, and benefit-sharing mechanisms for marine genetic resources.

Continue to read more about the High Seas Treatment here to learn about Why the High Seas Treaty Matters, What's Included in the High Seas Treaty, and Which Countries Signed the High Seas Treaty?

WTO Fisheries Subsidies Agreement

Also in September, the World Trade Organization Fisheries Subsidies Agreement has officially entered into force. This mobilizes governments to reform fisheries subsidies programs and to build capacity to redirect harmful subsidies toward sustainable fisheries, benefiting coastal communities and the ocean more broadly.

You can read more about the World Trade Organization Fisheries Subsidies Agreement here, just scroll down.

Items of Interest

New landscaping work now surrounds Holy Place with tranquil meadow

Baha’i World News Service, 4 September 2025, Article with pictures and Video 3:40"

Worried about climate change? The evidence shows these are the most impactful actions you can take

BBC, 1 Oct. 2025 article by Jocelyn Timperley https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250930-beyond-carbon-footprints-the-science-of-the-most-impactful-climate-actions 

Renewables become biggest source of electricity globally for 1st time, beating coal

Report shows solar, wind booming worldwide, but fossil fuel generation rose in U.S., EU 
Alexa St. John · The Associated Press · Posted: Oct 07, 2025
Worldwide solar and wind power generation has outpaced electricity demand this year, and for the first time on record, renewable energies combined generated more power than coal, according to a new analysis.
Solar and wind generation combined grew by more than 400 terawatt hours, which was more than overall global demand increased in the same period, it found.
Renewables accounted for 34.3 per cent of electricity generation globally in the first half of 2025, while coal accounted for 33.1 per cent. It's the first time renewables have overtaken coal, according to the report.
Go here to read the entire article: https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/solar-wind-renewables-coal-electricity-1.7653234 

Reimagining Global Order: Perspectives from Professor Amitav Acharya, Dr. Trita Parsi, and Heather Hurlburt

Webinar by Stimson, 1. October 2025
As the UN marks the start of its ninth decade amid wars, the climate crisis, and AI risks, global order is in flux. New perspectives are now emerging on reimagining multilateralism to better address deepening inequality and injustice.
You can watch the recording of this webinar here.

Global Governance Innovation Report 2025

The "Global Governance Innovation Report 2025 (GGIR'25)" offers tools for assessing and boosting implementation of the summit's chief outcomes—the Pact for the Future and its Global Digital Compact and Declaration on Future Generations—and considers ways to understand and overcome bottlenecks to positive change on the road to the Pact's official high-level review in September 2028. It further analyzes and offers outside-the-box policy and institutional reform proposals for grappling with the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution—an urgent, yet downplayed concern.
You can download the report here: https://ggin.stimson.org/lib/report/upcoming-global-governance-innovation-report-2025-advancing-the-pact-for-the-future-and-environmental-governance/ 

Future of International Cooperation Report 2025
Justice in Action – Beyond Promises to Progress

Without bold and decisive action, acute injustices within and between countries risk undermining global stability and collective progress. This third edition of the "Future of International Cooperation Report" (FIC’25) focuses on how institutions and the practice of governance — operating at global and regional levels — can contribute to more just societies by protecting human rights, fostering inclusion, and leveraging innovation to bridge long-standing divisions. With a fresh analytical lens, and presenting foundational principles for effective global and regional governance, the report assesses the major challenges, threats, and opportunities for “justice in action” to be found in reforming political-judicial institutions, filling socioeconomic justice gaps, and advancing environmental justice. This November’s World Social Summit in Doha, and the follow-through to the 2024 Summit of the Future in New York and the recent Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development in Sevilla, offer unique roadmaps for government and non-governmental leaders committed to tackling the structural causes of injustice, including, but not limited to, political and social exclusion, judicial corruption, extreme inequality, abject poverty, violence and insecurity, and an uninhabitable environment.
You can download the report here: https://ggin.stimson.org/lib/report/future-of-international-cooperation-report-2025/