Baha’is at COP29

With 2024 on track to be the hottest year on record, surpassing the key threshold of 1.5 degrees of warming as measured on an annual basis, the challenges facing humanity were on clear display at the United Nations climate conference, COP29, held in Baku, Azerbaijan, in November 2024. 

In that sobering atmosphere, delegates of the Bahá’í International Community (BIC) sought to advance discussions on how an honest assessment of the difficulties facing humanity can prompt movement toward more constructive patterns of interaction and engagement. The BIC’s delegates shared that constructive engagement can supplant widespread despair and recrimination often seen at COP conferences and in similar international forums.

At the UN Climate Conference, BIC delegates highlighted how the principles of humanity’s oneness and consultation are essential to addressing environmental challenges.

They explored how the principle of humanity’s oneness, along with new approaches to consultation and decision-making are essential to addressing the climate crisis more effectively.

Daniel Perell of the BIC’s New York Office observed: “A climate governance framework negotiated through norms of division and opposition, return on investment, control, and competitive advantage, undermines the collaboration and unity humanity needs to address the planetary nature of the crisis. This is now irrefutable. We desperately need to find a different approach.”

“The current system of international cooperation, often characterized by competing interests and predetermined positions, has not generated the transformative changes required at this moment in history. Only through recognizing our fundamental interconnectedness can we move beyond these limitations.”

In the contributions to discussions at COP29, BIC representatives explored how Bahá’í efforts in social action could inform global climate efforts, including those initiatives that promote environmental stewardship.

The BIC representatives shared experiences from communities in Colombia and Vanuatu where environmental initiatives emerged through processes that recognized the knowledge, wisdom, and capabilities of local populations.

These experiences, explained the BIC representatives, were guided by spiritual principles such as the harmony between science and religion and the concept of capacity building at all levels of society, which views people, communities, and institutions as protagonists in charting their own path of development.

“What the worldwide Bahá’í community is learning about is how local communities can develop their abilities to identify challenges, analyze circumstances, consult on solutions, and take collective action,” Mr. Perell explained.

“When people are empowered to address challenges in their own surroundings through these processes, the outcomes are more lasting and meaningful than when changes are imposed from outside.” These themes resonated with other participants seeking new approaches to climate action.

Drawing on experiences from Bahá’í community-building activities worldwide, Cecilia Schirmeister, another BIC representative at COP29, observed how effective initiatives emerge when people begin to see their identity as inseparable from the wellbeing of the whole community.

“When young people see the needs of the community as their own responsibility, it creates a sense of collective ownership over changing one’s reality,” she said. “This builds confidence that individuals can make meaningful change, which then motivates action.”

This understanding of collective responsibility and shared ownership reflects a broader vision of how communities can address challenges together. Rather than relying on external intervention or adversarial processes, such an approach emphasizes genuine consultation and unified action.

Mr. Perell stated: “True universal participation goes beyond simply having different voices present. It requires creating spaces where people can genuinely learn from each other, remain open to new insights, and work together to understand complex realities. The problems we face are global, so our solutions must integrate diverse perspectives and experiences.”

Modelling new ways to challenge the climate status quo

The BIC explored collaborative approaches, both in content and in practice, through a side event co-hosted with the government of Vanuatu. Focused on assessing lessons learned around an emerging climate loss and damage fund, the event was structured in the form of a traditional Pacific “tok stori” gathering—a community conversation drawing heavily on storytelling, common across several Pacific cultures.

Daniel Perell, of the BIC’s New York Office, speaking at a side event co-hosted by the BIC and the Government of Vanuatu, where the discussion took the form of a ‘Tok stori’—a practice of sitting in a circle on mats to share perspectives. Photo credit: UN Climate Change – Kiara Worth

The event promoted informal dialogue and the sharing of expertise and experience instead of asserting pre-formulated positions. But the start of the event was delayed as conference organizers debated whether sitting in a circle was even permitted.

“It was a small thing, but perhaps illustrative of wider challenges that we need to overcome,” Mr. Perell said of the experience. “Like many other venues of this kind, the space for side events was optimized for a few featured speakers and many passive attendees; we needed to get creative to accommodate a group of people sitting in a circle, consulting on equal terms.”

“Unfortunately, entrenched assumptions, processes, and norms hinder efforts to find more innovative and collaborative means of addressing global challenges.”

Once the methodology was agreed, Mr. Perell added, the event was refreshing.

One young participant at the meeting said it was “the best event I’ve attended all week. We were able to have an actual conversation.” A former president who also attended, meanwhile, said that “events like this are necessary to hear the lived experience.”

The Vanuatuan facilitator also said that—by listening to the needs and desires young people have expressed in their own communities—the government then began to take initiatives at the international level. Using this form of consultation, the facilitator explained, allowed the people and the government of Vanuatu to better understand the challenges they face and to devise plans to address them at home and with international partners.

Delegates from the BIC were asked to speak at four further events, including hosting an event at the Faith Pavilion, a multi-NGO platform created for COP, with significant support from the Muslim Council of Elders, to explore and amplify the intersections between faith, justice, and environmental stewardship. The BIC’s event explored how faith—religious or otherwise—can inspire and motivate action when so many government policies on climate remain ideas rather than actions.

Speakers at a BIC event at the Faith Pavilion of COP29, left to right: Brian Maltera, Representative of Vanuatu, María Fernanda Espinosa, former president of the UN General Assembly; Cecilia Schirmeister, a BIC representative from the New York Office; Isabel Pereira, from the Institute of Religion Studies.

“While global leaders negotiate solutions to the climate crisis, grassroots efforts are fostering a culture of environmental stewardship,” said Cecilia Schirmeister, another BIC Representative who attended COP and who moderated the Faith Pavilion event. “Local communities are identifying challenges, consulting, and working together to take meaningful action, guided by science, cultural knowledge, and intergenerational collaboration. In light of the urgency of the climate crisis, there is hope in these efforts, and COP offers us all a chance to build on this progress.”

María Fernanda Espinosa, a former president of the United Nations General Assembly and Ecuadorian government minister, spoke at the Faith Pavilion event, and said that multilateral decision-making was “slow” and “complex,” and needed “wise and strong leadership” with those leading such processes to act as “bridgebuilders” instead of following partisan agendas.

“In the case of the climate negotiations,” Ms. Fernanda Espinosa added, “the fear of what is happening … the sense of loss, the sense of danger and risk” was a key source of pressure and concern in the COP discussions. She emphasized how faith-based perspectives could help address what she called a “hope deficit” in climate discussions.

“Human responsibility, working for the common good, creating governance structures that help to govern our global commons; this is perhaps the most important challenge of the 21st century in terms of the multilateral space,” including at COP29, and could help transform how humanity approaches global governance.

Ramazan Asgarli, a member of the BIC delegation from Azerbaijan, reflected on how the conference revealed humanity’s growing awareness of its interconnectedness. “These forums represent an important space where the world comes together to address our common future,” he noted.

“The mounting environmental challenges are gradually awakening humanity to the reality of its essential oneness—a recognition that will be vital for developing approaches equal to the planetary scale of these issues.”

The BIC’s participation at COP29 represented one aspect of its ongoing contribution to the discourse on environmental sustainability and global governance, offering insights drawn from the Bahá’í community’s experience in fostering patterns of collective action that can address the challenges facing humanity.

SOURCES: Baha'i International Community 26 November 2024 https://www.bic.org/news/bahais-cop29-model-new-ways-challenge-climate-…
Bahá'í World News Service 11 December 2024 https://news.bahai.org/story/1769/