Faith-based Engagement at COP29

Name: Faith-based Engagement at COP29
Start: 2024-11-11
End: 2024-11-22
Location: Azerbaijan

11 - 22 November 2024

Baku, Azerbaijan

Overview

Pre-COP Leaders Summit

Faith Pavilion

Connect with the Faith Network at COP29

Following the robust engagement of faith actors at COP28, the network continue to build strategic partnerships, engage with policy-makers, work with business and industry, and advocate for greater ambition to address climate change.

At current temperatures, heatwaves, floods, droughts, wildfires and rapidly intensifying tropical cyclones are raining down misery, particularly on the poorest and most vulnerable.

This year, the Global Faith Leader Summit, Faith Pavilion, and range of activities and events by the faith network demonstrate the need for inclusive partnerships, ambition, and innovative approaches to ramp up action and tackle the triple environmental planetary crisis, including land degradation.

"We have an ethical and moral responsibility to support laws, policies, and government actions that will achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement", says Dr. Iyad Abumoghli, Founder & Director of the Faith for Earth Coalition (UNEP).

Keeping 1.5°C within reach requires a full energy transition that switches from coal, oil and gas to clean and efficient energy, alongside efforts to protect and restore nature, achieve sustainable consumption and production and more.

This must start by building on the COP 28 goals: transitioning away from fossil fuels, reducing methane emissions by 30%, tripling renewable energy capacity and doubling energy efficiency improvements by 2030.

UNEP at the climate COP29

Update: UNEP at COP29; Global Faith Leaders Summit in Baku; Interfaith Talanoa Dialogue 2024 (6 November 2024)

COP29 Presidency website: COP29 Azerbaijan - United Nations Climate Change Conference

Global Summit of Religious Leaders

Global Summit of Religious Leaders was held as part of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) by the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, the State Committee on Affairs with Religious Associations, the Muslim Council of Elders, the Caucasus Muslims Office (CMO), and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Read the Baku Declaration of the Global Faith Leaders Summit by 30 leaders from secular and traditional religions, heads of prominent religious centers - patriarchs, officials from the Vatican, and Al-Azhar, along with internationally recognized religious and public figures from 55 countries and 30 international organizations.

"The voices of religious leaders stand vital for advancing climate change action and achieving climate justice", said the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a video address at the Summit.

COP29 is a "launchpad to increase ambition and ensure the new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) collectively promise to almost halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030". The 2024 edition of the Emissions Gap Report finds that emissions must fall 42 per cent by 2030, compared to 2019 levels, to get on a least-cost pathway for 1.5°C. Looking out to 2035, emissions must fall 57 per cent for 1.5°C and 37 per cent for 2°C. Read the Emissions Gap Report 2024.

Take Action: "World Religions for a Green Planet"

The Baku Declaration Calls upon states, international, regional, religious, public organizations and religious leaders:

to actively participate in public discussions on combatting climate change and rally global support to make the vision for a greener future reality;
to recognize the sanctity of human life and nature, to respect the values of protecting all living beings and the nature, and to advocate for environmental equality and justice;
to take a more active role in the process of solving the global environmental crisis and keeping the limit of global temperature increase at 1.5 degrees to protect nature;
to work together to support the implementation and furthering the long-term goals of the Paris Climate Agreement;
to foster an inclusive process in combatting climate change with a special focus on the involvement of representatives of different religions and faiths, policy makers, scholars, women, youth, indigenous people, local communities, the civil society and business circles and other stakeholders in joint discussions;
to contribute into global peace agenda by calling on and actively working for an end of armed conflicts, extreme violence, acts of ecocide and urbicide, which hamper collective efforts to fight climate change by causing food insecurity, violence, arm race for mass destruction, destroying natural sinks and reservoirs and degrading soil and water basins, among others;
to emphasize the need to take a single common position against attempts of terrorist and extremist groups to use the name of religion for their insidious purposes;
to expand cooperation in preventing harmful ideologies and calls for hatred that incite racial, religious and ethnic violence, using the media and information technologies;
to condemn acts of vandalism against religious symbols, shrines and attributes, to counter justification of such actions under the pretext of democracy and freedom of speech;
to encourage education of young people in the field of equal citizenship, human fraternity, as well as environmental protection and the role of the media in these processes with the aim of more active participation in the fight against xenophobia and discrimination;
to attach particular importance to ensuring human rights in a clean, healthy, stable and sustainable societies;
to condemn the irresponsible and overuse of natural sinks and reservoirs highlighting their particular significance in combatting climate change;
to more effectively use the potentials of religions and faiths in solving problems related to climate change;
to support the protection of religious, cultural and ethnic diversity, respect for it, to promote the eco-ethics based on the spiritual and moral values of world religions.

Read the Baku Declaration.

Faith Pavilion at COP29: A Global Moral Coalition for Climate Action

Key Details:

Over 97 organizations representing 11 different religions and sects.
A comprehensive program of more than 40 discussion sessions.
Topics include spirituality, ethics, climate adaptation, the role of women’s leadership, and empowering students through faith teachings.
Collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), featuring scientific sessions bridging the gap between science and spirituality.

Select Language to Download the Press Release:

Faith Pavilion Programme: coming soon

Kenya Religious Leaders Conference | 30 October 2024

Pre -COP29 Dialogue by Kenyan faith leaders called for adaptation centric national commitments and debt free climate finance for Africa. Faith leaders commited to amplifying calls for climate solutions that uphold the principles of equity, sustainability and human dignity