Fourteenth International Conference on Climate Change: Impacts & Responses

Abstract

Faith-based organisations (FBOs) have become increasingly visible in climate change action in and around the United Nations, with growing numbers of faith-based observers at UNFCCC and the UNEA as well as record levels of faith actors in attendance at the recent COP26. The role of FBOs in climate action has been framed variously through their social, economic and moral capital, yet these roles are complicated by multifaceted and changeable understandings of both ‘climate change’ and ‘religion’. As such, the following questions arise: What role do FBOs play in climate action at the UN and to what extent are these roles distinctively ‘faith-based’? How do FBOs navigate across different spheres of climate action and what are the implications for the categories of climate change and religion? To address these questions, I will draw on findings from interviews and participant observation, conducted both online and face-to-face at COP26. These findings demonstrate the diversity with which FBOs engage with UN climate processes and suggest that they play an increasingly important role in framing and informing responses to climate change. I argue that FBOs seek to carve out a distinctively faith-based approach to climate action through moral framings of climate change and through their ability to mediate between global and local spheres. Through strategic engagement with each other, both the UN and FBOs are reframing climate change and highlighting new avenues for action.