Bringing Hope and Prayer to COP29

In 10 days, Jim Stump and I will be boarding a plane headed for Baku, Azerbaijan. (If you’re like I was just a few months ago and don’t know where Azerbaijan is, it’s on the Caspian sea between Russia and Iran.) This is not a vacation, though I’m sure we’ll see some interesting things and talk to some interesting people. We’re going as official observers to one of the biggest international gatherings in the world—COP29.

That might not mean anything for a lot of people. ‘COP’ stands for Conference of Parties (everything clear now?). COP29 is the 29th meeting of ‘the parties’—now 198 countries—that are a part of the United Nations Climate Change Conference. This is an international body working to limit the dangers of climate change around the world. In official language, the goal of the conference is to “stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” COP meets once a year in different countries and each of the 198 countries sends delegates to help negotiate new agreements and check on progress of previously set goals. The Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement are both results of previous COPs.

Aside from the official negotiators, COP also invites accredited observers. This is where Jim and I come in, along with thousands of other people from around the world representing different interests. Observers don’t have a part in arguing over the wording of international treaties or setting goals but they do play an important role. Observers are invited to sit in on many of the official sessions (though not all of them). This provides some level of transparency as we can report back about what is said and who is saying it. But it’s not only passive. Observers also have opportunities to be heard—through events held inside the official zone of the conference, through networking and informal conversations, and simply by showing up to bear witness to these important negotiations. 

Jim and I won’t be traveling alone. In fact, we are attending as part of a group called the Christian Climate Observers Program (CCOP). CCOP brings Christians from around the world to be observers, to come and show the world that Christians care about this issue. Together we will have a chance to learn each other’s stories, eat together, pray together, and bring our hope for a future in which God’s creation flourishes into the international conversation around climate change. (What do we mean by hope? Check out this podcast)

You might still have some questions…

• Do the results of COP29 actually matter to me?
• Can one person actually make a difference in something so big?
• Does Christianity have any sway in the global conversation about climate change? 

Well, these are good questions and they are things we’ll be looking out for. We’ll be back to let you know what we see, to tell you a little more more about what is actually being discussed at this year’s conference and to try and answer some of these questions above. For real time updates follow BioLogos on social media and subscribe to the Language of God podcast.