A First for the World

Paris is in the news again – this time for positive reasons. The 2015 Paris Climate Conference (COP21) has come to an agreement, which 195 countries are signing up to. This is not yet the conference to end war. There is no agreement yet that all the world’s religions have the same source. This is not the gathering to ensure gender equality in every society, nor the one to explicitly proclaim the oneness of mankind. But it matters. This is the conference at which every country seems to recognise the need to act in order to avoid a man-made catastrophe, and by its very existence it is establishing that mankind is responsible for its own common future.

It is of supreme importance that the countries of the earth – so diverse in many ways – are all agreeing on something so significant. The intention is to limit the amount of climate change. The forests, the soil and the underlying sediments were all “carbon sinks”, meaning that much of the world’s surplus carbon was tied up in them. But for centuries, we have been burning coal and oil, chopping down the forests and allowing the soil to be eroded by wind and flood. Gradually, the carbon has gone up into the air as smoke and fumes. We need to reinstate the natural carbon cycle, in which plants take in the carbon dioxide breathed out by animals. The consumer-driven materialism, which has allowed man’s life to lose its connection with nature, and with any inner sense of spirituality, must be abandoned, with a return to a more natural rhythm of life. As Bahá’u’lláh expressed it: “The civilisation, so often vaunted by the learned exponents of arts and sciences, will, if allowed to overleap the bounds of moderation, bring great evil upon men... If carried to excess, civilisation will prove as prolific a source of evil as it had been of goodness when kept within the restraints of moderation. Meditate on this, O people.”

We have to keep the different aspects of the earth in balance. As Bahá’u’lláh’s Son, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, put it: “Even as the human body in this world which is outwardly composed of different limbs and organs, is in reality a closely integrated, coherent entity, similarly the structure of the physical world is like unto a single being whose limbs and members are inseparably linked together.”

Talking of the society of the future, Bahá’u’lláh predicted that rich people would voluntarily give some of their wealth to help others. At a global level, this is reflected in the new agreement, in that the equivalent of £65 billion will be given by the rich countries to the poor countries each year, to help them develop their economies using renewable technologies, which otherwise they would not be able to afford.

But climate change is not the only process driving vast numbers of people into starvation, into fleeing as refugees, into suffering and despair, because we still have conflict. Baseless ethnic rivalries, senseless religious jealousies, ideological or selfish political struggles all combine to hold back the era of peace and progress which most of mankind yearns for. The Climate Change Conference in Paris must surely be a precursor for the “vast, all-embracing assemblage of men” which Bahá’u’lláh stated “the rulers and kings of the earth must needs attend,” and which “must consider such ways and means as will lay the foundations of the world's Great Peace amongst men.”

If this first major, worldwide agreement on tackling climate change can be built upon, if our mutual interdependence can be fully recognised, if trust between countries can be increased and can eventually lead to the universal peace conference then this really will be a great achievement. In the Bahá’í view, there is a glorious future in the long term, which is well worth working towards: “The Lord of all mankind hath fashioned this human realm to be a Garden of Eden, an earthly paradise. If, as it must, it findeth the way to harmony and peace, to love and mutual trust, it will become a true abode of bliss, a place of manifold blessings and unending delights. Therein shall be revealed the excellence of humankind.”