Seizing the Opportunity: Redefining the challenge of climate change

nce the domain of scientists and negotiators, the discourse on climate change1 has become a core part of informed debates about the future direction of the affairs of humankind.

Authoritative assessments that global warming is “unequivocal” and directly linked to human activity2; that it constitutes the “widest-ranging market failure ever seen” 3; and that it represents the “defining human development challenge of the 21st century”4 – have seized the attention of

governments and peoples alike.5 Yet the search for solutions to climate change has revealed the limits of traditional technological and policy approaches and has raised difficult questions about justice, equity, responsibility and obligation. As communities and policy-makers worldwide have wrestled with these questions, they have brought us all to the threshold of a tremendous opportunity. It is the opportunity to take the next step in the transition from a state-centered mode of interacting on the world stage to one rooted in the unity which connects us as the inhabitants of one biosphere, the citizens of one world and the members of one human civilization. The nature of this step, its significance and some of the means for its accomplishment are the focus of the Bahá’í International Community’s contribution to forging a path out of the climate change

challenge.