Do you have climate anxiety? At the UN summit there is a quiet, spiritual place.

Among the hubs for climate scientists, activists and fossil fuel lobbyists at this year’s United Nations Climate Summit is a new addition: a place to pray.

The first-ever Faith Pavilion, inaugurated by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed Al-Tayeb, in a video message on Sunday, will offer space for meditation, daily prayers and even a chanting session led by Indian mystic and yogi Jaggi Vasudev, who passes by Sadhguru.

The pavilion is also a place for pastors, imams, rabbis and other spiritual leaders to exchange ideas on how to guide people through the impacts of climate change.

The Rev. James Bhagwan, the general secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches, spoke on a panel in Dubai on Monday about how to comfort people in the Pacific islands who have been displaced from their ancestral and spiritual homelands due to rising sea levels and climate . disasters.

Quoting Psalm 137, “How Do I Sing the Lord’s Song in a Strange Land?”, Mr. Bhagwan emphasized the importance of faith-based support for displaced people experiencing difficulties in adjusting to their new home. Parts of some low-lying island states in the Pacific Oceanlike Tuvalu, are already being swallowed by the rising seas.

All religions are based on the recognition that nature is a divine act. according to the UN Environment Programme. In the Bahá’í Faith, nature reflects both the divine and the unity of humanity. In Buddhism, karma involves taking responsibility for future generations. According to the Shinto faith in Japan, spirits correspond to wind, rocks and water, and forests are sacred.

More than 300 religious leaders representing Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Unitarian Universalism and indigenous religions are expected to participate in discussions at the pavilion during the two-week climate summit.

The pavilion is not just a space where faith leaders can share ideas. They offer their advisory services to each of the tens of thousands of participants from nearly 200 countries in the climate talks known as COP28.

Over the next week, spiritual leaders from different faiths will lead moral support sessions on different mornings and evenings.

So far, the first sessions have been sparsely attended. But more may soon trickle in: Climate negotiations, still ongoing, are hitting roadblocks on how to determine whether countries are meeting the shared goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre -industrial level, according to two negotiators.

More broadly, failures at previous summits to tackle climate change quickly enough have caused resentment and distrust among some participants. As world leaders made pledges about their commitment to reducing global emissions, representatives of fossil fuel companies, who attended this year’s summit in record numbers, lobbied to advance oil and gas interests.

The Faith Pavilion offers a refuge from those tensions for both religious leaders and followers.

The messages from a pavilion dedicated to spirituality were in stark contrast to the atmosphere of a summit where the host country, the United Arab Emirates, welcomed corporate interests, especially the fossil fuel industry.

“As we get here at COP28, the climate negotiations are all about money, money, profit, profit,” said Athena Peralta, program director at the World Council of Churches. “But the climate emergency is essentially a moral crisis and a spiritual crisis.”

Compared to neighboring Saudi Arabia, the Emirates has a higher degree of tolerance for the practice of religion by foreigners, with a limited number of state-sanctioned Hindu temples, churches and synagogues.

But the government nevertheless maintains strict control over the official religion, Islam, including the content of mosque leaders’ Friday sermons. Emirati officials say these restrictions are necessary to prevent extremism.

The experiment taking place at the Faith Pavilion is unusual for the Emirates and other countries where there is strict political control.

“Nothing scares governments and even corporations more than interfaith action,” Meryne Warah, the global organizing director of GreenFaith, an environmental group, said during a panel discussion Monday. “When they see communities of faith united in the same cause, they are shocked.”

Ms. Peralta said she turned to prayer for strength and for hope, two qualities desperately needed in climate change negotiations. “This gives us the energy to continue,” she says. “It is especially needed at the COPs.” But, she added, “praying without action doesn’t work.”

Vivian Nereim contributed reporting from Dubai.