Christiana Figueres, a Costa Rican diplomat best known as the architect of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, has turned to a new strategy for protecting the world’s climate: spreading the teachings of Thích Nhất Hạnh, a Buddhist monk and peace activist who died in 2022.
Driven by pain and grief over climate change, Figueres began organizing – with her team at the organization Global Optimism – retreats for those engaged in climate and biodiversity work. The first retreat took place in June 2022 in partnership with Plum Village, an international Buddhist practice center and monastery located in the rural southwest of France, founded by Thích Nhất Hạnh and Chân Không in 1982. The next year, Global Optimism and Plum Village began organizing regional retreats across the globe.
“I discovered the teachings of Thích Nhất Hạnh 10 years ago, and they have been so helpful to me to keep my agency, keep my spirits up, especially when I’m feeling low,” Figueres told me in a recent interview. “I thought they can be helpful to other people, so these retreats are an offering to put a positive net under all the work we do.”
I met Figueres in the summer of 2024 at Plum Village. I’d been invited to spend four days at the monastery via a short but intriguing email that promised a “global climate and nature community gathering” that would enable participants “to expand their understanding of global ethics for systems change.” How could I say no?
On the morning of Day One of the retreat, the meditation hall was neatly lined with rows of 150 or so cushion-seated participants, intently listening and copying down the whiteboard in their notebooks. A monastic named Brother Spirit offered an introduction to the four noble truths of Buddhism, which deal with suffering and the path toward ending it.
