The Climate Conference of the Parties (COP): Process and Pathways for Eco- and Peace-Promoting Social Contracts

As global crises compound and intersect, traditional social contracts are failing to address the complex challenges of climate change, conflict, and other forms of intersecting crises—i.e., inequality and vulnerability. Despite increased awareness of these intersections, efforts to craft eco-social contracts tailored to conflict-affected contexts remain underdeveloped, though multi-track policy and practice efforts are growing and deepening. This chapter explores social contract literatures that consider the environment and peace, alongside policy efforts to craft agreements to navigate these intersecting forms of crisis through the Conference of the Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Examining sites of social contracting within the primary global policy process on climate, and synthesising insights from literature and policy efforts, the chapter concludes with analysis for crafting new social contracts that can simultaneously address environmental sustainability and peacebuilding. This research contributes to ongoing discussions about new social contracts, and the global governance reforms and strategic pathways needed to advance more inclusive and transformative agreements and outcomes.