Psychological Safety – The Invisible Key to Courageous Climate Diplomacy

Part 1: Overview – Psychology of COPs
Part 2: Trust
Part 3: Emotions 
Part 4: Psychological Safety
Part 5: coming soon

Anyone who’s watched international climate negotiations knows the tension in the room. Words are weighed; gestures are parsed—no one wants to say the wrong thing. Because every statement can have diplomatic consequences. In such an environment, silence comes easily: delegates keep concerns to themselves, junior negotiators hesitate to ask questions, and creative ideas go unspoken.

Yet that is exactly what determines progress or stalemate: the ability to feel safe to speak without fearing negative consequences. Research calls this inner security psychological safety.

Why Fear Paralyzes Diplomacy – and Safety Sets it Free

Psychological safety is the foundation for cooperation, learning, and courage in uncertain, highly interdependent settings—precisely what international climate negotiations are (Carmeli et al., 2009). Without it, self-protection and reticence dominate; with it, trust, openness, and collective problem-solving emerge.

Psychological safety meets core human needs: belonging, recognition, self-efficacy, and authenticity. It enables people to contribute, ask questions, and treat mistakes as learning. Studies show that—in teams and in negotiations—it fosters information sharing, innovative behavior, and the courage to voice inconvenient truths.

In short: psychological safety is not a “nice to have,” but the invisible infrastructure of any functioning collaboration—and one of the quietest yet most powerful forces in international climate politics.

Where Psychological Safety Shows Up

Psychological safety runs through all levels of international climate governance. It determines who dares to speak, who gets heard, and where genuine learning is possible. Without it, ideas remain unspoken, conflicts unresolved, and opportunities for collaboration unused.

It is especially visible in nine arenas:

1. Negotiation rooms – Courage to voice ideas and concerns without fear of rejection or being seen as politically naïve.
2. Between states and groups – Trusting relationships allow openness about constraints, uncertainties, and compromise spaces.
3. In emotionally charged contexts – Safety to express grief, anger, or hope without being dismissed.
4. Inclusive, culturally sensitive processes – Diversity treated as strength; every voice counts.
5. Facilitation – Moderators create structures where openness, empathy, and clear rules make dialogue productive.
6. Delegation teams – Teams learn from errors, give feedback, and stick together under pressure.
7. Institutions and presidencies – Learning-oriented cultures enable reflection over blame and build resilience.
8. Storytelling & shared identity – Narratives like the “Mutirão” principle strengthen a sense of collective responsibility.
9. Science–policy translation – Humility and trust create safety for mutual learning and a shared evidence base.

Scientific Background – What Psychological Safety Means

Psychological safety is the perception that it’s safe to take interpersonal risks—to ask questions, admit mistakes, or voice dissent without fearing negative fallout (Edmondson & Bransby, 2023; Newman & Eva, 2017):

• William Kahn (1990): The felt ability to bring one’s full self to the role without fear of harm to status or self-image.
• Amy Edmondson (1999): The shared belief within a team that the group is safe for speaking up and experimenting — a climate of mutual respect and trust.

In multilateral processes like the COPs, psychological safety is the invisible precondition for diversity, knowledge, and experience to actually have impact.

A Look Inside the Negotiation Room

Psychological safety—or its absence—is palpable in negotiation spaces.

At SB62 in Bonn, it became clear how language, hierarchy, and uncertainty shape who dares to speak—and who chooses silence.

Formal sessions pulsed with tension. Delegates chose every word carefully; many spoke only once their positions had been politically locked in. Newer or junior negotiators often held back—fearing they might say the “wrong” thing or be seen as inexperienced. Psychological safety was scarce: the risk of failure or embarrassment outweighed potential gains.

Informal side conversations—over coffee, in evening circles, or on the walk to the shuttle—felt entirely different. There was laughter, genuine listening, experimentation. Questions were welcome, doubts were voiced, ideas were sketched. Openness surfaced where the official rooms lacked it—and cooperation began.

The lesson: formal processes often create procedural safety but not psychological safety. They provide structure, but not encouragement. Only where people feel safe to be honest does the courage to think together arise—and that is where real diplomacy begins.

Psychological Dynamics & Pitfalls

Psychological safety is fragile. It can vanish quickly—especially amid power asymmetries, uncertainty, and public scrutiny:

• Social threat: Fear of criticism or loss of face triggers self-protection over cooperation.
• Hierarchy & status: The greater the power distance, the lower the openness.
• Learning anxiety: When ignorance or mistakes look like weakness, silence follows.
• Formal structures: Rules and protocols ensure order, but rarely trust.
• Emotion & culture: Fear, shame, or cultural misreads erode safety; empathy, hope, and belonging strengthen it. What reads as “courage” in Europe can be perceived as disrespect elsewhere—psychological safety also requires cultural sensitivity around risk and expression.

In essence: psychological safety isn’t niceness—it’s fear regulation in service of collective intelligence.

What the Research Shows

Meta-analyses and empirical studies converge on three core links (Frazier et al., 2017):

1. Performance: Psychological safety boosts communication, coordination, and problem-solving—especially in complex, interdependent teams.
2. Learning: It increases learning behaviors, feedback culture, and willingness to experiment—vital for continuous improvement and adaptation.
3. Innovation: It frees cognitive and emotional resources needed for creative solutions.

For international climate negotiations this means: Where people feel safe, they share knowledge, take smart risks, and develop new approaches together—the basis of any ambitious climate policy.

Ways Forward

What does this mean in practice for climate diplomacy? How can chairs, presidencies, and delegates build psychologically safe spaces where openness, creativity, and trust flourish?

1. Set an openness climate:
Name expectations and ground rules upfront—errors, questions, and uncertainties are part of the process. Explicit invitations reduce social threat.

2. Reframe facilitation:
Great facilitators structure emotions as well as agendas. Short check-ins, rounds, light moments, and openly naming tensions increase safety and connection.

3. Flatten hierarchies:
Physically and symbolically—circles instead of rows, balanced speaking time, equal turn-taking. Visible power distance lowers safety; eye-level raises it.

4. Model vulnerability:
Presidencies, chairs, and facilitators can go first—share a small uncertainty, solicit feedback, give genuine thanks. This normalizes vulnerability and emboldens others.

5. Institutionalize debriefs:
After intense sessions, take time to reflect—what worked, what felt unsafe? Mini-debriefs build learning and resilience instead of tabooing mistakes (Kolbe et al., 2020).

Psychological safety can’t be decreed—it must be cultivated daily. But small shifts in language, posture, and structure can have outsized effects

Conclusion – Psychological Safety as the Infrastructure of Cooperation

Psychological safety isn’t a “soft skill.” It is the invisible infrastructure of multilateral effectiveness—the condition that makes collaboration possible at all.

In a world of rising complexity and interdependence, it determines whether people share knowledge or hold back, think boldly or retreat tactically. It marks the difference between formal attendance and genuine co-creation.

For the COP processes this implies: if the “Mutirão COP” in Belém 2025 is to succeed, it needs spaces where delegates feel safe to speak honestly, to question—and to try something new together.

Without psychological safety, diplomacy is defensive communication.

With it, diplomacy becomes what it can be at its best: collective thinking in motion.

Further Reading

• Carmeli, A., Brueller, D., & Dutton, J. E. (2009). Learning behaviours in the workplace: The role of high‐quality interpersonal relationships and psychological safety. Systems Research and Behavioral Science: The Official Journal of the International Federation for Systems Research, 26(1), 81-98.
• Edmondson, A. C., & Bransby, D. P. (2023). Psychological safety comes of age: Observed themes in an established literature. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 10(1), 55-78.
• Frazier, M. L., Fainshmidt, S., Klinger, R. L., Pezeshkan, A., & Vracheva, V. (2017). Psychological safety: A meta‐analytic review and extension. Personnel psychology, 70(1), 113-165.
• Kolbe, M., Eppich, W., Rudolph, J., Meguerdichian, M., Catena, H., Cripps, A., ... & Cheng, A. (2020). Managing psychological safety in debriefings: a dynamic balancing act. BMJ simulation & technology enhanced learning, 6(3), 164.
• Newman, A., Donohue, R., & Eva, N. (2017). Psychological safety: A systematic review of the literature. Human resource management review, 27(3), 521-535.
  
  

About the Author

Janna Hoppmann is a psychologist and Mercator Fellow for International Affairs. She has worked for many years at the intersection of psychology, climate, and politics – including with governments of SIDS states, international NGOs, and currently in close exchange with the COP30 Presidency. With ClimateMind, she brings psychological insights into international climate negotiations, into the work of delegations, and into transformative dialogue formats.

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