Walk into Iran's national pavilion at the UN convened COP31 in Turkey and you find a war narrative in a climate venue. The display features portraits of the young victims from Minab in Iran's south and sets up a classroom scene - scattered backpacks, overturned desks and a chalkboard - to evoke the post-strike aftermath.
Visitors can also put on a headset for a four minute VR film that follows a fictional boy through his school day before the site was hit, and depicts U.S. President Donald Trump giving the direct order for the Feb. 28 attack.
"You see the irony here," said Arman Khoorsand, who runs Iran's environment department's Center for International Affairs and Conventions. The world is gathering at COP31 "to talk about reducing the carbon footprint" even though the war has pumped out large amounts of carbon dioxide, he said. Khoorsand added this is Iran's first pavilion at a climate COP, and that much of the booth's messaging mirrors Tehran's social posts pushing back on U.S. comments about Minab and needling Trump.
A senior Trump administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the confidential nature of the inquiry, said the probe is still underway and stressed that U.S. forces do not intentionally strike non-combatants. Following its withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, the U.S. government does not have an official delegation at COP31.
Top Trump officials have denied aiming at the school. A Bloomberg News investigation reported that the Pentagon concluded the strike stemmed in part from faulty intelligence, stale imagery and too much dependence on AI. The full assessment of the U.S. probe, which started in March, has not been published, though officials say it has been nearly complete for months. The military command overseeing Middle East combat operations subsequently changed how it vets intelligence for potential targets.
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The strike killed more than 120 children. The school had previously been part of an Iranian military facility and was among roughly 1,000 sites hit in the opening February barrage.
Some of Iran's programming focuses on environmental damage from the war, spotlighting emissions linked to ruined oil facilities and ships. Across the summit, delegates cite surging energy costs tied to wars in the Middle East and in Ukraine. "This year's fossil fuel cost chaos has delivered a global shockwave, hitting households hard and spreading inflation," UN climate chief Simon Stiell told attendees Monday. Those price jolts are being cast as extra motivation to move off fossil fuels, even though countries have made little headway yet nations have made scant progress after promises made at the 2023 COP28 in Dubai.
Ukraine's pavilion plans to showcase renewable energy efforts under fire. The exhibit also details the toll of Russia's invasion, featuring a puzzle assembled from rubble fragments, descriptions of polluted water, oil leaking from shipwrecks on the seabed, and reports of elevated copper levels in certain locations. A separate display spotlights dolphin deaths in the Black Sea attributed to heavy military sonar and vessel noise.
Israel's offensive in Gaza is visible at the venue as well. On Monday, a large conference hall bore the designation Gaza Hall in honor of the State of Palestine. While many UN member countries recognize Palestine as a sovereign state, it is not a full UN member.
Iran's president Masoud Pezeshkian is slated to speak to delegates on Wednesday, sharing the stage with over two dozen fellow heads of state, keeping the war present at a forum usually centered on emissions and finance. The bottom line: geopolitics and climate policy are being discussed in the same breath at COP31, a combination that can shape the policy backdrop your portfolio will navigate next.
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