The Engage4Climate Toolkit emerged from the Pathway to Paris citizen engagement process — which established issue-focused multi-stakeholder worldwide Workstreams to support success during and after the Paris Agreement process. It is informed by our partners’ work in the Action for Climate Empowerment Dialogues and the Talanoa Dialogue process, and offers citizen leaders in any community anywhere with guidance for hosting local working sessions.
Toolkit for Local Meetings to Shape Climate Policy
The Fijian word ‘Talanoa’ refers to an inclusive process of dialogue where all participants, regardless of power or influence, are peers.
This Toolkit offers citizens, communities, local government officials, and other non-Party stakeholders a strategy for engaging locally, envisioning a smarter, more climate resilient future, and for providing structured, action-oriented input to local, national, and international climate policy processes.
In the Talanoa spirit, the guiding principles for this civic engagement strategy are:
- all people are climate stakeholders,
- access to best-practice opportunity is a right, and
- climate education must be a two-way process between citizens and government.
Contents
This toolkit is intended to facilitate hosting of local working sessions for stakeholder input to the Talanoa Dialogue, and includes the following:
- Standard Meeting Agenda
- Variety of Meeting Types
- Thematic Discussion Sample Agendas
- 20-year Future Visioning Process
- Outcome Report Guidance
Standard Meeting Agenda
Working sessions are open local meetings. They can range in style and format from a small gathering in conversation around one or more themes, to the building of local leadership networks, to a town-hall meeting comprised of citizens and decision-makers. Each working session is part of a process of design and strategic planning, with a focus on building a true Citizens’ Climate Engagement Network, that will ensure ongoing substantive, direct citizen participation in global decision-making processes.
We recommend the following basic structure for any kind of local, national or international stakeholder Working Session:
- Introduction + useful background information
- Discussion of participants’ values and local concerns
- Form Working Groups around affinities / priorities
- Working Groups outline where they want to be in 20 years
- Working Groups back-cast 20 year, 10 year, 5 year, 2 year (2020) goals
- Reports from Working Groups to the full Working Session
- Draft Working Session report (outline around notes from smaller groups)
- After Session: Finalize outcome report; share with decision-makers
Meeting Type Sample Agendas (full detail)
Talanoa Dialogue Town Hall Meeting
Citizens, Stakeholders, Decision-makers
Talanoa Priorities (Short) Working Session
Abbreviated standard agenda (60-90 min)
Talanoa Vision (Detailed) Working Session
Standard agenda (2-3 hours)
Talanoa Pathways (All-day) Working Session
Detailed zero-emissions pathway planning (5-8 hours)
Get full details for all four meeting types →
Thematic Discussion Sample Agendas
Resilience Intel Meeting — full detail
Climate-Smart Finance Aggregator inputs
Food System Integrity Meeting
Climate-Smart Agriculture & Healthy Sustainable Food
Local Environmental Observers Meeting
Monitoring, Reporting & Verification from Local Stakeholder Input
New Economy Priorities Meeting
Envisioning a vibrant climate-neutral, ocean-smart economy
20-year Future Visioning Process
To provide useful, substantive answers to the three guiding questions of the Talanoa Dialogue process — Where are we? Where do we want to go? How do we get there? — we advocate a 20-year future visioning process. In simple terms, that means asking what kind of world we want to live in 20 years from now, and then mapping out the steps we need to take to make that better future a reality.
To complete a detailed back-casting from ambitious future goals, the visioning process should proceed as follows:
- 20-year vision — What kind of world do we want to live in 20 years from now?
- 10-year vision — Where do we need to be in 10-years, given our 20-year goals?
- 5-year vision — What specific actions are needed to achieve the 10-year vision?
- 2-year strategy — How to leverage the climate turning point
- Actions this year & next — Making the 2-year strategy real
For a detailed run-through of this visioning process: click here.
Outcome Report Guidance
We recommend that any meetings convened in alignment with this toolkit a short outcome report, and that this report be submitted to the relevant policy-making body — at the local, national, or international level — and to our team, using the submission form at the bottom of our Outcome Report Guidance page.
- Be Indentifiable — Communicate transparently which stakeholders are represented & be accessible for follow-up.
- Be Concise — Make your report a brief to policy-makers or negotiators; link to more detailed materials if needed.
- Be Timely — Policy processes follow political or institutional calendars; be attentive to key dates, and plan accordingly.
- Submit Here — Share your outcome report with relevant officials or community leaders, and share with our team here.
For more detailed guidance on the shaping and sharing of an outcome report, click here.
A Coalition of Mutual Support
The CCEN is open to all people and should operate as a reform coalition, driven by mutual support among partners, to ensure we are amplifying the opportunity for direct citizen participation in global decision-making. By playing a role in this process, you are supporting an effort that can democratize climate policy, open global negotiations, and ensure we have a more inclusive, fair, and livable climate future for all people.
Please direct any questions about this process to our team through our Contact page.
This toolkit for citizen, community, stakeholder, and local government engagement in the Talanoa Dialogue process is supported by:
And the Citizens’ Climate Engagement Network Advisory Council
Additional Resources
- Share Your Vision for a Climate-Smart Future
- Make the Talanoa Dialogue open process permanent
- Talanoa Dialogue Process: Reports & Updates
- Talanoa Means Non-Party Stakeholders can Drive Ambition
- The Time for Everywhere-Active Climate Civics is Here
- Public engagement reform proposal to UNFCCC
Become a Volunteer Legislative Advisor
If you wish to engage in an ongoing way with legislators who represent you in government policy processes, Citizens’ Climate Lobby is a network of more than 120,000 citizen volunteers on 6 continents, who do just that.
Learn more at CitizensClimateLobby.org
Engage4Climate.org 