CCEN News, Climate Civics, UNFCCC Process

Engage4Climate Launches Talanoa Dialogue Toolkit

The Fijian word ‘Talanoa’ refers to an inclusive process of dialogue where all participants, regardless of power or influence, are peers. After the COP23 adopted the Talanoa standard for a year of open consultation in 2018, the Citizens’ Climate Engagement Network adapted its process for citizen engagement to put forward a Talanoa Dialogue Engagement Toolkit, open to all people, everywhere.

Background

In 2014, Citizens’ Climate Lobby and Citizens’ Climate Education initiated the Pathway to Paris project, to expand the space for citizen participation in global climate talks.

  • The Pathway to Paris established issue-focused multi-stakeholder worldwide Workstreams to support success at COP21.
  • Six weeks before the opening of the COP21 Paris climate negotiations, a citizen stakeholder assembly at the Minneapolis 2015 Climate Action Conference adopted a draft governance strategy for a Citizens’ Climate Engagement Network.
  • The CCEN held its first session on December 2, 2015, during the COP21 in Paris.
  • The aim was to ensure an always active platform of support for the facilitating of citizen participation in global negotiations.
  • In 2016, an Advisory Council was formed to provide guidance to the CCEN.
  • Throughout 2015 and 2016, the CCEN developed guidance from citizen stakeholders and UN delegates on efficient ways to expand stakeholder participation in the UN process. That engagement resulted in a formal submission for Participation Reform in the UNFCCC process.

The new Talanoa Dialogue Engagement Toolkit is derived from that consultative work, and provides citizen leaders in any community anywhere guidance for hosting local Talanoa Dialogue sessions. This process is open, flexible, and meant to facilitate substantive contributions from stakeholders to the Talanoa Dialogue, while allowing a rapid acceleration of citizen participation in global decision-making.

  • Below, we outline the contents of the CCEN Talanoa Dialogue Engagement Toolkit.
  • The permanent URL for this toolkit is engage4climate.org/talanoa

Contents

This toolkit is intended to facilitate hosting of local working sessions for stakeholder input to the Talanoa Dialogue, and includes the following:

  1. Standard Meeting Agenda
  2. Variety of Meeting Types
  3. Thematic Discussion Sample Agendas
  4. 20-year Future Visioning Process
  5. Talanoa Submission 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 Talanoa Dialogue non-Party stakeholder Working Session:

  1. Introduction + useful background information
  2. Discussion of participants’ values and local concerns
  3. Form Working Groups around affinities / priorities
  4. Working Groups outline where they want to be in 20 years
  5. Working Groups back-cast 20 year, 10 year, 5 year, 2 year (2020) goals
  6. Reports from Working Groups to the full Working Session
  7. Draft Working Session report (outline around WG notes)
  8. After Session: Finalize report for Talanoa Dialogue Preparatory Phase Submission

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)

For outlines of all four, plus materials: click here.

 

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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:

  1. 20-year vision — What kind of world do we want to live in 20 years from now?
  2. 10-year vision — Where do we need to be in 10-years, given our 20-year goals?
  3. 5-year vision — What specific actions are needed to achieve the 10-year vision?
  4. 2-year strategy — How to leverage the climate turning point
  5. 2018-2019 actions — Making the 2-year strategy real

For a detailed run-through of this visioning process: click here.

Talanoa Submission Guidance

We recommend that any meetings convened in alignment with this toolkit on Resilience Intel related subjects produce a short outcome report, and that this report be submitted both to the Talanoa Dialogue platform and to our team, using the Contact page.

  • Be Indentifiable — Communicate transparently which stakeholders are represented & be accessible for follow-up.
  • Be Concise — Make your report a brief to negotiators; link to detailed materials if needed.
  • Be Timely — There are two Talanoa Dialogue submission periods (one ending April 2, the other ending October 29); plan accordingly.
  • Submit Here — Make your submission to the Talanoa Dialogue on the official UN platform at TalanoaDialogue.com

For complete Talanoa Dialogue submission guidance, click here.

The Talanoa Dialogue Engagement Toolkit is supported by: