Accelerating Progress, Advancing Innovation, is a dialogue initiative co-convened by the International Center for Dialogue and Peacebuilding, Citizens’ Climate Education, with technical support from the Geoversiv Foundation. This series of high-level dialogues brings together select action-focused leaders to small work-oriented discussions (convened under the Chatham House Rule) to challenge the limits of past thinking, call on personal and sectoral experiences and creativity, and outline accelerated pathways for effective action on climate and energy, following on from the Paris Agreement.
Invest at the Source
Washington, DC — 8 June 2019
‘Invest at the Source’ is the formal report from the Monaco Ocean Week dialogue Accelerating Ocean Sustainability Upstream. It was released on World Ocean Day 2019.
The challenge of solving climate change and achieving sustainable development for the long-term, for all nations, demands we build an economy that is capable of securing ocean health and resilience — a blue economy. By mapping connections between upstream actions and downstream resilience, we found new areas potential shared innovation and investable value, that could vastly expand the pool of resources flowing to ocean health and resilience priorities.
[Full Report at OceanSmart.org or as PDF]
Earth Day Climate Communiqué
Oslo — 22 April 2019
Alongside the United Nations 24th annual climate conference, the Nobel Peace Prize Forum gathered some of the world’s foremost climate leaders in Oslo who discussed climate change as a matter of international peace and security and how climate-smart finance, cities and subnational actors could drive significant change forward in meeting the targets of the Paris Agreement (2015), to limit global warming to 1.5ºC.
Their formal report recognizes that “climate change is a threat multiplier, as well as an accelerant for armed conflict, putting the stability of nation states at risk and undermining regional and international peace and security in fundamental ways—threatening the viability of natural systems and human settlements, economies and political systems.”
[The Communiqué / Press Release]
Working Session: Natural Capital Finance, Peacebuilding & Cities
Paris — 1 April 2019
The Nobel Peace Prize Forum High-Level Climate Congress explored challenges and action opportunities in climate-related peace and security, climate-smart finance and energy innovation, and the role of cities in meeting the Paris Agreement goals. This working session, hosted by the American University of Paris, and co-convened by Acceleration Dialogues partners, brought together a team of advisers to finalize the drafting of the Earth Day Communiqué from climate leaders.
[Event page / Communiqué]
Accelerating Ocean Sustainability Upstream
Monaco — 27 March 2019
Ocean resilience starts upstream. Given the need to shift investment in all sectors toward ocean-smart practices, this dialogue—part of the Monaco Ocean Week program—will focus on mapping the interactive landscape of work, connecting ocean sustainability to clean economy and climate-smart imperatives across whole economies.
A critical outcome, beyond this mapping, will be to widen the scope of the blue economy to encompass all elements of business, investment, and relevant policy.
[Event page / ‘Invest at the Source’ report]
Nobel Peace Prize Forum Climate Congress
Oslo — 12 December 2018
The them of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize Forum Oslo was How to Solve the Climate Crisis in Time. On Day 2 of the Forum, the Norwegian Nobel Institute hosted a day of high-level climate congress, comprised of three thematic dialogues.
- Climate, Peace & Security — Climate change as a threat multiplier.
- Climate-Smart Finance & Clean Energy — How can decentralized energy systems secure the future?
- The Role of Cities — Can cities lead in meeting Paris Agreement goals?
This high-level climate congress was followed by a drafting session, which will produce a Joint Communiqué from climate leaders attending the two days of the Forum.
[Event page / Working Session / Communiqué]
Advancing the Climate-Smart Future of Finance
San Francisco — 13 September 2018
This open GCAS Affiliate Event, co-convened by Acceleration Dialogues partners CCE, Geoversiv and the International Center for Dialogue and Peacebuilding, will explore issues of food security, public health, carbon liability, and climate-smart finance, in the context of the Resilience Intel Charter.
The featured panel includes Dr. Sudhvir Singh, of the Oslo-based EAT Foundation; Dr. Natasha DeJarnett, of the American Public Health Association; and Oliver Marchand, founder and CEO of Carbon Delta. Joseph Robertson, Global Strategy Director for Citizens’ Climate Education, served as moderator.
Toward Economy-Wide Resilience Intelligence
Washington, DC — 18 April 2018
Building on December’s post-Summit Working Dialogue on Resilience Intel, we are convening a high-level working dialogue, the week of the Spring Meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, to focus on action steps for tracking and reporting economy-wide resilience intelligence. Participants will discuss:
- technical challenges and solutions for establishing the climate-smart finance aggregator,
- how to achieve a coherent, yet evolving core methodology able to adapt to critical innovations and to new market dynamics,
- what indicators finance ministries can use to track unaccounted macro-critical value across their home-market economies, and
- next steps for integrating and mapping both high-level and community-level resilience intelligence indicators.
The overall purpose of this dialogue is to establish the starting point for discussions with finance ministries — through the CAPE partnership, the UNFCCC negotiations, and the G20 and V20 processes — about aligning overall fiscal and economic policies with macrocritical resilience imperatives. Throughout 2018, we will be working to build the foundations for shared roadmaps for building resilience intelligence at all levels.
Working Dialogue on Resilience Intel
Paris — 13 December 2017
In follow-up to the One Planet Summit, the Kingdom of Morocco, Citizens’ Climate Education, the International Centre for Dialogue and Peacebuilding, and the Geoversiv Foundation co-convened a Working Dialogue on Resilience Intel, at the Embassy of Morocco in Paris. The focus was a coalition effort to co-create the Climate-Smart Finance Aggregator, to uncover and expand climate-focused spending across the whole economy.
The dialogue was opened by Morocco’s Ambassador to France Chakib Benmoussa, who re-affirmed Morocco’s firm commitment to long-term engagement to build on the COP22 Presidency’s efforts to lead the much-needed work of scaling-up climate finance.
Participants in the Working Dialogue, which was held under the Chatham House Rule, examined key questions relating to Adaptation Metrics, measuring the invisible value of successfully avoiding cost and risk, how getting down to local detail drives a more rapid scaling up of global pools for climate-smart finance, and critical technical challenges relating to provenance and accounting of all climate-smart funds in circulation.
Building Fiscal Resilience
Washington, DC — 20 April 2017
Climate disruption is a macro-critical influence that changes all other areas of value exchange, by affecting the shape of the overall economy. This dialogue was moderated by Rachel Kyte, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General and CEO Sustainable Energy for All, and examined:
- devaluation risk for investments that rely on carbon-intensive practices,
- disaster response risk for communities facing climate impacts,
- nonlinear climate and economic threats to global food and fresh water supplies,
- risk of instability in under-resilient financial institutions,
- macro-scale devaluation risk, due to redirected spending and decreased growth, and
- the risk of political destabilization of nation-states.
Failure to address macro-critical devaluation risk will reduce the productive capacity of any given dollar of investment, reducing overall fiscal health and resilience. This dialogue identified five actionable priorities for finance ministers, to allow them to integrate climate-smart priorities into their day-to-day responsibilities.
[ Event page / G20 Guidance ]
Accelerating NDC Action
Marrakech — 13 November 2016
In Marrakech, during the 22nd Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (the COP22), the high-level dialogue series Accelerating Progress, Advancing Innovation will bring leaders in government, business, science, and policy advocacy together to outline pathways for accelerating national climate action. The nationally determined contributions to the Paris Agreement (the NDCs) do not yet include pledges ambitious enough to meet the goal of limiting warming to 1.5ºC by mid-century.
Some of the issues at stake in Marrakech include: how to deliver financing to projects that transform markets, allowing them to decarbonize rapidly or to rapidly develop using low-carbon practices; how to ensure cutting edge low-carbon technologies and business models can spread to all economies in a cost-effective way; how to build long-term resilience and routine low-carbon business practices into national budget priorities and infrastructure development.
Carbon Pricing as the Foundation for Future Value
Washington, DC — 7 October 2016
Building on this prior work, the central challenge we put to ourselves in this dialogue is to assess added investment costs flowing from carbon risk, identify carbon pricing leverage points to drive rapid, cost-effective business model innovation, and shift financial sector focus toward macro-critical climate resilience. To make this work more concrete, we will focus on how these factors influence the impact of carbon pricing policy on the building of future business value and community-level economic resilience.
We aim to apply the most economically efficient policy options to the situation-specific work of building durable climate-resilient prosperity, and motivating more ambitious, innovative approaches to shaping national climate policy, during and after the COP22 negotiations in Marrakech.
Climate, Peace & Security in the Global Goals
New York City — 22 September 2016
Mutual thriving is becoming a global security imperative. The costs of not getting there are now visibly too high, so building macro-critical climate resilience is essential for achieving reliable peace and security in the face of climate destabilization. The central challenge we put to ourselves in this dialogue is to identify challenges and develop solutions relating to climate, peace and security, in the 17 Global Goals and 169 Targets of the Sustainable Development Goals framework.
Taking place alongside the 71st UN General Assembly—the first after universal adoption of the SDGs—this dialogue will identify high-value actionable priorities, and provide advice to governments working to move forward with full implementation of the SDGs domestically and in collaboration with other nations. Through a series of ongoing projects emerging from the dialogues, we will develop monitoring capabilities to ensure all nations are able to move forward on strengthening climate-related peace and security, at the human scale, and in partnership.
How to Achieve Macro-Critical Climate Resilience
Minneapolis — 6 June 2016
The fifth dialogue focused on new ways of talking about the macro-criticality of human development standards, rule of law, and assaults on human dignity resulting from ecological, political, and social vulnerabilities. Climate disruption creates conditions where harm is more likely, but conditions where harm is more likely also make it more difficult for a society to respond to severe climate impacts. Externalizing cost is not a long-term strategy, but a phase which must be followed by a steady rise in inefficiencies (cost and harm).
The over-arching open question is how to achieve the macro-critical resilience needed to reduce vulnerability to climate disruption and prevent the slide into forced migration, human trafficking, conflict and other degradations of the human condition.
Evolving a Climate-Smart Financial Sector
Oslo — 2 May 2016
We hosted our fourth dialogue at the Nobel Peace Center, in Oslo, Norway. The moderated dialogue focused on evolving a climate-smart financial sector. Four main issues were put to participants: 1) Ending dependence on externalization, 2) Breaking path dependency in value considerations and standard practice, 3) Valuing future climate resilience, and 4) Assessing macrocriticality—how the global math affects our access to future value.
Participants approached those four areas of inquiry from these starting points: Long-term business resilience depends on the ability to carry hidden costs. The climate system has revealed in geophysical dynamics that we are connected to one another’s actions. It makes metaphysical ethical concerns into a hard physical reality, and this has implications for the value of any investment. Internalizing carbon costs builds efficiency for the overall economy and makes human security easier to achieve.
Assessing the Carbon Pricing Value Chain
Washington, DC — 14 April 2016
Our third dialogue took place on 14 April, in Washington, DC, during the Spring Meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Participants focused on the carbon pricing value chain—the landscape of pressures and opportunities, through which an effective carbon pricing strategy exerts influence and drives change.
We found there was an interest for ongoing collaboration among some of those present, as well as an interest in finding new ways to collaborate, to share information, and to build local value considerations into policy and investment choices with national and global reach. The dialogue in Washington also signaled the need for a more widely rooted understanding of how finance operates in a marketplace with far less carbon risk and far more overall efficiency.
The Carbon Delta & Business Model Change
Paris — 7 December 2015
The second dialogue was held during the COP21 climate negotiations in Paris. Participants focused on the carbon delta (the difference in value between investments loaded with carbon liability and those free of it), the challenges inherent in fast-paced comprehensive business model innovation, the role of stakeholder insight, and economic instruments like carbon pricing, to shift incentives and motivate a reliable economy-wide transition to climate-smart enterprise.
Two new tools were identified as having catalytic value for motivating and sustaining an optimal energy transition: 1) a qualitative process to drive rapid business model innovation as common practice, and 2) a detailed, interactive, and adaptive assessment of the carbon pricing value chain. These, then, become a foundation on which future efforts at inquiry and innovation can be built.
The Climate Opportunity
Minneapolis — 26 October 2015
In the lead-up to the COP21 climate negotiations in Paris, last year, a high-level dialogue was convened, under Chatham House rules, as the culmination of the climate action conference Minneapolis 2015: Last Stop before Paris. It was co-hosted by international business leader Marilyn Carlson Nelson and former US Vice President Walter Mondale. The gathering brought together business leaders, major investors, trade associations, oil companies, government representatives, civil society leaders, economists and other environmental and climate experts.
The result was a strategy document titled “A Convenient Opportunity”. This strategy outline went beyond detailing insights and outcomes from the Minneapolis dialogue. It focused on key areas of action that exemplify a shift in the operational logic of how climate solutions are mobilized through collaborations between business, government, civil society, and communities. “A Convenient Opportunity” brought together a diverse landscape of insight into complex challenges, and laid the foundation for a dialogue series oriented toward ensuring we can harness the most transformational climate opportunities.
Co-coordinated and hosted by:
The Dialogue Series
- October 2015, Minneapolis — The Climate Action Opportunity
- December 2015, Paris — Business Model Change and the Carbon Delta
- April 2016, Washington — Assessing the Carbon Pricing Value Chain
- May 2016, Oslo — Evolving a Climate-Smart Financial Sector
- June 2016, Minneapolis — Macro-critical Climate Resilience
- September 2016, New York — Climate, Peace and Security in the SDGs
- October 2016, Washington — Carbon Pricing as the Foundation for Future Business and Community Value
- November 2016, Marrakech — Accelerating NDC Action
- April 2017, Washington — Building Fiscal Resilience
- December 2017, Paris — Working Dialogue on Resilience Intel
- April 2018, Washington — Toward Economy-wide Resilience Intelligence
- September 2018, San Francisco — Advancing the Climate-Smart Future of Finance
- December 2018, Oslo — Nobel Peace Prize Forum Climate Congress
- March 2019, Monaco — Accelerating Ocean Sustainability Upstream
- April 2019, Paris — Translating Science into Climate Action
The photo at the top of this page shows an iceberg in Baffin Bay, and was shot by David Thoreson during a successful transit of the Northwest Passage.
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