My story for the Talanoa Dialogue under the Paris Agreement - Part I - Where are we?

As part of the preparatory phase of the Talanoa Dialogue a face-to-face session of storytelling was held on 6 May in Bonn. I took part as one of seven researchers.

***************************

This is the story of a species with a unique capacity for science and morality that inhabits a beautiful blue planet. As a result of a tumultuous history its members are divided into some 200 countries. These countries are finding more and more reasons to unite to address common challenges. The changing climate is one example. After many years of struggle they agreed on an accord with a common objective. Joy and celebrations! In this accord countries accepted to do their very best to address climate change. As was their habit – however – they did not want to prescribe how much each country should do.

So to make sure that the total contributions are sufficient to reach their common objective they created a mechanism of global reflection on past action every five years. Each country then has to consider the outcome of this when deciding how much they will do next. This is a collective accountability mechanism. Accountability can be defined as being about telling a story, based on some obligation and with some consequences.

We are now in a trial run of this mechanism. This we know. But we do not know how obligatory story telling at global level can have sufficient national consequences. We can develop two sets of questions to find out.

First, how do we tell our stories and reflect on them at the global level?

• How do we create an environment of amity and trust for sharing stories of both failure and success for mutual learning?
• How earnest and uplifting can we make our collective deliberations based on these stories?

Second, how do we bring the global reflection home to our countries?

• How open and timely are our national climate planning cycles to consider the outcome of the global reflection?
• How much do parliamentarians and other domestic actors support considering national responsibilities in light of a global perspective? And how can these actors hold the government to account for its climate policy?

Even more relevant is: how do we hold ourselves to account? Do we regularly look ourselves in the mirror, reflect on our actions and compare those to our ethical standards? And if we find a mismatch do we strengthen our pledge to do our best to support the Paris Agreement? Finally, do we go home from here and have uplifting and meaningful conversations with our family members, co-workers, friends and strangers to accompany others towards such self-reflection? Then we can say this process is about facilitative accountability.