CONTEXT
The Talanoa Dialogue was introduced to the United Nations (UN) as an effective consensus practice by Fiji during the 2017 COP23 climate meetings. The Dialogue uses a simple yet powerful set of questions:
Where are we? Where do we want to go? How do we get there?
In 2018, non-UN organizations are invited to submit Talanoa Reports to UN Ambassadors & staff, Stakeholders & non-Stakeholders, Major Groups, and subsidiaries & agencies. Reports compiled in April and October will be analyzed (see April overview HERE) and reported to all assembled at COP24 in Poland December 2018. Talanoa Reports and the UN Sustainable Development Goals are becoming widely used as climate action guides in various arenas such as college curriculums and city & county planning.
Thriving Resilient Communities Collaboratory (TRCC) is pleased to contribute this report based on our network members’ work and on our collaborations such as strategy dialogues, mapping, and democratic funding. The report is written for a broader local-global audience to support the whole systems approaches and collaborative partnerships needed at every scale to keep climate warming below the 1.5℃/2.7℉ target set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
INSPIRATION
The alarming 2018 IPCC Special Report was released as we at TRCC were writing this Talanoa Report. We are sad and scared, as we imagine you are. We are even more committed to bold climate action, as we trust you are. As Rebecca Solnit says, the climate fight is only over if we think it is. Our children are counting on us to wake up, connect up, and step up. We offer our gratitude and commitment to step up with the millions of people and organizations building thriving resilient lives and communities on this beautiful blue-green earth we call home.
We offer our gratitude and commitment to step up with the millions of people and organizations building thriving resilient lives and communities on this beautiful blue-green earth we call home.
We share Joanna Macy’s moving inspiration about our Great Turning to a life-sustaining society.
Read the Full Report“To choose life in this planet-time is a mighty adventure . . . that elicits more courage and enlivening solidarity than any military campaign. From high school students restoring streams for salmon spawning, to inner city neighbors creating community gardens on vacant lots, from forest activists sitting in trees …. to delay logging until environmental impact studies are done, to windmill engineers bringing their technology to energy-hungry regions—countless groups are organizing, learning, taking action. This multi-faceted human activity on behalf of life may not make today’s headlines or newscasts, but to our progeny it will matter more than anything else we do.” (1998, p. 16)
TALANOA REPORT SUMMARY
Thriving Resilient Communities Collaboratory (TRCC) is a U.S.-based network of regional and national leaders helping communities to become more thriving and resilient. This report synthesizes the systemic collaborative response to climate change practiced by TRCC member organizations.
Resilience is a one-word label for sustainability, thriving, justice, peace, wisdom, health, security, and other whole community visions. Resilient communities grow and recover from problems, like climate change and natural disasters, to be stronger than they were before. A resilient humanity lives in balance with the earth so that we, our great-great-grandchildren, and all species can thrive.
Climate change is a highly systemic issue that demands unprecedented collaboration at all scales: local, regional, national, and global. TRCC’s commitment to solving the climate crisis is building community resilience through partnerships sharing respect, wisdom, tools, and funds with compassion & collaboration.
- Where are we? Growing Thriving Grassroots
Global resilience grows from healthy, equitable, and sustainable grassroots in local communities. TRCC network members strengthen community resilience in food, water, energy, climate, justice, economy, policy, and more. Click HERE to see our network directory and HERE to see our five-minute video. - Where are we going? Global Resilience
Resilience is the ability of a healthy living system (like a community) to absorb disturbance and keep functioning. Common elements among TRCC members’ resilience theories include whole systems approach, culture shift, social justice, local living economies, and collaboration. Click HERE to see our theory showcase. Grounded in integral systems theory, these are process rules for systemic climate action.- Think Globally, Act Locally, Collaborate Regionally. Local IS global when it’s connected.
- Whole Community Approach. Whole approaches balance cultural change with technical solutions.
- Networks, Networks, Networks. The heart of resilience is connecting compassionate people in action.
- How do we get there? Public-private-people partnerships
Reaching resilience requires public-private-people partnerships (4P). The experience and talents of diverse stakeholders are needed to solve complex adaptive system issues. Social sector grassroots partners with community wisdom and power are the missing link. These design rules are strategies of change that interconnect across geographic scales.- Multi-stakeholder Councils peer leader circles
- Action Learning Communities multi-stakeholder leader networks
- Action Networks multi-stakeholder leader and public grassroots networks
Key needs are:
- Commitment & Funding – leadership and support for partnership hubs, tools, & joint projects
- Tools – accessible tools to think and act together at scale as community residents and leaders
- Inclusion with power – grassroots representation in public & private decisions and resource allocation