After the Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015, a new dialogue format came along with it at Bonn in 2017: Talanoa. Coming from the Fijian word reflecting “a process of inclusive, participatory and transparent dialogue,” Talanoa Dialogue’s guiding principles are founded in a spirit of equality, respect, and empathy. In this round-table conversation, every participant has equal time to share stories, give opinions, and offer solutions. The goal of Talanoa is to facilitate meaningful, cooperative, people-centric discussions in order to advance the fight against climate change.
This evening, on Sunday, December 2, the Texas Impact team was invited to attend an informal interfaith Talanoa Dialogue gathering at St. Stephen’s church in Katowice. Represented at the meeting were people of Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and Brahma Kumaris faith. Some were NGO employees, some religious leaders, some UN affiliates, some “ordinary” people of faith. All had one thing in common: the strong conviction that every religion, in some way or another, compels us to care for the beautiful gift that is Earth.
Ilka Vega attended a dialogue on human rights in the context of the 1.5° C goal; Erica Nelson attended one on the 1.5° C goal as a whole; and Bee and I sat on a discussion of adaptation and cultural/non-economic loss and damage in the context of climate change. Every dialogue had the same three guiding questions:
- Where are we?
- Where do we want to get?
- How do we get there?
Following these questions, people shared insight, often from experiences in their home countries. In our group, two Christian people from Kenya discussed the floods, drought, and infrastructure problems. A Buddhist woman and two NGO representatives from South Korea discussed fruit tree-planting initiatives and the need for climate change education in faith communities. A Jewish man from D.C. talked about the need to look farther into the future, considering potential consequences of climate change, when planning approaches to climate change action. Bee and I shared about both the cultural and economic losses caused by Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Harvey, as well as the need for depoliticization of climate change in faith settings.
Following the dialogues, we participated in an interfaith worship service in St. Stephen’s church, which was facilitated by Rev. Fletcher Harper. Its presenters included leaders from the Polish Catholic church, Sister Jayanti of the Brahma Kumaris, an imam from the Islamic Center of Warsaw, a Buddhist leader, and an indigenous woman from Chad. David Waskow of the World Resources Institutes in Washington, D.C. lit the candle celebrating the first night of Hanukkah.
What struck me most about this gathering was the blatant diversity of the crowd: people of all ages, with different languages, different ethnicities, different religions, all speaking in solidarity and hopefulness because of their faith. It demonstrated the burgeoning global effort by the faith community not only to take a seat at the climate change discussion table, but also to be accountable to the world – both to governments and to communities – about climate change. Even more than that, faith communities are taking on the work of creating incremental, linear, yet interdisciplinary dialogue to make climate change an accessible issue for people of faith.