The Talanoa Dialogue: Climate Change and the SDGs

According to the UN’s recently completed Emissions Gap Report, the existing pledges by member states to cut emissions will not be sufficient to meet the Paris climate agreement of 2°C above pre-industrial levels.

At the November 2017 Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany, the UN formally recognized the need for faster and more effective action. Fiji is the incoming 2018 Climate Change Conference President, and has introduced the Fijian concept of Talanoa as a guiding principle for the 2018 “Facilitative Dialogue” among member countries. The ‘Talanoa Dialogue’ is inspired by the Pacific concept of constructive discussion, debate and story-telling that builds empathy and supports decisions for the collective good. The Talanoa Dialogue will set the stage for more robust national climate action plans that are needed to put the world on track to meet pre-2020 ambition and the long-term goals of the two-year old Paris Agreement. Stakeholders, including governments, civil society groups and businesses, will be encouraged in the 2018 Talanoa Dialogue to share their inputs on climate change mitigation, which will be consolidated and used to determine pre-2020 climate action.

The UN also recognizes that the private sector will be critical in realizing the sustainable development goals (SDG), which will require an estimated USD 100 billion annual investment by 2020 to fund identified projects. COP23 launched several initiatives in November to promote private sector involvement, including the Ocean Pathway Partnership and the InsuResilience Global Partnership. The Ocean Pathway Partnership, to be co-chaired by Fiji and Sweden, aims to ensure that the connection between climate change and the ocean will be taken into consideration in climate negotiations. The InsuRelience Global Partnership intends to provide climate risk insurance to indigent and vulnerable people in developing nations.

Global cooperation and shared responsibility will be critical to achieving the emission reductions, and leadership in both the public and private sectors are required to ensure we make sufficient progress over the coming decades.

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