Researchers of the latest IPCC report updated us on new alarming temperature demarkations: 2degC – 3degC global warming has become more probable than the 1.5degC scenario. Mr. Gutteres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, calls for “super-charge efforts at warp-speed” to achieve our global climate goals. Which is another wake up call to come together and solve this crisis in collaboration rather than splendid isolation. We are one people on one planet.
But what’s your view on intergovernmental collaboration? Have you perhaps become cynical and tired of the constant blame and responsibility shifting that we observe between the different country leaders?
China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Brazil, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Nigeria are predicted to grow their GHG emissions even further as more citizens are elevated out of poverty. America and Europe are pointing at them and telling them to cut down. Their response: “Well, easy enough for you to say. You had a go at economic growth and wealth in your countries – on the coattails of colonisation of our countries BTW – and now it’s our turn.”
And indeed, it feels like the mandate of reducing GHG emissions falls on the developed nations that arguably for centuries have taken more than their fair share of the world’s riches to create space so that everyone on the planet can live a respectable life. Talk about another case where we might feel the loss of agency. So is there hope?
We got inspired by the story behind the 2015 Paris Climate agreement and its architect Christiana Figueres. She had the impossible task to bring all countries back to the table after the devastating disappointment of the 2009 Copenhagen Climate (non)consensus.
For 7 years Christiana and her team travelled the world and the quality that made them succeed in the end, where others had failed, was the energy with which they entered the negotiations. She calls herself a stubborn, grounded optimist. Which to her is not the anticipation of a certain outcome but the energy of optimism itself. Christiana and her team applied deep listening skills to understand the problem first, before coming to any solution.
Christiana also shared that she herself went through rich personal learning experiences by letting go of her own conditioning that subconsciously influenced those negotiations.
Transcending the notion of “victim” and “perpetrator” had a powerful effect on helping unpack difficulties in the negotiations. Subconsciously Christiana has been seeing herself as “victim” due to her difficult childhood and marriage.
She realised when she labeled herself as victim, automatically someone must become the perpetrator. And very quickly the perpetrator turns back to you and calls you the perpetrator and before you know it “you engage this seesaw of victim-perpetrator and everybody is a victim ánd a perpetrator”. In this dynamic, “you’re a victim and a perpetrator at different points in time, with different people, with different situations.” Christiana saw that happening in the negotiations: “Developing countries are objectively the victims of climate change, but they don’t have to stay there. We can get out of the victim-perpetrator dynamic.”
People were able to honour the reality of historic responsibility, and at the same embrace “a forward-looking common responsibility that has to do with the future of the planet and the future of all human beings on the planet.”
And as Christiana began to bring herself out of her own dynamic of victim and perpetrator, she began to see the negotiations shift.
This is a powerful invitation to return to ourselves and take a good look at what our subconscious biases are. With which energy are we entering conversations or negotiations that we experience as difficult? What language, what words do we use to build bridges?
This blog is based on the Heartwork newsletter, 24th of March 2023. Would you like to read more inspiring content?