Atelier WeekNotes w/c 24 July
Findhorn event on the race to global climate regulation.
I am writing newsletter of #weeknotes of starting the Atelier of What’s Next (What’s needed, What’s ready? What can we do? What next?). For my rationale for starting the Atelier see here.
This week only has one item, an event on the race to global climate regulation. It was an extraordinarily rich experience. So, there is lots of material below, organised under these headings:
The setting matters. A lot.
Creating the global climate governance we need.
Global stocktake: lots of very bad news coming.
Why Nations / Global Orders Fail.
Is "1.5 to stay alive!" still useful?
Dealing with climate grief.
Climate: a predicament, not a problem; an era, not just an emergency.
I wish there could be the same, few, simple, agreed actions for everyone.
'Too many initiatives!' is probably a good sign.
The need for initiative interoperability.
How can we meet all policy makers where they are with narratives that they recognise?
How can we ensure governments have the scale and quality of capacity to create and deliver policies?
'The Global League Table of National Paris-alignment'
Transition Plans are coming!
How bad are normal meetings?
Insights for an Atelier of What's Next.
Big thank you.
Apparently, this might be too long for email version. So, you might need to click through to the online version to read the whole thing.
Race to Global Climate Regulation
Steps: 0/DETECTING, 1/DESCRIBING, 3/DISCOVERING. Themes: Climate. Systems Transformation. Governance. Policy.
This week I've mostly been on a 4-day event titled 'Race to Regulation', aiming to "unleash concerted efforts to enact key policies for facilitating and accelerating private sector
climate action". There were about 40 of us, drawn from different parts of the climate action space: associated with the UN COP process, activist academics, activists, NGOs, lawyers, philanthropists, companies.
Part of the purpose was 'plotting' interventions which take on some very powerful interests. So, I've kept those completely confidential, and treated other interactions as under the Chatham House Rule (use the information from a discussion, but can't say who the speaker was, or what organisation they're from).
The setting matters. A lot.
The event was at Findhorn, an intentional community in Scotland -- meaning, a place where people have gather for long time with the intention of living differently together. For the last decade or so, it has hosted informal events where some key people in sustainability and climate have met, become friends, and plotted.
Those have been successful because being there takes people out of their norm, and into a place infused with love and care. The care is in how the organisers invite people and treat them in every step of taking part. It's in the set of the meeting, with a flexible agenda, no powerpoint presentations. It's in the architecture of the meeting space, the layout of the park and the (admittedly fraying-at-the-edges) accommodation. It's in the community rituals that we are invited to join. Meal times start with blessing the food. Every morning I was part of Taize singing. It is in the gorse bushes, long beaches, and big skies of the peninsula (even when the rain is falling).
People can be different with themselves, and they can be different with each other. They have different conversations from the ones they've always had, and have new ideas together.
All that might sound 'woo-woo' but anyone who has felt awed by an important building, or thrilled by a crowd in a football match, has had a moment where they are touched by a setting. Now imagine that being touched by a setting suffused with care for 4 days. People can do different things. The setting matters.
While we were there, the main legal entity, Findhorn Foundation, announced that it was stopping educational programmes. There specifics are too much for this WeekNote. Two things that are relevant:
That a place like Findhorn is struggling financially says as much about what the world at large values as it does about how the Foundation is organised.
There is a parallel with the climate challenge at large. We need to let the old gracefully decline, while building the new with verve and relish. The longer the old holds on, the hard it will be.
Creating the global climate governance we need.
My way of understanding the event was about creating the global climate governance we need (where governance is 'the process of making and enforcing decisions').
That is needed because the current governance is failing. At a global level, the annual climate COPs ('Conference of the Parties', the annual meeting for the countries which have signed the climate change framework convention) are struggling. They require consensus, which means any nation can veto anything. There are vast power and competence imbalances, so fossil fuel-rich countries (and fossil fuel-dependent countries) can use their current wealth to slow progress. The rotating presidency allows the whole process to be captured by vested interests.
The good news: we have the Paris Agreement, where countries agreed to hold warming to well below 2 °C, and to pursue efforts to limit to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels through a process of 'pledge and review'. This means (1) there is an established direction which (2) respects each country's sovereignty and (3) formalises each country comes up with its own way forward.
Each country comes up with its own Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). Every five years there is a Global Stocktake, which is "a process for countries and stakeholders to see where they’re collectively making progress towards meeting the goals of the Paris Climate Change Agreement – and where they’re not". The intention was to create a ratchet: get some NDCs in 2015, countries learn that they are more positive (and less costly) than feared, realise that we can and must go faster, and then set more ambitious NDCs.
For me, that means that the main action moves to national politics. The COPs remain moments of focus and attention (despite their dysfunction). But the vast majorities of policy decisions that matter will be in national governments (and regional clusters like the EU). Mostly under pressure from their own political dynamics (voters, campaigners, lobbyists and industries) and also with pressure from global dynamics (what borderless finance will invest in; what multilateral banks will fund; responding to the soft power extension of regulations from the big 3 regions of US, EU and China; plus in the light of the increasing steps away from an assumed single global playing field towards a sorta Cold War between USA and China).
What process of making and enforcing decisions at all the different levels (sub-national, national, regional, global) and of different types (formal and informal) can accelerate our climate action towards a thriving future?
The answer to that: no one knows for sure. Which isn't really a surprise, seeing as we are in unprecedented territory. Leaning into Johan Schott's work on Deep Transitions, previous industrial revolutions have been: lead by a specific sector (or General Purpose Technology) in a specific place; taken multiple decades to play out; not tried to be deliberate on the path or outcome; and, reached a diffusion plateau before the next one comes along.
To avoid disastrous climate change we need social and industrial revolutions across every sectors, with near-global reach, on a deadline, which has a narrow success path, and no real 'landing zone' as we will require constant adaptation to an unstable climate for the coming centuries.
Unprecedented is too small a word.
But also, we do know that relying on the state actors is not enough. There is a need for non-state actors (UN speak for 'everything that isn't a country': businesses, finance firms, NGOs, local government) to act. We need to construct some of that governance. Hence the event.
Global stocktake: lots of very bad news coming.
The Global Stocktake is still being written. But the basic conclusions are clear:
We are well off track for holding warming to 1.5C or 2C.
There are pockets and example of good policies, useful technologies, successful businesses, thriving communities. But there are the exception that proves the rule.
Hence the why now for the event. How can non-state actors respond to the Global Stocktake, given it will be (mostly) very bad news and delivered into a formal global governance process which is struggling (to put it mildly)?
Why Nations Global Orders Fail.
The main shared perspective was that, for all the variety across the world, there is a pattern of incumbent elites resisting climate policy. They are using any and all strategies to get the last barrel of oil out of the ground, to earn the last dollar of rent, regardless of the consequences. Given the disinformation they have been subjected to, public opinion is surprisingly pro climate action.
This reminded me three things.
First, pre-conditions for deliberate economic change. Michael Jacobs gave the one and only 'Forum for the Future Annual Lecture' in, I think 2006. (I've never been able to find the text or similar online. But he made similar points in the IPPR Commission on Economic Justice, which he chaired.) Then a special advisor to Chancellor Gordon Brown, he had 4 pre-conditions that were needed for the huge change of the Welfare State in the late 1940s:
Crisis. The previous decades had seen a failure of liberalism, with the Great Depression and World War 2 (which also gave people an experience of governments doing good things through planning).
Intellectual case. Keynes had his General Theory and there was the specificity of the Beveridge Report.
Popular backing and mandate. Labour won a majority of 145 seats (with 48% of the vote, ah the joys of First Past The Post).
Elite defection. Enough business people saw that a larger government, while not their predilection, would be better than the alternatives.
For as long as executives identify as with the umbrella of 'business', they will likely keep quiet about what other businesses do to slow action. We need them to 'defect' to seeing themselves as part of the new renewable, circular, generative economy, which is being held back by the old fossil fuel-based, linear and extractive economy. Then those businesses will take on their rivals. But not before
Second, a great book called Why Nations Fail by Acemoglu and Robins. To simplify massively, their core argument is: if the political institutions allow the current elite to concentrate wealth at the expense of others (an extractive set up), then there is limited incentive or opportunity to invest in creative destruction. Incumbents can stop the rise of new industries, and stop the creation of new winners. The authors argue the Industrial Revolution happened in England because earlier Glorious Revolution had spread power around, and the new industrialists could climb up.
Over the last decades, I would argue we have had an extractive set up (let's call it neoliberalism) which has seen a huge increase in the concentration of wealth. And that can be used in political funding and more to stop the next economy from happening.
Third, reinforcing Cory Doctorow's insight that, not only is every billionaire is a policy failure, but every billionaire a factory for producing for policy failures.
Is "1.5 to stay alive!" still useful?
Since agreed in Paris, a centre-piece of climate policy has been the 1.5C ambition. Back in 2018, the IPCC released a Special Report on 1.5C warming, showing that 1.5C itself isn't 'safe' but it is a lot safer than 2C (which had been judged safe only about 10 years ago). If anything, the scientific conclusions since then have been more alarming.
I remember being astonished when 1.5C was in the agreement. The key slogan was "1.5 to stay alive!" from some of the most vulnerable nations on Earth. 1.5C has become a symbol of whether we are going to be serious. It means more than a particular temperature rise. It means giving hope to those working on climate that we can avoid catastrophe and maybe also disaster.
Over the last few years, one of the big questions is whether holding to 1.5C warming is itself still alive. Asking that was one of the starting questions of our week.
There was variety, with me a pessimistic outlier. I don't think holding to 1.5C, or even getting back to 1.5C by 2100, is possible, based on the modelling I have heard about. (Though, while writing this WeekNote, I see that the Met Office has an article saying overshoot is likely but getting back to 1.5C by 2100 is possible (which, ladies, gentlemen and every other gender, is not the same as likely).) A few were adamant that it is, arguing that if you think you will success or fail you are right (channelling Henry Ford).
More interesting were the folks in the middle, who said they were 'commuting' between where their head was (not possible) and where their heart was (wanting to keep it possible). So, they were making the mechanics of standards and policies and so on as if 1.5C was still available.
I was definitely an outlier in think that was actively dangerous to keep 1.5C as the main target. At the time I couldn't articulate all the reasons:
How will folks be successful in convincing others to act for 1.5 when they themselves have sever doubts?
What will happen as elites and masses slowly realise that 1.5C has gone (and that climate campaigners have known for a while)? I fear the limited, brittle commitment to collective mitigation will descend into 'them or us' protectionism.
Will the mechanics of policies and standards and so on that have been constructed become obsolete, and/or discredited?
Will more successful approaches, that would have reduced warming and better prepared us, be missed because of holding on to the target? Could aiming for 1.5C mean we end up worse than if we had authentic aims?
As might be clear, my view is that the sooner we are honest with ourselves and the world, the better. Talking about it can be a call to action, as long as we also give action to take. We are more likely to choose activities with real long-term payoffs, rather than keep pushing for short-term results that aren't possible. And, if we are going to miss it, then the longer before we admit that, the more time we have lost climbing the wrong hill.
Even so, I wouldn't like to be the climate policymaker who goes to the most vulnerable nations in the world and say that 1.5 is not alive. Plus, of course, saying that out loud is having to admit that we have failed to protect humankind from catastrophe. Where else would people commute to, so they can stay motivated and effective?
I don't have easy answers. I could easily be wrong. And I do have lots of empathy and worry. Perhaps, not 'all or nothing'. Can we talk about it as 'increasingly unlikely'?
Dealing with climate grief.
Given all that, no surprise at all that there was climate grief in our meeting, drawn out particularly in one evening session with one of the Findhorn old-timers.
For me, a huge part of the grief is for a future which is no longer available. We were promised a future which is a better version of today. That is gone. It is the end of the world as we know it, which is not the same as the end of the world (to riff off Dougald Hine).
Maybe brings the experience of the Global North in line with people in the Global South, whose worlds have been ending through the crush of colonialism for centuries. As leading decolonial scholar Vanessa Andreotti puts it, "for many Indigenous people, the collapse of our current system is not necessarily bad news".
I don't know what future will come along, but I certainly fear that it will be a lot worse than the promised future for me, my children, everyone I know, and everyone else.
I realised also that I believe it is crucial that people work through their grief. I believe the forced optimism on this side of despair is brittle, and will wilt under the pressure of our times. The other side of despair is a commitment to action which is more grounded in physical and emotional realities, more resilient to events. At least, that's my belief.
But other people are different, and in different places.
In my case, it was in 2018 that I realised I was so taken by the climate crisis (and likely future collapse) that I had stopped building new things for the long-term. That was a big reason in taking up tennis and the piano. New activities which would take a long time to get good at, and for which success comes from accumulation of abilities through practice
There is a way that people in the climate space are going through this process first. We are canaries in the coalmine. The rest of society will be along, though differently (and probably in a shorter period, rather than the protracted decades of some of us). We need to start preparing for that.
Climate: a predicament, not a problem; an era, not just an emergency.
For those who are in the global, formal governance world, then there is a drumbeat: G7, G20, UN prep meetings, UN General Assembly Week, NY Climate Week, Climate COP. Actually, more of a forced march, where you are under pressure to deliver a New, Impactful Thing Each Year.
Combine that with keeping 1.5C alive, and the desire to do good work. It is not surprising that initiatives which can be announced, and which promise short-term results, are prioritised over broader, longer-term and less sexy initiatives.
Again, I was in a different place from most folk there. Many were acting as if climate was a problem that could be solved (if only we had political will, a war-footing, enough of the right policies). But I like Chris Martenson's distinction: "problems have solutions; predicaments have outcomes. A solution to a problem fixes it, returning all to its original condition. Once a suitable solution can be found and made to work, a problem can be solved. A predicament, by contrast, has no solution."
Climate is much more like a predicament to deal with, rather than a problem to solve.
Also, the dominant framing is that we are in a Climate Emergency, because (1) that is true and (2) emergency requires urgent action. But we can only keep up an emergency response for so long. We burn out. And, a permanent state of emergency is associated with authoritarian states (eg apartheid South Africa).
I much prefer Alex Steffen's re-framing. We are now living in the Climate Era. There is no going back to the Holocene, and its farmer-friendly repetitive, steady weather patterns. We are launched into centuries of a disturbed climate, that we need to stop disturbing (urgently and deeply cutting emisisons and land use change which is making stuff worse) and start adapting.
I wish there could be the same, few, simple, agreed actions for everyone.
Given all the above, there was a very understandable desire to have a focus, and have everyone (in the room, in the policy space, in the world) commit to a small number of easy-to-do actions for the upcoming COP that would solve the problem of accelerating climate policy uptake. That, after all, feels like the only way to hold to 1.5C of warming.
For some there was a need for an architect, that would make sure everything was aligned. Or perhaps a small-ish cohort of connectors, who would cross-pollinate between the different initiatives (which typically focus on either a sector, or a geography, or an issue).
Or perhaps a campaign that focussed on the uptake of a small number of the right policies by: (1) identifying those; (2) celebrating the countries that did them; and, (3) inviting national civil society to put pressure on their governments. Which is fine, except...which small number of policies is right for enough of the countries you want to target, given they have different sectors, different needs, different political economies (/distributions and dynamics of power), and more besides?
As a group we flirted with two dynamics that play out in the big picture:
A globally-orientated technocracy knowing what is best for everyone else.
A requirement for consensus which meant any objection stopped all progress.
Once again I'm reminded of Branko Milanovic's critique of Donut Economics here:
"In many instances, Kate writes in the first-person plural, as if the entire world had the same “objective”: so “we” have to make sure the economy does not exceed the natural bounds of the Earth’s “carrying capacity”, “we” have to keep inequality within the acceptable limits, “we” have an interest in a stable climate, “we” need the commons sector. But in most of the real world economics and politics, there is no “we” that includes 7.3 billion people. Different class and national interests are fighting each other."
But there's also a deeper meaning of just transition, at least for me. Not just supporting fossil fuel workers and communities as that industry goes into managed decline. But also giving everyone in a changing society and economy a voice in the world that is being created (a la 'Voice, Exit, Loyalty').
Procedural justice as an important component of social justice. As is epistemic justice, as in people being to interpret their own lives in their own way, to make meaning for themselves rather than having meaning imposed upon them.
As I reflected after my other UN-inflected global technocracy living systems retreat, who is the 'we' that we contain multitudes? Or perhaps: how can we generate 'a world in which many worlds fit'? (More here.) Escobar's Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds is bumped up my reading list.
If we are to have whole-of-society transformations where a huge portion of society is actively and positively participating, then people will need to have had a voice, and be able to live their version of the good life.
Back to the event. We flirted with consensus-only global technocracy, AND swerved away. Through the second half of the event folks suggested a range of initiatives, yes starting at a global level, but with more variety than just "you should do this!". (And these specifics are the plots that I will be keeping confidential.)
And as a group there certainly was one thing we could commit to: helping each other's initiatives to succeed, and staying as a scenius to do so.
'Too many initiatives!' is probably a good sign.
Ye gads! More initiatives! Aren't there too many already? Aren't we drowning in TLAs? In people creating a 'new thing' as much to be in charge of it as to have change?
Certainly this came up in our conversations. I shifted my view. We're doing something unprecedented, in every corner of societies and industries. There will need to be many initiatives. The numbers will be too much for anyone person to stay on top of them. That's probably a sign of success.
We need requisite variety (as much variety as the external world, so there are options available when the context changes). We need opportunities to make the transformation theirs. We need activities which match their context.
The need for initiative interoperability.
But, ye gads!, it is confusing. A new insight to me was how to deal with the inevitable numbers and scale: interoperability. (Here I was inspired by Cory Doctorow proposing this as a way of reducing the power of internet giants.)
It is not possible for everyone to know everything. It is not possible for anyone to coordinate everything. It is not possible for everyone to meet everyone else. So, how can you create coherence without having lots of costly and delaying coordination?
My instinct: design for interoperability, so that:
Those who you needed to get involved could hear about it and be able to join in.
Those you wished to influence could use your outputs.
Those who you needed to make space knew to get out of the way.
And so on.
A different way in to this would be to use the STEPS Centre's precepts of:
Opening up -- having more and different voices as inputs, and ways of doing any analysis (not just Cost-Benefit Analysis).
Broadening out -- ensuring any outputs don't give a false certainty, but give the different possible ways forward, with the assumptions and contingencies for each.
I wonder if there are a set of design principles people could be using to increase their interoperability, which then could be rolled out to the main funders of climate action and made a requirement of funding.
How can we meet all policy makers where they are with narratives that they recognise?
About half way through the week, as we were flirting with being the global technocrats who solve everything for everyone, I had this huge sense of the well-meaning push at policy makers. I was trying to articulate this, fumbling words on a walk to the beach, when my walking-partner posed the point succinctly:
How can we reach all policy-makers where they are with narratives they recognise?
This takes a bit of unpacking:
Different types of policymakers. One list developed was:
Arms-length regulators.
Industry associations.
Politicians.
Civil servants, who advise ministers and do the detail (or cut-and-paste the detail from others, like think tanks).
The width of 'all'. Until now, climate policy has been aimed at the 'climate-centric' parts of government. But that won't work as we move into the Climate Era, with whole-of-society and whole-of-economy change. 'All' now is all policy and regulation including (the below is not an exclusive or exhaustive list):
Fiscal policy (use of government revenue collection (taxes or tax cuts) and expenditure to influence a country's economy).
Welfare policy (government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter).
Innovation and industrial policy.
Infrastructure policy.
Defence and security policy.
Where they are itself has several dimensions:
Their attitude and understanding. We heard of policymakers essentially acting from short-term fear.
Where they go for advice. Maybe the regional multilateral bank, the OECD, or a Big Consultancy. Maybe because they have to under terms of a loan, or because they have no in-house capacity, or because they just need insight.
Their capacity to formulate and deliver. Just because a government adopts a policy doesn't mean it can enact it. That requires enough people, with enough competence and enough incentives, plus enough political cover.
Narratives they recognise. The most important things to us at the event was climate. But that isn't (yet) the most important things to most policymakers. Certainly in Europe, the narratives which cut across government are: competitiveness (/productivity), security and stability. We need to help people to pursue policies which deliver on their existing priorities while also delivering on climate (climate-infused, not necessarily climate-led).
I strongly suspect the long-term game here is to shift all the ways in which policymakers are influenced and supported, across all policy areas. At the least that will need:
The multilateral bodies which provide advice and knowledge exchange (OECD, multilateral development banks, etc).
The Schools of Government which train civil servants, especially the 'rising stars'.
Consolidating the evidence base that climate-infused (not necessarily climate-led) policies also help with the narratives they recognise.
Bringing voices they trust or respect from outside the environmental movement to make the case for climate action.
National policy houses (probably existing think tanks) sharing their climate-infused policies through a global learning network.
When a specific important policy is being developed, mapping where key individuals across all four types are with their: attitude; agency; permissions; and, incentives. This would help identify who can be nudged, and in what way, to get vital policies through.
More ideas welcome!
How can we ensure governments have the scale and quality of capacity to create and deliver policies?
Let's say we meet policymakers where they are. They can get the advise and support they need. All they need do now is form the policy and then deliver it.
Which takes people, with skills, incentives to do difficult stuff, and political cover. And lots of countries don't have lots of spare state capacity just sitting around with nothing to do. Everyone is already full with stuff which is probably quite important. And I don't just mean countries in the Global South; the UK has degraded its state capacity over the last decades, especially with austerity. (See "It's time for the UK to think like an emerging market" by Adam Posen in the FT (£).)
Lots of countries outsource difficult stuff to consultants. This can be bad news. Those consultants may be more incentivised by their private sector clients than the government (and so write a very oil-centric transition plan, for instance, all backed up with modelled 'evidence', of course). Or they may want to just cut-and-paste from a similar one. Certainly, the process builds no capacity in-house, so the government remains reliant on outsiders.
So, as well as the content of the policies, it is vital countries have the capacities to formulate and deliver.
'The Global League Table of National Paris-alignment'
OK, the name needs work. But one idea I had was to develop a league table of how well aligned a nation's policies are with delivering on the Paris Agreement. I guess this could be something like a lite-version of what the UK Climate Change Commission Progress Report. Which already tells you how much work a final product would be.
I think you could start with a 'wireframe' of all the policy areas, and rough judgements on each, for the most important countries. And then improve through annual iterations. As, in you don't need to boil the ocean. (I'd suggest a couple of doctorates and post-docs in a university-multilateral body partnership. But what do I know.)
What would need to do from the start is have the width, both in the sense of the headline policy areas (fiscal, industrial, welfare, infrastructure,...) and also including a judgements on the capacity to formulate and deliver.
If you could have a regular output that was credible because of the quality of learning embedded in the content, then over time you could:
Create pressure for a....regulatory race to the top. Or, at least, a race to not be in the bottom.
Have a global, connective tissue learning exchange which reached all policymakers where they are.
Realistically, I have no means of taking this forward. But I hope someone does, and at least let me knows how it goes!
Transition Plans are coming!
An existing initiative which rightly got a lot of air time was the Transition Plans Taskforce. It was "launched by HM Treasury in April 2022 to develop the gold standard for private sector climate transition plans".
Most sustainability-related corporate disclosure look backwards. That can be good for accountability ('how much damage (or positive outcomes) did you cause?'). But more important for transformation are the future trajectories of companies. Where are they putting their CapEx? Where do they think their future revenues will be coming from?
When investors, policy-makers and campaigners have future-facing information, they can make much better judgements about the company. Hence, Corporate Transition Plans have a chance of making a difference than other disclosures.
(It is ancient history now, but back in 2005 I was on a stakeholder panel that wrote the disclosure requirements for the GRI (then the main voluntary sustainability report standard). I argued for (and won) have a future-facing disclosure of the targets a company was aiming for and why. All because I am convinced that gives you better insight into a company.)
Looking at the timeline, I'd expect big progress (and lots of complaining from companies) in the coming years.
How bad are normal meetings?
People said how great the event was. And it was. But the individual sessions were often a bit fraught.
People would lead off with a key thought. People would have points. They'd raise their hands. Out of sense of fairness, the person leading the session would take all hands before moving on.
But person A's point would give something else for person B to say. Another hand up. Everyone could feel the time pressure. So you made all your points you had, because you didn't know if you'd get another chance.
Which lead to more hands. Thus the cycle would repeat.
Also, to the lead-off person getting into a pattern of defending their opening remarks, rather than a building together. Plus the loudest, most articulate going several times, while more contemplative voices were crowded out. Lots of good content, but not necessarily good progress.
The facilitator in me (and this is my 9th Findhorn trip) was, at times, somewhat frustrated. Even a short 30 minute session can be so much more generative with a structure, so that everyone can say useful stuff in a way which builds on others. I tried at various points to suggest alternative formats, but "let's just take these final hands" (leading to more responding hands) meant the suggestions had no effect.
Which is on me to be more effective in my influencing. But also to feedback to the organisers (and my upcoming projects like the 5-day residential Net Zero Heat Innovation Lab):
Don't assume people can run a session.
Require them to clarify purpose, preferred output, and structure.
Give them structures so they don't get stuck with "just one more hand".
Suggest separating the content-lead and the process-lead.
My main thought is: ye gads, how bad most normal meetings be for these people?
Insights for an Atelier of What's Next.
Some insights for an Atelier of What's Next. Concept: "a studio for developing initiatives, institutions and more for a sustainable world ('What's needed? What's ready? What can we do? What next?')".
I went in with two big tests: (1) is an Atelier needed; and (2) do I have relevant skills for an Atelier of What's Next?
Validation of need. Yes, there is a need for new initiatives and institutions. Some of those are 'meta', in the sense that they are trying to embed climate into existing institutions, or they are trying to provide connective tissue between existing activities.
I was struck by how many existing institutions are already incubating new ideas. But of course they are. So, while there is a need for that incubation, there may not be a need for a stand-alone workshop. Certainly not for a stand-apart workshop. Maybe a need for a competence that people can call on for help.
Validation of skills. People told me they found my contributions helpful. For the most part, my big inputs were of two types:
Process suggestions for that session. Some died. Others were used. Sounds like all were appreciated.
Process suggestions for an idea someone was developing. How to develop it so it could be done in time, or have a wider range of voices, or that it could be part of a gglobal governance architecture.
That feels like a sorta pass of the test.
Also, it is clear I am in the second half of my career. For the first time in my Findhorn trips, I was clearly in the older half of the group. There were people there who were still in primary school when I started in sustainability (and doing a better job than I could in their place). Still absorbing what this one really means.
WHAT NEXT. Well, lots of follow up with specific people on specific things. Lots of insights for the NZHIL. Lots of long-term food for thought.
Big thank you.
Finally, I do need to give thanks.
Convenors Paul and Fi. Amazing to try, amazing to get so many people to give over 4-5 days (with travel). Testament to their reach and the respect with which they are held.
On-the-ground organisers Yvonne and Megan. The whole thing would have fallen over many times without their love and care.
The other attendees. Huge commitment to make the world better. Huge openness to each other, including my critiques.
Findhorn Community. In a tough time, they welcomed us into their community rituals.
You, dear reader, for getting to the end of this massive WeekNotes!
On the train, I realised I had REM's These Days in my head:
All the people gather, fly to carry each his burden
We are young, despite the years
We are concern,
We are hope, despite the times
All of a sudden, these days
Happy throngs, take this joy
Wherever, wherever you go!