The UN Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat on Friday, January 26, 2018 launched a new portal to support the Talanoa Diaologue, an international conversation in which countries will check progress and seek to increase global ambition to meet the goals of the Paris Climate Change Agreement.

The UNFCCC has, through the portal, invited all countries and other stakeholders, including business, investors, cities, regions and civil society, to make submissions into the Talanoa Dialogue around three central questions: Where are we? Where do we want to go? How do we get there?

Countries and non-Party stakeholders will be contributing ideas, recommendations and information that can assist the world in taking climate action to the next level in order to meet the objectives of the Paris Agreement and support the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The Dialogue was launched at the UN Climate Change Conference COP23 in Bonn in November 2017 and will run throughout 2018. The Paris Agreement’s central goal is keep the global average temperature rise to below 2C degrees and as close as possible to 1.5C.

Current global ambition to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to prepare societies to resist increasing climate change is not enough to achieve this under the current national climate action plans known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

“The portal is the gateway for the Talanoa Dialogue. It represents the central point for everyone to make their views heard around enhanced ambition. Additionally, it will make available other key resources for the dialogue,” said Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of UN Climate Change.

“I very much welcome the portal because it provides transparency and broadens participation in the dialogue. I look forward to many governments and other actors making their submissions via the portal as part of world-wide efforts required for the next level of climate action and ambition,” she said.

The Pacific island concept of “Talanoa” was introduced by Fiji, which held the Presidency of the COP23 UN Climate Change Conference. It aims at an inclusive, participatory and transparent dialogue.

The purpose of the concept is to share stories, build empathy and to make wise decisions for the collective good. The Talanoa method purposely avoids blame and criticism to create a safe space for the exchange of ideas and collective decision-making.

The Talanoa Dialogue, says the UNFCCC, will be constructive, facilitative and oriented towards providing solutions and will see both technical and political exchanges.

In an effort to spur further climate action at this year’s Global Climate Action Summit (Summit) in September and at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP24) in November, Summit co-chair and Mahindra Group Chairman, Anand Mahindra, on Thursday, January 25, 2018 challenged businesses around the world to join the growing number of companies committed to setting greenhouse gas reduction targets in line with climate science.

“I commit that the Mahindra Group will implement the Paris Agreement in its entirety. A powerful way of ensuring corporate climate action, aligned with the ambition of the Paris Agreement, is by setting science-based targets.

“I applaud all 330+ companies that have already committed to set science-based targets through the Science Based Targets initiative. Two of the three Mahindra companies with the highest emissions in the Group, Tech Mahindra and Mahindra Sanyo Special Steel, have already done so.

“Today, I am inviting all companies, particularly those that emit the most, to commit to set science-based targets. Over the course of 2018, I will be working to expand the adoption of science-based targets not only across the Mahindra Group, but amongst my business colleagues so that by the Global Climate Action Summit in September, 500 companies step up and commit to set science-based targets,” said Mahindra.

More than 330 of the world’s biggest companies have already committed to align their strategies with the ambition of the Paris Agreement through the Science Based Targets initiative. Almost 900 more companies have declared their ambition to set science-based targets within the next two years in their disclosures to the CDP, signaling the emergence of a ‘new normal’ in the way businesses are developing their strategies for the future. Mahindra Sanyo Special Steel Pvt. Ltd. set a science-based Greenhouse Gas emission reduction target of 35% under SCOPE 1, 2 and 3 per ton of steel produced by the year 2030, against 2016 baseline year.

A key purpose of the 2018 Global Climate Action Summit which will be held from September 12-14 in San Francisco, is to showcase climate action around the world, along with bold new commitments, to give worldwide leaders the confidence they need to go even further when they meet at the United Nations COP24 in November.

Summit participants, including sub national governments, investors, businesses and others from around the world, will report on their climate action and commit to ambitious new actions that can help prevent the climate from warming more than 2 degrees Celsius – the point at which scientists warn of potentially catastrophic global consequences.

Setting science-based targets is a great way for businesses to future-proof growth and boost their competitive advantage in the transition to a low-carbon economy. It also sends a powerful signal to global governments that business is aligning strategy with the Paris Agreement, opening the way for us all to move further, faster on the ambition of the Agreement. We welcome the challenge to business to step up in advance of the Global Climate Action Summit by committing to the Science Based Targets initiative, and we hope that many businesses will quickly follow Mahindra’s lead,” said Paul Simpson, CEO of CDP, one of the partners of the Science Based Targets initiative.

Thursday’s announcement is the first of what will be multiple “Summit Challenges” that will concretely help deliver greenhouse gas reductions to help ensure worldwide emissions start trending downward no later than 2020 – a goal that must be met to prevent dangerous temperature rise. It will also help the Summit deliver on its goal to help continue a worldwide energy transition that generates quality employment and inclusive economic growth.

Over 200 leading scientists – including former NASA head James Hansen, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning psychiatrist Eric Chivian and the former director of the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum James Powell – on Thursday, January 25, 2018 released a letter urging New York’s American Museum of Natural History to cut ties to donor and board member, Rebekah Mercer.

“The most important asset any museum has is its credibility. This can be damaged by ties to donors and board members who are publicly known for investing in climate science obfuscation and opposing environmental solutions,” the letter reads.

The scientists refer to billionaire Mercer as an “anti-science propagandist and funder of climate science misinformation.” While Mercer’s unmatched support for Breitbart.com and the Trump campaign are well known, her funding of climate science denial campaigns is starting to garner more attention.

The Mercer Family Foundation, led by Rebekah Mercer, has ramped up its funding of groups who attack climate science and policy solutions over the past decade. The foundation gave tens of millions of dollars to a list of organisations that include ringleaders of climate denial such as the Heartland Institute, which received $5.9 million from the Mercers from 2008-2016, more than the $4 million donated by the Mercers to the American Museum of Natural History.

Previously unreleased tax filings procured by researchers at the Climate Investigations Centre show grants to Heartland Institute for $800,000, the CO2 Coalition for $150,000 and the Centre for the Study of Carbon Dioxide for $125,000. All of the organisations maintain that carbon dioxide pollution is beneficial for ecosystems, agriculture and humanity, a position in clear conflict with the international scientific consensus on climate change.

The Mercers have also been big supporters of climate denier Arthur Robinson, whose Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine dismisses climate change as “false religion”. The Mercers donated at least $1.6 million to the institute, and Rebekah Mercer nominated Robinson for a National Science Advisor position while she was a member of the Trump Transition Team.

“The science tells us climate change is more and more urgent every day, the Mercer-funded network says the opposite. Science deniers should not be in leadership positions at science museums,” said scientist Sandra Steingraber, a signatory on the letter.

The letter was organised by The Natural History Museum, a nonpartisan nonprofit traveling museum that collaborates with scientists, major public museums, educators, artists, and community groups. In 2015 the mobile museum coordinated a similar effort urging the American Museum of Natural History to cut ties to then-trustee David Koch. More than 550,000 people signed a petition, including dozens of top scientists. Mr. Koch resigned from the board a few months later amidst controversy, after serving for 23 years.

“At a time when science itself is under attack, trusted institutions of science are needed now more than ever. The museum’s ties to Mercer risk undermining the credibility of the institution and eroding the public’s trust. That’s a high price to pay,” said Beka Economopoulos, Director of The Natural History Museum.

Climate scientist, Michael Mann, said: “Rebekah Mercer is a top patron of Breitbart.com, a mouthpiece for the alt-right and a megaphone for alt-facts. The platform’s assault on truth and science undermines everything the American Museum of Natural History is about.”

Earlier this week, activists organized a demonstration outside the American Museum of Natural History to protest the museum’s ties to Mercer. And a new petition campaign has been launched calling for the museum to kick Mercer off its board, warning the institution that it could suffer a “loss of public trust” through its association with Mercer.

This month thousands of people shared a twitter comment by environmental economist Jonah Busch about misleading information on climate science on outdated panel in an Exxon-funded exhibit the American Museum of Natural History. To the museum’s credit, the institution’s response was swift: it committed to updating the panel to reflect the best available science. But the initial online public anger showed that trust in the museum is undermined by the museum’s association with known climate science opponents.

“This country is having a crisis of trust, museums are the last bastions of trust and we have to be very careful of preserving that,” said Jon Foley, executive director of the California Academy of Sciences, which doesn’t accept money from fossil fuels. “Science has never been more important to the country, yet it’s under more attack than we’ve seen in decades. It’s worrisome to see prominent – not just donors but trustees – of major museums on the one hand supporting science, but on the other undermining it by funding groups that are deliberately trying to sabotage science on things like climate change.”