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Prarthana Arandhara, July 16, 2025
This comic emerged from a group activity on Day 3 (ARA Regional Advocacy) of the TLS Asia Pacific Regional Knowledge Synthesis Workshop 2024-25 held in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The session organised by Integrated Design explored ongoing dialogues around the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) and the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on Climate Finance. As part of the activity “Localising Adaptation Strategies, Identifying Barriers to Implementation, and Localising Climate Finance,” participants worked together to identify practical, locally rooted adaptation strategies in response to challenges such as extreme heat.
While discussing the technicalities and complexities of climate impacts, adaptation strategies, and global goals, the conversation at one point shifted into an exchange of lived stories. A humorous anecdote shared during this discussion by Hazhar Othman of Aran for the Development of Civic Culture has been illustrated here to bring such an experience into focus, cutting through the formal language of policy and research and allowing space for everyday stories that reveal how climate change is understood and endured on the ground. These narratives help bridge technical frameworks with lived realities, connecting abstract goals to the human experience they aim to address. More than a personal account, it reflects different ways of seeing, making sense of, and coping with a changing climate.
Visual: Participants are seated at a round table, deep in discussion. A flipchart in the background displays technical phrases like: “Adaptation Pathways,” “Climate Resilience,” and “Funding Mechanisms.” Policy reports, laptops, and flowcharts clutter the table. The mood is serious and analytical.
Caption: A group discussion among climate experts, grounded in research frameworks, policies, and technical language.
Visual: The same round table. A woman facilitator stands, addressing the group with a warm but focused tone.
Facilitator Dialogue: “Let’s talk about how local communities are responding to extreme heat. How are people adapting in their daily lives where you work?”
Visual: The participant gestures as he begins to share. A flipchart beside him now reads: “Climate Realities.” Others listen, some surprised, others nodding.
Participant Dialogue (two text boxes):
“Kalar is a district town in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. It’s known for being the hottest place in the region—summers often hit 50 to 55°C.”
“Some years, it’s even been called the hottest city on Earth.”
Visual: The speaker smiles as he continues. Others around the table laugh softly or exchange glances. The atmosphere is lighter, more human.
Participant Dialogue (two text boxes):“People joke that hell is located under Kalar!”“Some say God will give us a discount in the afterlife because we’ve already lived in a semi-hell here on Earth.”
Caption: Humor becomes a way to endure and preserve meaning amid what can’t be avoided.
Visual: A wider shot of the room. The mood is quieter now.
Thought Bubble 1 (Organiser): We need to make space for stories—these are the moments that shift the room and remind us where real climate knowledge lives.
Thought Bubble 2 (Participants):
Caption: People make sense of extreme climate—not always in degrees or graphs, but in stories passed down, laughed at, and endured.
In collaboration with the Adaptation Research Alliance, Transitions Research hosted a TLS Knowledge Symposium in Rosario, Argentina in July 2024. The event brought together members of the ARA Latin America community to exchange knowledge and insights with an overall goal to strengthen on-ground adaptation efforts. Based on learnings from collective conversations, Transitions Research, as the lead of Tracking, Learning and Sharing (TLS) for Adaptation Research Alliance, compiled the insights from the ground on topics such as the funding landscape of LLA, resilience metrics, heat adaptation, and indigenous and local knowledge systems.