Together4Transparency – Using Storytelling to Reclaim Accountability in Climate Policy

During the opening ceremony of the UNFCCC’s

flagship Together4Transparency event, Rihäm Refaat M. Helmy, Global Affairs Coordinator of COY17 and founder of EnviroX, delivered a distinctive intervention

alongside global climate leaders including:

• Al Gore, Former U.S. Vice President
• Marianne Karlsen, Chair of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI)
• Donald Cooper, Director of the UNFCCC Transparency Division

While the session focused on celebrating the evolution from MRV systems to the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF), Rihäm introduced a crucial and often overlooked lens — storytelling as a climate transparency tool.

Her Intervention: Storytelling as Accountability

Rihäm departed from technical jargon to tell the story of a young girl from a coastal community — a story about what is lost when data is detached from life, and what is gained when transparency includes human narratives.

She urged the international community to:

• Embed emotional intelligence into the architecture of the ETF
• Recognize storytelling as a valid, community-rooted method of monitoring and reporting
• Make climate data visible, memorable, and accessible to the people it is meant to serve
• Acknowledge the power of narrative truth in creating long-lasting public engagement and accountability
• By bringing a storytelling lens to transparency, EnviroX and COY17 reimagined climate monitoring as something deeply human, inclusive, and intergenerational.
• This moment at Together4Transparency positioned Rihäm and by extension youth voices globally as not only advocates, but as architects of a more accountable, just climate system.

Read more about the session at UNFCCC