18-06-2025
Grief and grit in the climate fight
I didn't come to TED Countdown, a global gathering focused on accelerating climate solutions, in search of answers. I came carrying questions. Heavy ones. About exhaustion. About how long one can stay in the climate movement without losing the very thing that drew them in: belief.
It has been four years since I gave my TED talk, filmed in the stillness of Oman's lockdown, standing in the mangroves of Yankit, who have always been more than trees to me. They are teachers. They hold storms, heal waters and never ask for applause. In that moment, even through a screen, I wanted to share that symbol of climate resilience. I did not know then how much I would need that same resilience now.
I saw that tension again in Al Gore's talk. His words did not sound rehearsed. They sounded bruised. He spoke against the rise of climate realism, a quiet surrender dressed up as pragmatism. That realism does not make us honest. It makes us tired. It tells us to shrink our vision to match political convenience. But I have never believed realism and ambition are opposites. You can face the facts and still believe in miracles. You can be heartbroken and still show up.
There was also a session that asked whether the 1.5 degree target is already dead. Some said yes. Others refused to surrender. But what struck me most was not the debate. It was what it revealed. We are still struggling to mourn while we act. Still learning to speak both loss and urgency in the same breath.
In the session I co-led, titled Spiritual Resilience for Climate Action, we asked a different question: what roots us? We read sacred verses, sat in silence and shared the quotes and memories that carry us through. We often reach for graphs and policy briefs. But sometimes, the most powerful thing is a remembered verse or a deep breath before a storm. That space grounded me more than any debate or headline. It was a return to why we do this in the first place. Not for data points, but for the land and lives we love.
And then there was the fire. Not in speeches, but in what is already being done. Over a million people have signed on to support the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, led by Pacific Island nations who have no luxury of delay. Outside the United Nations process, they are building the future anyway. That is not protest. It is leadership. The Global South is not waiting to be rescued. It is offering rescue.
There is no shortcut through climate grief. But naming it matters. Sitting with it matters. And still choosing to act, especially when the story seems too heavy to lift, is what transforms that grief into something enduring.
I am leaving Nairobi without easy optimism. But with something stronger: clarity. Climate fatigue is real. But so is climate faith. And faith, for me, is not just belief in a better outcome. It is belief that showing up again and again matters. That grief can coexist with grit. That stillness can sharpen resolve.
