When Christiana Figueres was herding 196 countries into the historic Paris climate accord, she tapped a secret source of personal sustainability. After the pact was finished, she told a reporter in Davos, Switzerland that the teachings of Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh “literally fell into my lap” when she was going through a deep personal crisis. “This has been a six-year marathon with no rest in between,” she told The Huffington Post. “I just really needed something to buttress me, and I don’t think that I would have had the inner stamina, the depth of optimism, the depth of commitment, the depth of the inspiration if I had not been accompanied by the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh.”

In conversation with Greg Dalton and recorded for the Climate One podcast and radio show, Figueres will reflect on how mindfulness contributed to realizing the Paris climate accord.