Over the last year or so, a group of us – including academics from NCAS and Leeds, Manchester Met and Cardiff Universities, as well as the climate charities 10:10 and Climate Outreach – have been taking stock of what we know about public engagement with climate change, and how to communicate about it in the
Over the last three decades, reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have made it increasingly clear that wide-scale societal and political changes are required to ensure a sustainable, resilient future. Such transformational changes are reliant on a strong platform of public support, and highlight the growing role that climate change communication has to
The Climate Communication Project has successfully run its course, and our guidance for how to be more engaging when communicating about climate has been published, but we would like our journey and experiences to create a lasting impact on the climate communications field. To share the lessons we’ve learned along the way, the challenges we
Shortly after his return from the Conference of Parties (COP24) climate talks in Poland, Dr Sam Illingworth appeared on the Orinoco Communications podcast to talk about climate communication. “How can you talk about climate change without getting angry? Or without getting upset? It’s just not possible” Sam posited to Peter Barker from Orinoco Communications, pointing out that
The Climate Communication Project team member, Dr Sam Illingworth, has created a new poem using responses from the MyClimate Twitter campaign that was run by the Priestley International Centre for Climate and Leeds Climate Commission during Green Great Britain Week in Leeds 15-19 October 2018. During this campaign, members of the public tweeted using the
Mitigate more. Adapt now. Be afraid. Feel guilty. Pay up. Change everything. Few people want to hear these messages, yet they have been at the heart of the most successful communication campaign ever. Over the span of a couple of decades, the world has become aware of the risk of climate change. A multitude of
By considering the needs and aspirations of individuals and community groups we can support conversations around the topic of climate change, and in doing so we can inspire positive action against the negative effects of climate change caused by human activities. As part of The Climate Communication Project, Sam Illingworth led a series of climate
Communicating climate change is a tricky business. Giving people facts about, for example, increasing global temperature or rising sea level doesn’t always result in positive changes in behaviour. A different – and perhaps more effective – strategy is to use framing-based approaches and tailor climate messages for different audiences. Framing involves emphasising certain elements of
Global warming is already upon us, but when was the last time you had a proper chat about it? A short light-hearted film called How (Not) to Talk About Climate Change gives some simple tips on how to broach the subject of climate change with friends and family, and co-stars communications specialist, and Climate Communication
International climate negotiations are conducted in the language of headline numbers, such as global average temperatures and calculations of how many more gigatonnes of greenhouse gases remain in our planetary budget. These calculations are essential to setting targets and monitoring progress of different countries in meeting their obligations to international agreements. However, this technical and
Climate change is an issue with a huge emotional range. It can elicit passionate opinions and emotions in some, and complete indifference in others. However, while emotions are forceful drivers of behaviour, there are chronic issues in their study and use in climate change communication, in both research and practice. While certain emotions tend to
Values Public engagement with energy and climate change can’t be easily reduced to a simple rule of thumb, but some aspects of human psychology are more fundamental – and explain more variation in attitudes and behaviours – than others. People’s attitudes on different topics may morph and shift over time; they may switch allegiances between
