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
Tagclimate change communication
Dr Sam Illingworth on the Orinoco Communications Podcast
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
My Climate Poem
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
The challenge of communicating unwelcome messages
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
The role of framing and message-tailoring in communicating climate change
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
How (Not) to Talk About Climate Change
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
Communicating the 1.5°C target
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
The Climate Communication Project survey
A survey of the climate communication community forms part of The Climate Communication Project and will allow us to understand how a range of specialists carry out their work, to share and promote best practice in the UK, and to point to areas where more investment and attention is needed. We are interested to hear
Workshop 1: Auditing activity & synthesising research
How do you get people to engage with climate change? Having a conversation about it is a hard sell at the best of times. As importantly (and this is where it gets tricky right off the bat), how do you get people to act? These are the million-dollar questions for those of us working in
Workshop 1: Evaluating the project
In early January, all the Climate Communication Project partners were brought together to provide constructive input for the project ahead. This was our first project meeting, and was designed to ask our partners a) how can we best audit public engagement with climate change in the UK and b) how can we appraise and share