Communicating Climate Facts: Easy, Right?

People care about the environment and climate change. In 2019, surveys revealed that climate change was an important issue to the British public, second only to Brexit, with some 60% of people feeling that the issue requires urgent or very urgent action to be taken.

However, these concerns are not necessarily being reflected in the actions and beliefs of the British public; around half believe that the government will not reach its net-zero target by 2050, indicating a lack of trust in the government, as well as raising questions about the efficacy of current climate change communications. 

The public will need to make changes in their daily lives to help meet national climate targets. Influenced by government guidelines and individual decisions, these changes will be largely determined by the availability of climate information and how it is conveyed. 

Conveying a scientific message to a lay audience might seem, at first glance, a straightforward task. Science is, after all, built upon innumerable hours of debate and rigour, the repeating of experiments and testing of hypotheses. At the core of all of this is the concept of critical objectivity, take nobody’s word for something, let the evidence speak for itself. 

Why then, is there not universal acceptance that climate change is even real? In America, Liberal Democrats are far more concerned about anthropogenic, or man-made climate change than their opposing Conservatives. Clearly, the general public is not just accepting the evidence above all else, as might be expected by the scientific community. The difficulty likely lies in the gap that exists between the laboratory, where critical objectivity is at the centre of every conclusion, and the ‘outside world’, where this clarity and lack of bias can quickly disappear. 

Ideas of climate change cannot reasonably be presented in full to the general public, since the conclusions are generally too detailed and filled with scientific jargon. Therefore, the public must be asked to do what scientists are not; to take somebody’s word for it. Ideally, the conclusions should be presented with an authoritative and authentic voice that the public will accept without losing a certain degree of scientific rigour. 

Since this has not always been effective, a different approach is needed. The introduction of social science to climate change and its effects on society has so far been effective in conveying certain impacts of climate change to the public, particularly with topics such as climate anxiety.

It seems that effective climate communication must include disciplines such as psychology and sociology while accepting that a one-size-fits-all approach is rarely effective. Science can be interpreted differently by different people, those who are the most sceptical of climate change and scientific evidence need to be considered when developing alternative means of communication.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has recognised the importance of communicating in different ways to different groups of people, as well as highlighting solutions to climate issues and not just stating the problems. For example, the UK organisation Climate Outreach has created separate publications for different audiences, such as the five major faith groups and the political centre-right.

These publications have been made relevant by emphasising how the impacts of climate change might influence people's daily lives, whilst ensuring not to overwhelm the reader with the seriousness of the challenges that climate change could bring. 

Presenting the public with solutions to climate challenges as well as the potential impacts will be key to invoking a wider positive public response moving forward. Narratives, free from scientific jargon and delivered by trusted individuals, can be an effective way of engaging audiences and presenting stories on issues that listeners might otherwise have difficulty connecting with.

Making climate change a personal issue allows audiences to connect with the topic and make sense of some of the more complex problems that climate change brings. What people connect with will vary depending on the target audience, which is why a universal message and approach will be largely ineffective. 

Narratives are known to be effective tools of communication in other parts of everyday life. Teachers and politicians use them to convey their messages in impactful and memorable ways. Scientists can use narratives to synthesise their knowledge when sharing it with policymakers, who in turn will be better prepared to make engaging and actionable frameworks that can be shared with the general public and modified to fit different groups as needed. Such tailored approaches mean that the message can be as salient and relevant as possible. 

After determining who a climate communication is for, the final step in making it as effective as possible should be to address any possible barriers that may be preventing people from taking positive climate action. Once these have been determined, scientists and policymakers will be able to create positive visions of what living more sustainably in a low-carbon society could be like, emphasising the benefits and how, if done properly, transitions to net-zero ways of living can be done with minimal disruption to daily life.