Guide

Resources for communicating climate change

Resources for Communicating Climate Change Download PDF

There are dozens of resources avail­able online that provide either gen­eral advice about com­mu­nic­ating cli­mate change, spe­cific advice about influ­en­cing par­tic­ular sus­tain­able beha­viours, or focus on the chal­lenges of get­ting cli­mate sci­ence across clearly. Here is an alpha­beti­cised list of all the key resources, with a brief descrip­tion to allow the most useful and rel­evant inform­a­tion to be iden­ti­fied. If there is a resource that should be included in this list but isn’t, please use the ‘con­tact us’ page to let us know.

The American Psychological Association (APA) has pro­duced a lengthy report on the ‘inter­face between psy­cho­logy and global cli­mate change’. It is written for an audi­ence who are familiar with psy­cho­lo­gical research and the way it is reported. Published in 2009, it covers a wide range of ways in which the dis­cip­line of Psychology can con­tribute to responding to cli­mate change, including inform­a­tion on per­cep­tions of cli­mate change, psy­cho­lo­gical bar­riers to enga­ging with cli­mate change, and ways of influ­en­cing behaviour.

The Behavioural Insights Team in the UK Government Cabinet Office has pro­duced a report on beha­viour change and energy use. It applies insights from beha­vi­oural eco­nomics and applies them to the chal­lenges faced by the UK Government in devel­oping effective policies for decar­bon­isa­tion. It is primarily designed to show how the gov­ern­ment are incor­por­ating beha­vi­oural eco­nomics into their policies for decreasing house­hold energy use and increasing uptake of low-carbon technologies/household improve­ments. Although its scope is lim­ited to beha­vi­oural eco­nomics (only one part of the puzzle in terms of pro­moting sus­tain­able beha­viour), it con­tains some inter­esting prac­tical applic­a­tions of theory and research to national policy prob­lems. Closely related is the Institute of Government’s MINDSPACE report. With a focus on policy-making, it also sets out how beha­vi­oural eco­nomics can be applied to public policy.

CamelClimate is resource for edu­cators to enable them to effect­ively teach about cli­mate change and allowing them to create and share edu­ca­tional resources.

Campaign Strategy. Chris Rose runs the organ­iz­a­tion Campaign Strategy and has been pub­lishing free news­let­ters on cam­paigning and beha­viour change since 2005. Not all of them are about sus­tain­able beha­vior, but many are.

Carbon Brief, the cli­mate change media organ­isa­tion, has a very read­able guide to what is known and what is not known about cli­mate change sci­ence, and provides a reg­ular ‘fact checking’ ser­vice of cli­mate change media reports. Their web­site also con­tains excel­lent pro­files of key actors in the cli­mate change debate – from sci­ent­ists to scep­tics – as well as many other useful resources.

The Centre for Research on Environmental Decisions (CRED) at Columbia University pub­lished a guide to the psy­cho­logy of cli­mate change com­mu­nic­a­tion in 2009 that they describe as being written for sci­ent­ists, journ­al­ists, polit­ical aides and the inter­ested public. It is clear and well-written, and trans­lates com­plex topics into simple mes­sages. It talks about sev­eral dif­ferent aspects of cli­mate change com­mu­nic­a­tion – from sci­entific uncer­tainty, to the import­ance of enga­ging people in groups to have the most impact on behaviour.

Climate Access is a very useful col­lec­tion of resources for a broad range of cli­mate change com­mu­nic­a­tion activ­ities. It launched in 2011 in the US, and it takes a sim­ilar approach to Talking Climate in that it seeks to round-up and share good examples of cli­mate change com­mu­nic­a­tion resources. It offers a Resource Hub where existing reports can be accessed, a Campaign Gallery fea­turing examples of cam­paigns related to cli­mate change and sus­tain­ab­ility, a ‘mem­bers only’ sec­tion where prac­ti­tioners and researchers can dis­cuss the latest research in a secure forum, and ‘tip sheets’ on dif­ferent aspects of cli­mate change communication.

Climate Bites focuses on the more informal side of com­mu­nic­a­tion – meta­phors and sound­bites, humour and stories – to develop a ‘toolkit’ for com­mu­nic­ators to use. It con­tains lots of examples of ways of phrasing argu­ments about cli­mate change that appeal to more than just the usual suspects.

Climate Central is a cli­mate sci­ence com­mu­nic­a­tions resource written by sci­ent­ists and com­mu­nic­ators con­taining art­icles, videos, anim­a­tions and inter­active graphics.

The George Mason Centre for Climate Change Communication is the home of the public atti­tudes poling series ‘Six Americas’, which uses seg­ment­a­tion ana­lyses to pull out trends in US public opinion towards cli­mate change.

Climate Communication is a recently launched US ini­ti­ative to pub­li­cise cli­mate change sci­ence, assist journ­al­ists and sup­port sci­ent­ists. It has some nice inter­active tools on dif­ferent aspects of cli­mate change science.

Climate Crossroads is a guide – unusu­ally based on actual research, rather than a sum­mary of others’ research – that aims to apply what is known about effective ‘framing’ tech­niques to mes­sages about global warming. It con­tains some valu­able insights about the sort of lan­guage and ter­min­o­logy that is likely to make or break a cam­paign, although is ori­ented quite strongly towards a US audience.

The Climate Outreach and Information Network (COIN) has a series of ‘prac­ti­tioner guides’ on the psy­cho­logy of pro­moting sus­tain­able beha­viour by Dr Adam Corner from Cardiff University. Some of the resources have been incor­por­ated into this web­site, but others are only avail­able from the COIN site. They include aca­demic ref­er­ences, but are written with prac­tical out­comes in mind, and so are of interest to cam­paigners, organ­iz­a­tions inter­ested in tar­geting indi­vidual sus­tain­able beha­viours, and com­munity groups.

Climate Science Explained. Green Alliance has recently pro­duced a short ‘3 page’ briefing on cli­mate sci­ence, again aimed primarily at politi­cians. It is a con­cise and well-referenced over­view of the state of know­ledge about cli­mate sci­ence, easier to digest (but less detailed) than the Royal Society sum­mary of the latest cli­mate science.

Climate Science Rapid Response Team is a ser­vice for journ­al­ists and poli­cy­makers that provides access to expert scientists.

Climate Wisconsin is an innov­ative approach to com­mu­nic­ating cli­mate change. It is an edu­ca­tional mul­ti­media pro­ject fea­turing stories about cli­mate change, told through videos of ordinary people who are being affected by cli­mate change across the state of Wisconsin in the US.

Common Cause. On behalf of a coali­tion of NGOs, Tom Crompton pub­lished a report last year called ‘Common Cause: the case for working with our cul­tural values’. This argues that social mar­keting tech­niques which focus on chan­ging one par­tic­ular beha­viour at a time will not pro­duce suf­fi­ciently rad­ical change, sug­gesting that instead we need to shift the values and ‘deep frames’ gov­erning society.

Community Based Social Marketing. The web­site for the Community Based Social Marketing pro­gramme in the US is run by Doug McKenzie Mohr, who has pro­duced a lot of work on applying social mar­keting strategies at the com­munity (rather than indi­vidual) level. It con­tains archives of lots of studies and prac­tical examples applying social mar­keting tech­niques, but is strangely dif­fi­cult to nav­igate, and many of the papers are not dir­ectly access­ible from the web­site. Despite this, there is a great deal of inform­a­tion avail­able there, so it is still worth a look (although his book on the same topic is in some ways a better option).

eco­America pub­lished the res­ults of audi­ence research they con­ducted in the US tri­al­ling dif­ferent ways of presenting cli­mate change and energy mes­sages. The report is short and easy to under­stand, and con­tains important pointers for devel­oping lan­guage and mes­sages that don’t make people ‘switch off’. It is espe­cially useful for spoken com­mu­nic­a­tion – the research involved playing people record­ings of actors reading our dif­ferent mes­sages, which the audi­ence then rated in ‘real time’. This meth­od­o­logy may offer a par­tic­u­larly prom­ising way of improving cli­mate change com­mu­nic­a­tion, but has not yet been used widely.

Green Living Blog. Green Alliance has a reg­u­larly updated blog that is ded­ic­ated to ‘green living’. The blog hosts ori­ginal posts from experts on sus­tain­able beha­viour and cli­mate change com­mu­nic­a­tion in gen­eral, as well as providing updates about new devel­op­ments in the field.

The Guardian news­paper has an excel­lent sec­tion on its web­site ded­ic­ated to providing clear and con­cise answers to the most fre­quently asked ques­tions about cli­mate science.

From Hot Air to Happy Endings . Green Alliance pub­lished a report in 2010 called From Hot Air to Happy Endings – How to inspire public sup­port for low carbon policies. The report fea­tures con­tri­bu­tions from a wide range of experts on inspiring public sup­port for tack­ling cli­mate change. It is aimed at politi­cians, but is well written and edited so also appeals to a wider audi­ence. It is not really a prac­tical guide – more of a space for new thinking.

Review of sus­tain­able beha­viour. Professor Tim Jackson pro­duced a very com­pre­hensive and detailed (but highly read­able) review of the evid­ence on ‘sus­tain­able con­sump­tion’ for the Sustainable Development Research Network. The scope of the review is actu­ally much broader than the title sug­gests, and covers beha­viour change theory, habits, norms, and more social and struc­tural ways of under­standing human behaviour.

New Scientist magazine has a guide to what is known and unknown about cli­mate change science.

Nudge, Think or Shove? The public engage­ment spe­cial­ists Involve and the Development Education Association have pub­lished a report that com­pares and con­trasts three broad classes of beha­viour change approach – Nudge (beha­vi­oural eco­nomics), Think (more far-reaching, and socially embedded approaches) & Shove (legis­la­tion & policy). It is a useful counter-perspective to the heavy reli­ance on ‘nudge’ approaches found in many beha­viour change reports.

The Public Interest Research Centre hosts an advisory paper that was pre­pared for the British Government (Department of Energy & Climate Change) in 2010, on the topic of com­mu­nic­ating cli­mate change to mass public audi­ences. The paper is authored by a range of aca­demics and cli­mate change com­mu­nic­a­tion prac­ti­tioners, and it describes nine prin­ciples for effective com­mu­nic­a­tion. It is aimed at policy makers, but is also of interest to NGOs and other campaigners.

Realclimate is written by cli­mate sci­ent­ists, and deals with sci­entific topics and issues cur­rently reported by the main­stream media. It is a pop­ular web­site, but fairly technical.

The British Royal Society pub­lished a sum­mary of the latest cli­mate sci­ence in 2010. It is designed to dis­tin­guish the areas over which there is very little uncer­tainty from the areas where a great deal remains to be under­stood. It is less com­plex than the IPCC Assessment reports, but still quite tech­nical, and designed as a ref­er­ence doc­u­ment rather than a com­mu­nic­a­tion aid.

Scottish Governmnet review of beha­viour change strategies. The Scottish gov­ern­ment recently pro­duced a review of research on low carbon beha­viours, which they are now using to shape their policies on pro­moting sus­tain­able beha­viours. It goes fur­ther than the UK gov­ern­ment has in delving deeper into beha­viour change strategies than simply beha­vi­oural eco­nomics and social marketing.

Selling Sustainability. Although it is now a few years old, the Selling Sustainability report by NESTA is still a good sum­mary of the social mar­keting approach to beha­viour change, building its argu­ments on the much more extensive lit­er­ature on social mar­keting for health beha­viour initiatives.

Sell the Sizzle. Futerra are com­mu­nic­a­tions con­sult­ants who focus on cor­porate respons­ib­ility and sus­tain­ab­ility, but who have also done a lot of work with the UK gov­ern­ment. They have pro­duced a number of reports that apply insights from social mar­keting to cor­porate and gov­ern­ment sus­tain­ab­ility com­mu­nic­a­tion chal­lenges, including the short, snappy Rules of the Game and the more recent Sell the Sizzle. The biggest advantage of Futerra reports are that they are well written and very easy to read, but they typ­ic­ally don’t con­tain ref­er­ences, and are more aimed at a cor­porate audi­ence than NGOs or com­munity groups.

Skeptical Science. Dozens of well-constructed argu­ments and counter-arguments to common scep­tical pos­i­tions are con­tained in Skeptical Science, run by the Australian John Cook. One of Skeptical Science’s most pop­ular pub­lic­a­tions is a down­load­able ‘debunking hand­book‘ taking on some of the most common scep­tical arguments.

Spence & Pidgeon – The Psychology of Sustainable Behaviour. In the journal Environment, Dr Alexa Spence & Professor Nick Pidgeon pub­lished a very read­able over­view of the psy­cho­logy of sus­tain­able beha­viour. Describing social and indi­vidual bar­riers to public engage­ment, as well as providing lots of useful ref­er­ences to fur­ther reading, it is much more easily digest­ible than the American Psychological Association report on the same subject.

Warm Words. The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) pub­lished two excel­lent reports (Warm Words and Warm Words II) looking at the way cli­mate change is reported in the media, identi­fying ‘nar­rat­ives’ about cli­mate change that have emerged, and identi­fying ways that the ‘cli­mate story’ can be told more effect­ively. The reports are now a few years old, but they are still highly rel­evant today. They are espe­cially useful for people com­mu­nic­ating cli­mate change through the media (e.g. press officers).

WWF reports. Through its pro­gramme Strategies for Change, the WWF (and Change Strategist Tom Crompton in par­tic­ular) has released a series of important and influ­en­tial reports that have helped to redefine com­mu­nic­a­tion about cli­mate change and the envir­on­ment more gen­er­ally. The first report, Weathercocks & Signposts: The Environment Movement at a Crossroads, provided a powerful cri­tique of the ‘social mar­keting’ approach to beha­viour change, and intro­duced the idea that cam­paigns should instead be based on values. The next report, Simple & pain­less? The lim­it­a­tions of Spillover in Environmental Campaigning, exam­ines the evid­ence that ‘small steps’ will lead to pos­itive ‘spillover’ into more sub­stan­tial sus­tain­able beha­viour. Finally, a down­load­able book on the role of human iden­tity in meeting envir­on­mental chal­lenges con­tains a number of important insights about how to go beyond focusing on spe­cific beha­viours and think more in terms of people’s iden­tities and life­styles. They are all excel­lent resources – although more in terms of pro­gressive thinking than prac­tical guidance.

The Yale Project on Climate Communication is a good resource for a range of cli­mate change com­mu­nic­a­tion chal­lenges. It includes useful inform­a­tion on cli­mate change in the media, examples of ‘out­reach’ pro­jects in the US and selected aca­demic pub­lic­a­tions on cli­mate change communication.

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