Energy Research & Social Science 69 (2020) 101580 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Energy Research & Social Science journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/erss Climate change strategic narratives in the United Kingdom: Emergency, T Extinction, Effectiveness ⁎ Luke D. Bevana, , Thomas Colley Dr.b, Mark Workman Dr.c a Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy, University College London, 4th Floor, Shropshire House, 11-20 Capper Street, London, WC1E 6JA, United Kingdom b Department of War Studies, Kings College London c Grantham Institute for Climate Change, Imperial College London ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Keywords: Achieving policy, business and behaviour change necessary to mitigate climate change is one of the most for- Narratives midable challenges of the twenty-first century. Increasingly, researchers have argued that communicating Climate Change purposively designed stories – ‘strategic narratives’ – may be effective in building support for the policy measures Behaviour Change necessary to limit anthropogenic warming to 2˚C above pre-industrial levels. Recently, following the release of Communication the IPCC's 1.5˚C special report, novel dynamics have emerged in climate strategic communication, with the emergence of new narrators, including youth climate strikers, child activist Greta Thunberg, and the insurgent group, Extinction Rebellion. Previous literature focuses mostly on narrative content and coherence, paying less attention to how a narrator's credibility affects climate change strategic narratives’ persuasiveness. Adopting this broader view, this paper analyses five strategic narratives that became prominent in the United Kingdom fol- lowing the IPCC report. Contrary to some previous calls for all-encompassing strategic narratives communicated top-down from governmental organisations, the most notable strategic narratives in our sample emerged from civil society. We therefore call for greater attention towards the interaction of different narrators in climate change strategic communication, to address whether a broader range of narrators constrains or enables co- ordinated action to mitigate climate change. 1. Introduction society driving calls for climate change action. These include the Extinction Rebellion (XR) group and their civil disobedience campaigns 1.1. Background throughout the UK, and also the Youth Climate Strikers1, a worldwide movement of school pupils striking for climate action. Policymakers In 2018, a special report from the Intergovernmental Panel on often claim that they are acting on behalf of future generations, making Climate Change (IPCC) announced that achieving a pathway compa- the world ‘safe for our grandchildren’ for instance. With future gen- tible with limiting anthropogenic warming to 1.5˚C above pre-industrial erations now the narrators, rather than elites making claims on their averages would require a dramatic cut of 45% of greenhouse gas behalf, there are novel storytelling dynamics in climate change com- emissions by 2030 [1]. Thus, there may be only 12 years for humankind munication that warrant further examination. The aim of this paper is to undertake a profound shift in how natural resources are used and to explore these new narratives and narrators, and what they suggest distributed in order to avoid dire consequences such as rising sea levels about the future of climate change strategic communication. and widespread ecosystem damage. Upon publication of this report, an Climate change is a challenge with impacts on all levels of human emerging narrative centred on this 12-year deadline and it spread ra- organisation and acts over a broad, often inconceivable, timescale. pidly, being picked up by media outlets and campaigning organisations Responses require the mobilisation of individuals and the coordination alike. of complex social configurations. Despite the starkness of the threat, However, this is not the only narrative to enter the public con- climate scientists and interest groups often struggle to communicate sciousness in recent times. New narrators have emerged from civil their research and roles effectively to a broad variety of publics [2,3]. ⁎ Corresponding author. lukebevan.github.io E-mail address: [email protected] (L.D. Bevan). 1 Also known as Fridays for Future and Youth for Climate. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2020.101580 Received 24 October 2019; Received in revised form 16 April 2020; Accepted 22 April 2020 2214-6296/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. L.D. Bevan, et al. Energy Research & Social Science 69 (2020) 101580 Climate communication researchers have blamed these communication of 1.5˚C. failures on cognitive biases, such as hyperbolic discounting, and other • “The collapse is imminent” a fatalistic narrative that encourages sociological problems, such as the difficulty overcoming ingrained so- protest, most widely deployed by a number of campaigning groups cial practices like regular air travel. in the UK such as Extinction Rebellion. Facing this kaleidoscopic problem, the idea of using strategic nar- • “Climate Emergency” a softer version of the two above narratives, as ratives as a communication tool for persuading and coordinating large adopted by the UK government in 2019. groups of disparate actors has emerged [4,5,6,7]. Narratives are fun- • “You're destroying our future” a narrative that has emerged along- damental to how humans interpret reality, providing a flexible vehicle side the school climate strike movement. for aiding understanding and persuasion. • “Our plastic straws are choking the planet” a narrative emphasising the damage that some aspects of our consumer society do to the 1.2. Strategic Narratives natural world. A strategic narrative is a story with a purpose [8]. They are used by We will consider these emergent narratives and revisit Bushell et al's actors to persuade and coordinate individuals and groups through [12] analysis to consider what aspects of these narratives are novel, and making sense of events and themes with a plot and characters. They whether they promise greater persuasive power than previous attempts. may also be used as an analytical tool by researchers seeking to un- However, we move beyond Bushell et al.’s analysis by paying closer derstand political discourse, as in the case of their application in critical attention to the role of narrators in shaping the effectiveness of strategic policy studies [9]. narratives. In contrast, our approach is closer to what Moezzi et al. [14] Strategic narratives are an increasingly popular tool across multiple describe as a ‘storytelling’ approach, paying attention to who narrates domains. Their value in persuading audiences and coordinating actors and how, not just to narrative content and form. In this way we aim to in pursuit of collective efforts has been demonstrated in fields suchas bring up to date the growing work on strategic narratives, applying a International Relations [10] and Conflict Studies [11]. Interest has also broader analytical lens to recent shifts in climate change strategic developed in the use of narratives in energy and climate change re- communication. search, notably in this journal [12,13,14,15]. Our decision to focus more on the narrator than previous strategic Bushell and collaborators [5,12,16] have argued for the widespread narrative research reflects a shift in focus in political communication adoption of strategic narratives in climate science communication, as a towards the authenticity of communicators rather than just the content way of mobilising actors and closing the ‘action gap’ between the cur- or veracity of what they say. The credibility of the narrator has been rent climate mitigation policy mix and that which is understood by the recognised since ancient times as crucial to persuasive communication scientific community to be congruent with international targets of [18]. However, renewed attention to this has emerged with the evo- limiting anthropogenic global warming to 2˚C above pre-industrial lution of populism in global politics, which has brought to prominence averages. Such narratives are also said to be capable of creating de- a variety of leaders who appear to consciously base their appeal on mocratic ‘buy-in’, necessary to gain acceptance for and give meaning to being seen to say what they think spontaneously, even if this contra- ambitious climate policy [12]. dicts established fact, or even their previous statements. Rejecting stage managed statements, soundbites and catchphrases, such communica- 1.3. Approach tion bases its power more on the authenticity of the narrator rather than the coherence or veracity of what they say. We contend that analysis of In a 2017 paper in Energy Research & Social Science, Bushell et al. climate change strategic narratives should be updated to consider [12] identify and analyse a number of prominent narratives in use over narrator authenticity in more depth. recent decades and identify their shortcomings. They argue for the creation of new unifying narratives that can align the motivations of 1.4. Aims disparate publics. Their call to action is persuasive. However, given the entrance of several new narratives and narrators following the release The purpose of this paper is not to restate the case for strategic of the IPCC's 2018 Special report on global warming of 1.5˚C, it requires narratives as a communication or coordination tool in climate change. some reappraisal. This has been performed ably elsewhere. Neither is its