CONNECTING on CLIMATE: a Guide to Effective Climate Change Communication

CONNECTING ON CLIMATE: A Guide to Effective Climate Change Communication start with people Connecting on Climate: A Guide to Effective Climate Change Communication CONTENTS Foreword: A Context For Climate 1 Highlight the benefits of taking action 24 Change Communication Align solutions with your audience's 24 Using This Guide to Unlock Success 2 values and priorities in Climate Change Communication Scale from local to global solutions 25 THE BASICS: PUTTING PEOPLE FIRST 5 Put technological solutions 25 1. Put Yourself in Your 6 in context Audience’s Shoes TIPS: Emphasize solutions 28 Identify how values shape climate 6 and benefits engagement 4. Bring Climate Impacts 29 Align climate messages with your 7 Close To Home audience’s worldviews Focus on local impacts 29 Understand how identity shapes 9 climate engagement Highlight personal experience 31 Appeal to people’s desire to be 11 Pair impacts with solutions to 32 “good people” avoid emotional numbing TIPS: Put yourself in your 15 Focus on the “what,” not the “when” 32 audience’s shoes Be sensitive to recent losses and 33 2. Channel the Power of Groups 16 “near misses” How people think and behave 16 TIPS: Bring climate impacts 34 differently in groups close to home Mobilize social groups and 17 5. Connect Climate Change 35 networks to Issues That Matter to TIPS: Channel the power of groups 20 Your Audience CRAFTING YOUR MESSAGE: 21 Connect climate change to the 35 SOLUTIONS, IMPACTS, FRAMING, issues that matter to your audience AND IMAGERY using content frames 3. Emphasize Solutions and Benefits 22 Provide a coherent narrative: 35 Lead with solutions to boost 22 match audience priorities with engagement structure frames Show your audience members how 23 TIPS: Connect climate change to 40 they can become part of the solution issues that matter to your audience CRED | ecoAmerica 6. Use Images and Stories to 41 TIPS: Acknowledge uncertainty, 61 Make Climate Change Real but show what you know Use images that inspire 41 9. Approach Skepticism Carefully 62 and empower Why do some people doubt 62 Show people, not pie charts 42 climate change? Use storytelling to strengthen 42 Identify sources of doubt 64 engagement The more facts the better? 64 TIPS: Use images and stories 43 Not quite to make climate change real Focus on solutions, not just 67 the problem OVERCOMING BARRIERS: SCIENCE, 45 SKEPTICISM, AND UNCERTAINTY TIPS: Approach skepticism 67 carefully 7. Make Climate Science 46 Meaningful TAKING IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL: 69 Uncover how your audience 47 CREATING THE CONDITIONS understands scientific phenomena: FOR CHANGE The role of mental models 10. Make Behavior Change Easy 70 Communicate on a human scale 49 Enable people to set specific 70 Use familiar concepts to help 51 targets for their behavior people understand science and Make climate-friendly choices 71 statistics the default option TIPS: Make climate science 53 Highlight the “green Joneses” 71 meaningful Give people fewer choices, 72 8. Acknowledge Uncertainty, 56 not more But Show What You Know Incentivize behavior with 73 The role of uncertainty in 56 appropriate rewards climate change communication TIPS: Make behavior 76 Focus on what is known 57 change easy Uncover how your audience 59 Quick Reference 77 responds to uncertainty Further Readings 82 Determine which uncertainties 59 matter References 83 Connecting on Climate: A Guide to Effective Climate Change Communication FOREWORD: A CONTEXT FOR CLIMATE CHANGE COMMUNICATION For most of the past two centuries climate change has been discussed as a scientific phenomenon. The creation of fossil fuels, the chemistry of combustion, and the resulting changes in the atmosphere and planetary temperatures could be explained in no other way. Then, in the 1980s, from his post at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Dr. Jim Hansen began to describe the implications of the planet’s rising temperatures. His testimony before Congress in 1988, coupled with Bill McKibben’s book The End of Nature in 1989, brought the issue to the public’s eye.1 Hansen and McKibben framed global warming in dramatic terms— rising sea levels, melting Arctic sea ice, and extreme flood and droughts— and ushered in an era of framing climate change as planetary destruction. This paring of scientific analysis and potentially catastrophic implications moved America and other nations toward action. The formation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988 and passage of the United States Global Change Research Act of 1990 led to the UN Framework on Climate Change process, which yielded the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 and legally binding obligations for nations to reduce their green- house gas emissions. In the midst of these major changes, some businesses came to view climate change as a threat to profits. In the 1990s, certain groups began organizing and funding activities to discredit climate science and to stop progress on climate solutions. This ushered in an era of opposition messaging and political polarization on climate change.2 The first decade of the new millennium saw an ongoing battle between these two forces. On one side, the Bush administration opposed action on climate change, seeing it as a trade-off with economic growth. On the other side, in 2006, former vice president Al Gore surfaced with the film and the book An Inconvenient Truth, which attempted to galvanize further large-scale action on climate change. In 2009, the incoming Obama administration shifted away from Gore in its approach to communicating climate change. Research and experience suggested that fear-based arguments had run their course as effective tools for inspiring action. So Obama pivoted his focus toward the CRED | ecoAmerica 1 co-benefits of climate action, prompting a focus on the economic, social, and health benefits of climate solutions.3 On one hand, it seems that none of these communication frames has been decisive. Yet the opposite perspective is in fact more accurate. Each of these arguments has influenced the political, economic, cultural, and psychological factors that mold today’s climate debate. It has been a pitched battle to a draw, which is a loss for humanity and the planet. Then, beginning with no specific event or time, the impacts of a warming planet began emerging. From California to Pakistan, from New Orleans to Bangkok, unprecedented and costly droughts, floods, and extreme weather emerged across the planet. A new era of climate communication emerged—the era of climate impacts. So where do we go from here? The reality of climate change is upon us. Whether directly or latently, people are becoming more concerned about the issue. They seek guidance on what climate change is, what it means for their loved ones, and what they can do about it in a complex communication climate. Moreover, hundreds of people and organizations seek to refine their communication approaches to help further the case for meaningful action on the issue. The Center for Research on Environmental Decisions (CRED) at The Earth Institute, Columbia University, and ecoAmerica, a nonprofit that works to build public support for climate solutions, have been leaders in climate communication research. With this guide, we synthesize what others and we have learned about climate change communication over the years into a single useful tool. It is our hope that leaders and communicators will put the insights in this guide into practice, designing and sharing ever more effective communication and practices to motivate an era of climate engagement that pushes America—and the planet—to a tipping point for climate solutions. ecoAmerica is grateful to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for its generous support. 2 Connecting on Climate: A Guide to Effective Climate Change Communication USING THIS GUIDE TO UNLOCK SUCCESS IN CLIMATE CHANGE COMMUNICATION Climate change is not a new issue, but the need for meaningful and sus- tainable solutions is more urgent than ever. Climate communicators and mainstream leaders are still grappling with how to help Americans find meaningful, actionable paths forward and overcome the social, political, psychological, and emotional barriers that have hindered progress on climate solutions. To connect with audiences and unlock success in climate change communication, communicators need to shift their approach. Communicators need to go beyond simply providing people with the facts about climate change. They need to connect with people’s values and worldviews and put solutions at the forefront to make climate change personally relevant to Americans and those they love. Getting climate communication right is becoming increasingly important for at least three reasons. First, the issue and timing are both critical. The impacts of climate change are accelerating, and delaying meaningful action to reduce carbon emissions increases the probability of harmful impacts. Second, climate change remains abstract, remote, and distant for many Americans, most of whom are focused on their more immediate needs.4 Third, influential political and economic actors are organizing sol- idly against actions to reduce the carbon emissions driving climate change. With this guide, we have brought together both researchers and practition- ers to consolidate the best insights and evidence about how to communicate effectively about climate change. We have combined research from the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions (CRED) at The Earth Institute, Columbia University; ecoAmerica;

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