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In a new paper (open-access link) published in the journal Language and Ecology, Clare Cunningham and her colleagues at York St John University analysed the prevalence and use of climate change words and phrases by politicians and activists.
The analysis revealed major differences. Activists use emotive language and talk about ecology, guilt, and morality. Politicians use much more technocratic language and focus on finance, trade-offs, technologies and the economy, reflecting a longstanding positioning of environmental issues among political elites as emerging from a cost-benefit analysis perspective.
Perhaps most strikingly, ‘people’ barely feature in politicians’ discourse on climate – showing up only as ‘bill payers’.
The analysis is important to help understand why campaigns aimed at political or other ‘elite’ groups can sometimes fail to land with public audiences, and vice-versa. In related research, IPPR tested a range of climate change narratives and found that (despite their common usage by climate campaigners) language around ‘green jobs’ was not as compelling for the public as language around protecting the environment for future generations, or the need to reduce the risks from climate impacts.
Climate Barometer tracker polling backs this up: the public is not very persuaded by arguments that climate policies will deliver lots of new jobs. But this is more likely to reflect a widespread lack of trust in the ability of government to deliver on its promises, than a distaste for green jobs.
The summer of 2022 in the UK saw numerous temperature milestones breached. On 19th of July, 40.3°C was recorded at Coningsby, Lincolnshire, setting a new UK and England temperature record by a margin of 1.6°C, while multiple stations across England also exceeded 40°C.
“This heatwave marked a milestone in UK climate history, with 40°C being recorded for the first time in the UK.”
“The UK’s recent extreme heat was far more intense and widespread than previous comparable heatwaves”
Using a Randomised Control Trial methodology, 10 different narratives, framed around different themes, were tested in an online survey. A narrative emphasising the proximity of climate impacts was one of the best performing, especially in terms of increasing the ‘salience’ of climate change as an issue. The narrative included content emphasising:
All over the world, climate change is already leading to dangerous weather events. Scientists agree that things will get worse if we don’t take action. In the UK, we could see coastal towns submerged by rising sea levels. Heat waves that threaten our food supply; flash floods which cause destruction on a scale never seen before. We still have time. But we simply have to change now if we want to protect our way of life for the future.
The report argues that rather than focus on the so-called ‘co-benefits’ of climate action (e.g. green jobs) it is more effective to frame messages around the threat of climate impacts (as well as protecting future generations and showing global leadership).
Carbon Brief has released a report reviewing a decade’s worth of climate change editorials – and reports that:
Between 2011-2016 editorial articles in publications such as the Sun, the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail generally opposed action to tackle climate change, citing “unreliable” science and “expensive” environmental policies.
But in recent years – a period that has seen the Conservative government commit to net-zero emissions by 2050 and host the COP26 climate summit – right-leaning publications have more readily embraced some efforts to cut emissions.
As a result, these newspapers are now far more likely to support climate action in their editorial pages than oppose it.
In a global report, the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication found that a majority of people in almost every region of the world surveyed said they were ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ worried about climate change.
More than nine in ten respondents in Mexico (95%), Portugal (93%), Chile (93%), Puerto Rico (92%), Costa Rica (92%), Ecuador (91%), Panama (91%), Peru (91%), and Colombia (91%) say they are worried. In contrast, only about one in three respondents in Yemen (32%) and just under half of respondents in Jordan (48%) say they are worried about climate change.
Research commissioned by the Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland, suggests that people in the UK find it difficult to ‘juggle’ competing drivers of food choices (for example price, value, budget, convenience, health, environment, ethics and so on). Price often wins out in decision making, leading many to make uncomfortable compromises.
While many aspired to a more environmentally friendly diet, barriers such as price, a lack of trusted information; and feeling that the problem was ‘too big’ to make a difference – often undermined these goals.
And on a day-to-day basis, people tended to prioritise their immediate needs and concerns: ensuring the food they ate was safe and as healthy as it could be within their budget.
Despite this, some actions, such as reducing food waste and packaging waste, were areas where people felt they had more power to take action.
Alongside this, many people did not trust that key food decision-makers have the public’s best interests at heart. They felt that food businesses and the Government prioritise profit over people.
The public wanted decision-makers to support both their immediate needs and to protect the long-term interests of people and planet.
Polling by Ipsos shows that people are much more likely to support (62%) than oppose (17%) a policy that changes product pricing based on how environmentally friendly a product is.
In addition, people were also more likely to support (47%) than oppose (32%) taxes on red meat and dairy products in principle, although this trend did not remain when personal lifestyle and financial impacts were highlighted.
Another popular policy was increasing vegetarian/vegan options in public food provisioning (56% support versus 21% oppose), which remained popular when lifestyle trade-offs were highlighted but not when financial trade-offs were highlighted.
However, a majority of respondents did not feel confident that increasing vegetarian/vegan provisioning would lead to fair outcomes across different groups of the population.
Overall, support for policies varied across groups to some extent – with wealthy people and those with left-leaning political views more likely to be supportive of diet related climate policies.
Media analysis by Climate Outreach suggests that international negotiations are key events not only for policy, but in shaping public attitudes on climate:
“The annual UN conference provides a yearly focus point for climate media stories, events and activists. While the focus is on policy making, this can have a significant associated impact on how citizens view and understand the issues being discussed. For example the perceived failure of COP15 in Copenhagen is associated with a significant downturn in public climate concern. Understanding the interplay between different elements within the plethora of coverage is crucial for public engagement.
Our analysis indicates that publics in general were engaged by COP26 and the majority felt more optimistic about chances of dealing with the climate change challenge by the end. Yet it is noticeable that there were marked differences in the dominant narratives between traditional media and those most loudly heard on social media and at cultural events. Does this matter? One possibility is that it doesn’t – and that as the climate conversation grows, it’s natural and right that differences of opinion will remain. But from a communications perspective, mixed messaging may impact on how people understand and relate to climate change – which could undermine effectiveness.”
The Climate Change Committee, responding to the government’s inclusion of ‘climate compatible checkpoints’ for new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea as part of its recent Net Zero Strategy, concluded that:
“The best way of reducing the UK’s future exposure to these volatile prices is to cut fossil fuel consumption on the path to Net Zero – improving energy efficiency, shifting to a renewables-based power system and electrifying end uses in transport, industry and heating. Any increases in UK extraction of oil and gas would have, at most, a marginal effect on the prices faced by UK consumers in future”
Research by Panu Pihkala sheds light on the vast array of climate emotions that people can feel in response to the climate crisis.
The paper details specific emotions (such as fear, dread, hope, loneliness, and embarrassment) while showing how these fit into broader emotional categories (e.g. surprise-related, threat-related, sadness-related, anxiety-related). Altogether, the work lists over 50 distinct types of emotion that people may experience in relation to climate change.
The ‘Climate Emotions Wheel’ brings together the more detailed work into a simple, accessible visualisation.
This open access research paper explains how emotions are key influences on the ways people think about climate change, and the actions they might take to address the climate crisis. It outlines how both positive and negative emotional communications can promote sustainable behaviours.
Emotions trigger ‘motivational tendencies’ that influence people’s ability to cope with different types of situations. For instance, fear can lead to defensive responses (such as fight, flight, or freeze), while sadness can result in seeking to change one’s personal circumstances.
Emotions also influence how we think about issues and evaluate responses – for instance, emotions like hope, fear or anger may influence our sense of risk from climate change, or how much control we feel in pursuing different types of actions.
In analysis by Kantar, coverage of protests at COP26 was found to have outstripped coverage of the conference itself (in traditional media).
On social media, Geta Thunberg was one of the biggest presences on Twitter, driving engagement with traditional coverage of COP26 protests.
What the public ‘sees’ at climate conferences can shape wider climate beliefs – and although there was small but significant increase in public optimism during the course of COP26, the dominance of protests in traditional and social media is likely to have conveyed an overall impression of the conference as a ‘problem’ (to be protested against) rather than part of the solution.
Research by Climate Outreach with Loyal Nationals around COP26 pointed to scepticism about whether global leaders could genuinely be trusted to cooperate. Patriotic Loyal Nationals have a high level of concern about climate change, but are distrustful of government, big business and major ‘multilateral’ political meetings like COPs.
Climate Outreach report that Loyal Nationals are cynical about whether UK leadership is achievable at COP26, and are sceptical that leaders can genuinely cooperate and represent their people, concluding that:
Engagement needs to counter the fact that many people do not understand what COP is about, and when they do they are often sceptical about what it could achieve, or believe it should be conducted online rather than in person.
Polling by Global Scan, which carried out surveys in 31 countries ahead of COP26, found that:
Research by the Development Engagement Lab found that around the time of COP26, held in Glasgow:
