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The National Trust – with a huge portfolio of land and historic properties that faces a wide range of risks from a changing climate – has released a report which includes a call for a new Climate Resilience Bill, putting adaptation on the same footing as mitigation (which they argue has a ‘unifying focus’ on net zero).
Research shows that people beyond specialist circles do not make a clear distinction between mitigation and adaptation, and see worsening climate impacts as one of the most motivating reasons for decarbonising faster. When asked directly whether the UK government should prioritise adaptation or mitigation, the most popular answer (around half of the survey respondents) in a 2020 poll was that both should be of equal focus.
Grounded in an analysis of the online discourse around the sweltering summer of 2022 in the UK, ACT Climate Labs issued guidance for anticipating and responding to misinformation around extreme weather, as well as engaging the ‘Persuadable’ 60% of the population who are neither highly engaged nor antagonistic towards climate action.
Echoing earlier work by Climate Outreach around flood risks and communication, ACT Climate Labs recommend not focusing too much on climate during a heatwave (this can be off-putting or appear judgmental/spoiling people’s positive experiences of warmer weather) but to use the period of increased climate salience that follows extreme weather to engage audiences then
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).
Climate Outreach, in collaboration with Cardiff University, have published a briefing containing seven recommendations for public engagement on climate risks and adaptation, including the insight that communication on adaptation shouldn’t be divorced from messages on mitigation. The distinction is not widely recognised beyond the climate community: concerns about mitigation and adaptation reinforce each other and are perceived as two sides of the same coin
Making sense of public opinion on climate impacts
People increasingly understand climate change as happening in the ‘here and now’. But there is a long way to go before the severity of climate risks is fully appreciated, and people are fully supported in preparing for and adapting to impacts.