We use cookies where necessary to allow us to understand how people interact with our website and content, so that we can continue to improve our service.
We only ever receive anonymous information, and cannot track you across other websites.
View our privacy policy
Climate justice is crucial to climate action, however, for the public, the term is still relatively unknown – with many having not heard the term, or being able to define what it means.
While the public tends not to “get” the language of climate justice, in many ways, they agree with the underlying themes. Some key ideas in climate justice, of recognising that the status quo isn’t working (particularly excessive consumerism), of putting people first, and needing to transform society in order to address climate change effectively, do resonate with the public. There is support for transforming society for the better, in a holistic way. A YouGov poll of ten countries, including the UK, shows that the majority of people agree that the world can still avoid the worst effects of climate change, but that drastic change is necessary. This is echoed in other research too.
On the other hand, there is low awareness of disproportionate impacts of climate change, and systemic origins of the climate crisis. Currently the UK public do not see strong connections between inequality and climate change. Some make the link between age, disability, poverty, and geography as factors that might make people especially vulnerable to climate change, and with low awareness of factors such as gender, race, class.
Similarly, when it comes to historic responsibility, the public tends to say that all countries have a shared responsibility, rather than pointing the finger at wealthy countries. Rather than seeing a historic “villain”, the UK public tend to say we cannot blame people for things that happened in the past, and tend to point the finger at countries that are industrialising now (China and India), rather than countries that have already developed and industrialised.
Key resources to understand UK public responses to climate justice include the Framing Climate Justice resource & messaging guide, and Climate Outreach’s climate justice report and messaging guide with European youth.
This thread brings together opinion insights that speak to the broad themes and ideas within the phrase ‘climate justice’, drawing on our own Climate Barometer tracker data and wider research to keep track of how public understanding of this critical aspect of national and international climate policy is evolving.
What’s in a name? The question of what the best – most persuasive, or least polarising – term for climate change is, has a long history.
On the one hand, small tweaks to individual words or short phrases are unlikely to be driving big differences in perceptions one way or another. People’s values, worldviews, political ideology and increasingly the perceived fairness of different climate policies, are what drives public engagement.
But whether its the editorial choices made by leading international newspapers, to the framing of campaigns that drive media coverage of climate activism, linguistic choices do carry some weight. Previous research has argued that some terms (e.g. ‘global warming’) are more emotive; campaigners have criticised ‘climate change’ as a term for lacking urgency.
In a new open-access paper, researchers tested a wide range of different terms, including ‘climate change’, ‘global warming’, ‘climate crisis’, climate emergency’ and ‘climate justice’, in a survey of over 5000 US residents and concluded:
Overall, “climate change” and “global warming” were rated as most familiar and most concerning, and “climate justice” the least, with ratings for “climate crisis” and “climate emergency” falling in between.
Moreover, we find no evidence for “climate crisis” or “climate emergency” eliciting more perceived urgency than “climate change” or “global warming.”
We therefore recommend sticking with familiar terms, conclude that changing terminology is likely not the key solution for promoting climate action, and suggest alternative communication strategies.
The ‘alternative communication strategies’ might include identifying tangible ways in which audiences with different moral and political values could benefit from specific climate policies, or ensuring communities impacted by new energy infrastructure, or changes to urban travel systems, feel adequately consulted.
Confirming previous research around the general lack of familiarity with the term ‘climate justice’, the paper also noted that willingness to support climate-friendly policies and eat less red meat were lowest for ‘climate justice’ (which was the least familiar term tested).
This isn’t an argument for downplaying the importance of the issues the term refers to, which are central to both international climate governance and the implementation of specific in-country policies. But it does underscore the lack of recognition of the phrase among many public audiences, a finding which has also been observed in UK research.
The Climate Just Map tool shows which places may be most disadvantaged through climate impacts.
It aims to raise awareness about how social vulnerability combined with exposure to hazards, like flooding and heat, may lead to uneven impacts in different neighbourhoods, causing climate disadvantage. The maps can be used alongside other local knowledge to identify where actions may be needed.
There are maps on flooding (river/coastal flooding and surface water flooding), and heat and fuel poverty.
An article by Petra Tschakert and colleagues synthesises the depth and breadth of tangible and intangible losses that people around the world may experience as a result of climate change. Key takeaways include:
