Does our communications strategy need to talk about 'climate change' more or less?
Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, has written an inspiring call to arms over at TomDispatch.com. He argues that we need to build a much more active movement, and also that we need to change our communications strategy. It is this latter point that I want to discuss here, as it is so fundamental to our long-term strategy. Bill McKibben wants us to start talking more about climate change, instead of avoiding the issue.
Step one involves actually talking about global warming. For years now, the accepted wisdom in the best green circles was: talk about anything else — energy independence, oil security, beating the Chinese to renewable technology. I was at a session convened by the White House early in the Obama administration where some polling guru solemnly explained that “green jobs” polled better than “cutting carbon.”
No, really? In the end, though, all these focus-group favorites are secondary. The task at hand is keeping the planet from melting. We need everyone — beginning with the president — to start explaining that basic fact at every turn.
In the circles that I move in, people seem to be heading the opposite direction. After Copenhagen and Climate-gate, campaigners started talking about climate change less, not more. We have The Great Power Race, the Energy Action Coalition, and the 10:10 campaign, which are all great projects, but aren’t built around the concept of talking about climate change.
I think that people have been focusing on changing strategy since Copenhagen, and so for groups that I’m involved in like the UK Youth Climate Coalition and the International Youth Climate Movement who have been talking climate change for a while, this means moving away from ‘climate change’ and towards ‘clean energy futures’. Is this the right direction to be moving, or should the UKYCC be holding its ground and sticking with climate-related messaging? Could it even be argued that we youth groups are switching to a tried-and-failed tactic that was used before our time?
It’s clear that we need a movement, and that will have to be made up of groups that talk about climate change, and groups that don’t. It must be made up of groups campaigning for high-speed rail, against road and airport expansion, for energy security, against wars for oil, as well as for cutting carbon emissions and against climate change. We need to make better links with diverse groups and ask not what these groups can do for the climate movement, but rather that the climate movement can do for them. To do this we don’t need to stop talking about climate change, if anything we need to talk about it more and show how it relates to all of these other issues.
Let’s keep climate change as a common theme through all of our messaging, and make a better effort to reach out to diverse groups and help them out with their campaigns.
Tags: Climate Change, Communications, Diversity, EAC, Great Power Race, IYCM, Movement Building, UKYCC
Climate Change, Communications, UKYCC, Uncategorized | Niel Bowerman | 
11 August 2010 17:02 | 
Comments (8)
Climate science has been subject to a media storm of stories since the CRU email hacks. I have often wondered what we should be doing about this, and this wonder has lead me to learn about framing, messengers and messaging, and a whole host of other communications concepts. As a climate scientist who occasionally works with the media, I found the articles below particularly illuminating.
Hunter Cutting has a whole host of useful insights, and I agree with his explanation of why the front line soldiers defending climate science in the media should not be climate scientists:
The Messenger
When audiences read news stories and attempt to make out the underlying issues, they take an important cue from the identity of the messengers. And currently, climate scientists are almost the sole messengers defending climate science. While this is problematic on a number of fronts, it is particularly challenging for the framing of the debate. Putting a scientist in the messenger role reinforces the notion that the fundamental issue is a question about the science. If scientists are doing the debating it is only natural to assume the science is debatable.
Beyond the question of identity, many scientists don’t make for a good messenger when the issue is politicized, such as with climate science. They are loath to call out the politics and step into a controversy outside their area of expertise.
Climate scientists must be joined by other messengers who are willing to stand up and speak out against the attack on science: farmers whose children would inherit dust-bowl farms due to the delay urged by climate deniers, generals who understand the national security threat, and business leaders who understand that every year of delay in investing in clean energy costs the global economy hundreds of billions of dollars.
When climate scientists do find themselves giving media interviews, Susan Joy Hassol has some useful hints and tips for improving our communications skills. As well as the more obvious comments about language and using metaphors, she explains how we need to answer more than just the question:
Reframing
Rather than accepting the premise of a poorly framed question, reframe it. When people ask if global warming can be blamed for a particular hurricane, heat wave, fire, or flood, a simple “no” does not respond to the essence of the question. What they really want to know is whether global warming is having an effect on such events, and the science suggests that it is. You can reframe such questions to explain that global warming is increasing the chances of such events occurring, and you can also explain some of the connections.
This is an ongoing discussion, and one which is by no means settled. As someone without expertise in communications, I would love to hear more views and opinions and how we can win back the climate change debate, and I hope to post more here soon.
This is a guest post by Julian Koebel, who was trying to measure the carbon footprint of washing clothes.
Niel and I were having a discussion about the carbon footprint of washing clothes. We could not find a good number for that on the web, so we just did a quick calculation ourselves. Assuming that one would do 2 washings a week, we came up with a yearly 90kg saving in CO2 emissions if the temperature is reduced from 60° to 30°.
We used the heat capacity of water to figure out the energy demand and multiplied that by the amount of water an average household washing machine would use (55l). Knowing the carbon intensity of electric energy in our college (Linacre College, Oxford) it was just another step to find the difference in associated carbon dioxide emissions.
Cross-posted from Climatico.
“Unless the G8 sign up to cut emissions by at least 40% by 2020, developing countries will not commit to emissions targets” - that’s the major point of discussion between developed and developing nations, which has (as was to be expected) paralysed the outcome of the Major Economies Forum (MEF). Following yesterday’s G8 declaration, the members of the Major Economies Forum (G8, G5, Australia, EU, the Republic of Korea, Indonesia and Denmark) may not have agreed on a specific target for emissions reductions by 2050 but at least agreed to allow no more than a 2 degrees rise in global temperatures. Reading through the communiqué that was just released in l’Aguila we don’t find many surprises, neither positive nor negative. A little bit on forests, a little bit on adaptation. No doors are closed but real commitment should sound different.
A definitely positive development from yesterday’s declaration is a stronger commitment to leverage financing. Where yesterday’s document related financing for adaptation and mitigation to existing development aid, today’s communiqué stresses that: “Financial resources for mitigation and adaptation will need to be scaled up urgently and substantially and should involve mobilizing resources to support developing countries (…..) Climate financing should complement efforts to promote development in accordance with national priorities and may include both program-based and project-based approaches.”
Yet, non-governmental observers are not entirely satisfied. In the words of WWF’s Kim Carstensen “It’s all about money. Rich countries are telling poor nations: oh poor you. But they avoid commiting to pay their fair share” He adds that ["]wealthy nations should show solid financial commitments and not comforting statements and should replace the blame game with responsible and credible commitments”.
But it is not only the non-governmental sector that recognises the difficulties. President Obama who chaired the meeting, acknowledged a good start but conceded that “progress on this issue will not be easy”. He especially cautioned against cynicism, in front of the immensity of the problem. Some others like CAFOD express it more directly “The G8 could be risking the lives of millions the world’s poorest if there is no agreement on climate in December”.
Bottomline: the outcome probably meets realistic expectations: whoever thought the MEF would do anything more than keeping the door open, i.e. whoever hoped that any substantial progress was to be made without the pressure of the last minute in Copenhagen is probably too optimistic. We also have to consider that without China’s presence moving negotiations towards a more definite outcome was next to impossible. No matter which perspective we take, it is pretty obvious that all sides are trying to push out a definite commitment and to keep the game open until the negotiations at the end of the year. The game continues…..
By Niel Bowerman, Ruth Brandt, Radhika Viswanathan and Marie Karaisl
Cross-posted from Climatico 
… but doesn’t agree on when to turn down the heat. This is Oxfam’s resumé on the freshly released G8 climate change communiqué. Leaders could not improve on last year’s commitment of “a 50% reduction of global emissions by 2050”. They did however agree that to reach such a global reduction, developed countries will have to reduce their emissions by 80% by 2050. There was no agreement on a specific year as a baseline, and the final wording - “compared to 1990 or more recent years” - reflects the disagreement between the EU who pushed for a 1990 baseline and the USA and Japan who want future emissions to be compared to a more recent reference year.
As hoped and expected, it was agreed, however, that “the increase in global average temperature above pre-industrial levels ought not to exceed 2°C.” This is the first time that the US has officially agreed to such a target, something that would have been unimaginable under George W. Bush. The Canadians were opposed to this statement earlier this week, but after long negotiations and NGO campaigns from the likes of Avaaz, Canada accepted the language.
Like last year, no interim goal has been agreed on, though the EU’s push for a 2020 goal is reflected in the statement that a 50% reduction by 2050 “implies that global emissions need to peak as soon as possible and decline thereafter”. This lack of an interim target does not sit well with a 2°C target as Kim Carstensen, leader of the WWF Global Climate Initiative, puts it: “What are [world leaders] going to do between now and 2020? If they don’t outline a path to reach the announced goal, the 2 degree statement will just join a long list of broken promises.”
In the short term, they will be working on their economic recovery. The deterioration of the economic climate is noticeable throughout the document. Yet, positively, the trend to “green” individual stimulus packages (at least rhetorically) has been picked up in the communiqué: “We must seize the opportunity to build on synergies between actions to combat climate change and economic recovery initiatives, and encourage growth and sustainable development worldwide.”
For those interested in adaptation and forestry, the document seems to have something on offer. The document mentions the “possible security implications of the adverse impact of climate change and the potential for increased conflicts over scarcer resources.” It goes on to discuss not only deforestation but also land degradation and the importance of biodiversity.
The bottom line is that apart from the lack of interim targets, most NGOs and other observers agree that the communique is adequate. Or as John Kirton, of the G8 Research Group, put it - “It met my standards.”
The G8 leaders will now take this communique to the Major Economies Forum tomorrow. There Obama will chair a difficult meeting in which he will attempt to reverse China and India’s longstanding opposition to adopting quantitative emissions targets.
By Ruth Brandt, Niel Bowerman and Marie Karaisl
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