Communicating climate change:

challenges and opportunities

Dr Saffron O’Neill

University of Exeter

Climate Knowledge Exchange Network, 27th June 2012

Key message 1

Diverse forms of engagement

•‘Public engagement’ can (and should) be

manifested in multiple forms

•Individuals as consumers of goods/services

•Mitigation (which energy tariff? What

about food miles? Which transport

option? What about offsetting?)

•Adaptation (decision to live in flood-

prone area, the installation of a

rainwater tank)

•Individuals as political citizens (voting, social

change, community groups, public protest)

Whitmarsh et al. (2010)

Key message 2

Multiple motivations, and barriers, to engagement

•Some people reduce their emissions explicitly

because they are concerned about climate

change

•But far more do so for (many) proximal, personal

and social reasons (convenience, save money,

improve health, community spirit)

•Barriers to engagement:

• individual level: e.g. lack of knowledge of

most effective action, psychological biases

in decision making, lack of skills(e.g. carbon

budgeting)

•Social, institutional and structural levels: e.g.

lack of prior experience of civic/community

engagement, lack of political efficacy,

social norms to consume, structural barriers

(e.g. distance from home to workplace)Whitmarsh et al. (2010)

Key message 3

Diverse methods/facilitators/scales of engagement

•Each diverse method is important (mass media, ‘smart meters’,

‘eco-teams’, eco-renovation days, new media)

•Multi-method, multi-stakeholder model enables engagement to

take place across different temporal and spatial scales - different

organizations can offer distinct capabilities for engagement

•Challenge to ensure engagement is consistent rather than

piecemeal (compare airport expansion, low-cost flights,

popularity and normalization of air travel against mitigation aims)

Whitmarsh et al. (2010)

Key message 4

Messages for engagement

•Tailored messages (and methods) which reflect:

•Values and concerns (e.g. environmental,

social, health, financial)

•Identities and roles (consumer, citizen,

community member)

•The local context (opportunities, barriers, norms)

•But general lessons:

•Caution in using fear

•Co-benefits from responding to climate

change – highlight real, positive and

inspirational stories

•Use trusted sources of information

Whitmarsh et al. (2010)

Debate 1: Should we scare people into action?

Dramatic, sensational, fearful, and shocking campaigns can capture

attention – but how effective are fear appeals at meaningfully

engaging people?

Debate 1: Should we scare people into action?

•Q-methodology – ranking images of scales of saliency

(importance) and efficacy (ability to do anything about it)

O’Neill and Nicholson-Cole (2009)

Debate 1: Should we scare people into action?

Qualitative results from interviews/workshop:

•Difficult to sustain fearful emotions long term (but climate change is

inherently a long term issue)

•Individuals become desensitised (‘finite pool of worry’)

•Fear appeals can damage trust in the communicator

•Fear messages can produce unintended (including maladaptive)

responses

Fear is generally ineffective for motivating genuine engagement

(especially if the audience feel no agency).

Be honest and forthright about probable impacts of climate change,

and the scale of the issue…

but (generally) avoid deliberate attempts to provoke fear.

O’Neill and Nicholson-Cole (2009)

Debate 2: Do we need more information?

Whitmarsh & O’Neill (2010)

It’s intuitive that more knowledge leads to ‘better’ decisions. But other

factors (social norms, habits…) can get in the way of the ‘rational man’.

Debate 2: Do we need more information?

• To take action, people need to care, be

motivated, and be enabled

• Target information - piggyback with other

issues like health or community spirit; or use

climate icons (O’Neill & Hulme, 2009)

• Habits are hard to break; but a break in

context (going to university, buying a house,

changing job, starting a family, retiring...)

can represent opportunities for change (Verplanken, 2011)

More (general) information about climate (science) is not

enough to engender change.

Specific, targeted information can be useful.

Debate 3: Do images matter?

Australian climate change scientists receive death threats as debate heats up Daily Telegraph, 10th June 2011

Australian climate scientists receive death threats Guardian, 6th June 2011

ANU climate scientists cop death threats Herald Sun, 11th June 2011

Calls to calm a climate of fear Australian, 7th June 2011

Images are key tools in ‘framing’ the climate change debate.

…one story, four different framings:

Results: Image theme coverage by newspaperDebate 3: Do images matter?

O’Neill (in review)

bar graph: climate imagery by newspaper

Debate 3: Do images matter?

O’Neill (in review)

bar graphs: climate imagery by newspaper ownership

Most disagree Undecided or ambivalent Most agree

Debate 3: Do images matter?

Sort A: ‘This picture makes

me feel climate change is

important’ (UK results)O’Neill et al. (in review)

Debate 3: Do images matter?

Most disagree Undecided or ambivalent Most agree

Sort B: ‘This picture makes me

feel that I can do something

about climate change’ (UK)

O’Neill et al. (in review)

Debate 3: Do images matter?

• climate change is often illustrated as a political, contested and distant

issue in international mass media

• discourse around climate imagery appears remarkably consistent:

• images of politicians and celebrities strongly undermine saliency

• imagery of climate impacts promotes feelings of salience, but

undermines self-efficacy

• imagery of energy futures promotes self-efficacy

There are dominant ways of visually representing climate change; and these have a discernible influence on engagement

References

O’Neill, S. (in review) Image matters: climate change imagery in the US, UK and Australian mass

media.

O’Neill, S., Boykoff, M., Day, S. & Niemeyer, S. (in review) On the use of imagery for climate

change engagement.

O’Neill, S. & Hulme, M. (2009) An iconic approach for representing climate change. Global

Environmental Change 19, 402-410

O’Neill, S. & Nicholson-Cole, S. (2009) Fear won't do it: promoting positive engagement with

climate change through imagery and icons. Science Communication 30: 355-379

Verplanken, B., 2010. Old habits and new routes to sustainable behaviour. In: Whitmarsh, L.,

O'Neill, S. and Lorenzoni, I. (eds.) Engaging the Public with Climate Change. London:

Earthscan, pp. 17-30

Whitmarsh, L., O’Neill, S. & Lorenzoni, I. (2010) Engaging the public with climate change:

Communication and behaviour change. London: Earthscan

Whitmarsh, L. & O'Neill S. (2010) Green identity, green living? The role of pro-environmental self-

identity in determining consistency across diverse pro-environmental behaviours. Journal

of Environmental Psychology 30: 305–314