Addressing the Challenges in Communicating Climate Change Across Various Audiences

There is a consensus about the need to foster information and communication on matters related to climate change. Yet, realising the goal of informing people and passing across climate change messages are difficult tasks, exacerbated by the fact that different audiences have different requirements. Based on the need to shed light into this problem, this paper outlines some of the challenges seen when communicating climate change across audiences. It also suggests some measures which may be helpful in reaching different groups, so as to meet their specific information needs.

Climate change engagement presents a number of challenges to museums, which tend to be most comfortable in dealing with the topics in which they are expert, and focus on presenting information. This chapter will explore some of the challenges and ‘letting go’ that could help museums reposition themselves to engage people more constructively with climate change and related issues, to embrace a more future-focused frame, and to focus more effectively on the connection between thinking–feeling–doing, and on inspiration, in order to encourage, inspire and realize positive futures. More generally, it will explore how museums could work to develop a more positive and inclusive vision of the future, as an alternative, rather than an antidote, to that presented in mass media, and to work with people at local and global levels to create and enact that narrative. The chapter proposes a set of 15 ‘shoulds’ for museums, to help global museums of any scale or subject to support climate action constructively.

This study examines how numerical misinformation in the news can lead to a bias in readers’ own judgment on climate change issues after a retraction. Building on theories of the continued influence effect and anchoring, the experimental research investigates the link between inaccurate facts, biased estimations, and the evaluation of climate change policies and risks. The results indicate that presenting participants with a low number on the carbon footprint of commuting traffic induces a bias into their own estimated values. This effect appears regardless of the participants’ level of issue involvement. However, the study finds no subsequent effect of this bias on participants’ policy support or perceived threat of climate change. The results are discussed in light of anchoring and misinformation theories. The paper proposes media literacy as a fruitful avenue to a more accurate understanding of climate change in view of a factually flawed representation of climate change in the news.

The general public expects relevant, comprehensible and acceptable communication on climate change. Many efforts have been, and are still, being made to make the message clear and comprehensible. This paper focuses on the acceptability of the message by the receiver, to move from awareness of climate change to concrete action, which is seldom discussed in the literature. In order to make a climate change communication assessment, we choose to take as reference the Prochaska’s behavioural stage of change model. Our analysis suggests that taking into account emotions and cognition mechanisms is needed in order to accompany people to better process the information and integrate it to move toward action. This paper highlights different commonly used communication practices and the underlying brain mechanisms involved in each one. A better understanding of those mechanisms should help to improve the message’s receivability in communication about climate change. In turn, it will help to move from individuals knowledge into concrete action. By this way, we hope to provide inspiration to communicators in order to better accompany people in their process from awareness to action.

The climate change awareness of teenagers, as the leading generation for future development affects how societies will be able to cope with climate change. Especially teenagers’ concerns about climate change and their willingness to act in a climate-friendly manner are factors climate change communication has to address. This study investigates why teenagers do not feel concerned about climate change or are not willing to act in a climate-friendly manner in order to identify strategies regarding how to strengthen these aspects in target group-oriented climate change communication formats. Using a mixed-method approach, a quantitative analysis of questionnaires answered by 760 13–16-year old teenagers was validated by a qualitative analysis of interviews with selected respondents. The findings suggest that those teenagers who are not concerned about climate change believe that climate change will happen only in the future. Furthermore, they do not recognize the interconnections or feedbacks regarding climate change between the components of the global system. The group of teenagers who are not willing to act question their own impact and ability to influence the effects of climate change. The findings are discussed, in order to identify implications for climate change communication tailored to the needs of the target group.

Climate change is a global phenomenon that affects everyone. It is a development issue (World Bank in World development report and climate change. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 2010) that has to be understood in order to be addressed more collectively and comprehensively. There have been numerous studies on the role of governments in climate change mitigation and adaptation. This is because as duty bearers, governments are expected to orchestrate initiatives to address environmental, economic, social and other vulnerabilities of countries. Studies concerning the role of the private sector in climate change are however few. Thus, under the framework of collaborative governance (Ansell and Gash in J Public Adm Res Theor 18:543–571, 2008) where each sector of the society has a role to play, this paper focuses on the roles played by the private sector in addressing the risks and vulnerabilities brought about by climate change. In so doing, it hopes to contribute to the understanding of private sector engagement in climate change beyond awareness raising. Being mainly a desk review of secondary materials and existing studies on the topic at hand, it argues that the private sector in the Philippines has embraced the issue of climate change and has been doing all it can to help address this development concern. It also looks at some of the messages, e.g., the risks of climate change, support needed for climate change solutions, and some climate change issues and concerns, selected business companies have been communicating to the public to understand the content as well as the underpinning philosophy of why private sector initiates activities for climate change.

As the importance of climate change mitigation and adaptation increases, tools to assist these ranging from training materials, awareness raising event models to company level cooperation tools are being introduced to various stakeholders. These tools can only be effective by extensive utilisation throughout the globe which requires the communication and awareness raising on climate change. The actual implementation and impact assessment of these tools need to be further investigated. Opportunities and barriers for the use of such tools and whether climate change communication is an enhancing or hindering effect is very important in this investigation. As an example for such a tool, an industrial symbiosis model where an unorthodox regional approach is taken rather than close proximity cooperating companies, has been implemented in the Western Black Sea Region countries. The results of the study include three major barriers; namely, lack of regional policy and relevant legislation, trust among companies and a common working language in the region. The effects of other barriers and possible opportunities that would hinder these barriers are discussed in this study including the lack of regional policies on climate change based on one-to-one interviews with selected company representatives in the region. The lessons learned are significant for similar regional exemplary tools of sustainable development and climate change mitigation practices.

Extreme weather events, like Hurricane Maria or floods in South Asia, are projecting the impacts of climate change ever more frequently into public consciousness. However, such events with their dramatic imagery risk triggering harmful reactions and behaviors that ultimately make it more difficult to motivate meaningful responses to the climate crisis. Instead of framing extreme events as validations of previous warnings (“We told you so”) or harbingers of the future (“It’ll be worse next time”), climate change professionals should communicate extreme events as one facet of a balanced choice, with a positive upside, that stakeholders can coalesce behind. Extreme events should be part of a broader context that emphasizes positive results rather than simply avoidance of harm or mitigation of its effects. An increasing trend in literature on climate change communication indicates that positive, forward-thinking messaging is the path to motivate effective action. Communication around extreme events, however, is uniquely susceptible to reinforcing unhelpful narratives of climate change catastrophe. This paper will help communicators get their messages across while avoiding these traps. This paper hopes to inform the field of climate change by highlighting the importance and the great potential contribution of a significant strategic shift in communication strategy.

Public perception of the magnitude of challenges associated with climate change is still lower than that of the majority of scientists. The societal relevance of climate change has raised the need for a more direct communication between scientists and the public. However, peer-reviewed scientific articles are not well-suited to engaging a wider audience. This begets a need to explore other avenues for communicating climate change. Social media is a vibrant source for information exchange among the masses. Blogs in particular are a promising tool for disseminating complex findings on topics such as climate change, as they are easier to comprehend and are targeted at a broader audience compared to scientific publications. This chapter discusses the usefulness of blogs in communicating climate change, using our blog Climate Footnotes ( climatefootnotes.com ) as a case study. Drawing from communication theory and our experiences with Climate Footnotes, we identify and describe elements such as message framing, translation of scientific data, role of language, and interactivity in aiding climate change communication. The insights outlined herein help understand the nature and impact of online climate change communication. The chapter may also serve as a useful blueprint for scientists interested in utilizing blogs to communicate climate change.

When museums and communities collaborate on fostering public engagement in climate change the results are powerful. Coming together around collections, co-producing and sharing knowledge, and creating outreach programs, members of specific cultural or interest groups can catalyze changes in perceptions within broad audiences. Museums are now considering the human and cultural dimensions of climate change more fully than in previous, more science-focused, phases. Museums have been gradually exploring more imaginative ways to captivate audiences and communicate views from people on the “front line”. This paper employs views from inside two particular institutions and their relationships with Pacific Islanders to explore the dynamics and challenges of collaborating creatively and effectively around climate change communication.

Concerning the social acceptance and realization of adaptation strategies, a raising awareness on the impacts of climate change among the population is indispensable, especially among young people as future decision makers. In this context, the article presents the structure and implementation of the environmental education project “Klimawandel findet Stadt” (Climate changeS cities), carried out in cooperation between the universities of Bochum, Heidelberg and Trier. The project shall facilitate the development of students’ evaluation and action competencies with regard to climate change consequences and sustainable adaptation strategies by using a new educational concept of climate change communication. It implies the design of learning modules with an emphasis on health and risk prevention, urban climate and planning, and urban ecology and biodiversity. External stakeholders, e.g. biological stations, environmental departments and municipal offices, are involved in the planning and implementation of the above mentioned modules leading to an enhanced cross-sectoral cooperation of institutions. The methodical approach of the project is based on the dialectical intertwining of a three-step approach of spheres, namely observation sphere, laboratory sphere and sphere of action. In the spheres, students are confronted cognitively and affectively with climate change. Thereby, students shall be enabled and motivated to understand, evaluate and communicate climate adaptation strategies. As the concept is so far only normatively justified, there is need for empirical evidence of its effectiveness. In order to address this need, three efficacy studies are designed. If the methodical-didactical concept proves to be efficient, it could be implemented as a new form of climate change communication in educational institutions.

The Philippine Climate Change Act of 2009 (RA 9729) mandates the integration of climate change in school curricula, and in capacity building, research and extension programs. Encouraged by the desire to know the policies and strategies that academic institutions are taking to address climate issues, this research seeks to examine efforts of universities in integrating climate change issues in academic endeavors and the extent to which these are sustained or institutionalized. The experiences of 10 universities covered in the study show that efforts have to be well coordinated, require a mandate at the highest level, partnerships can boost efforts, and success requires the participation of many disciplines and sectors. Some universities are more deeply involved than the others, but otherwise each has its own unique strategies to sustain decisions. The universities studied have developed their respective academic area of expertise to serve the knowledge and skills needs of the community and region where they operate. The paper hopes to contribute to a greater understanding of institutionalizing climate action by putting together information on climate change-related degree programs and initiatives of HEIs.

The protection and conservation of cultural heritage is important for our society, not only in order to preserve cultural identity, but also because it acts as a wealth creator, bringing tourism-related opportunities on which many communities depend. However, Europe’s heritage assets are highly exposed to extreme weather events and natural hazards, which may be exacerbated as a result of climate change. The goal of the STORM (Safeguarding Cultural Heritage through Technical and Organisational Resources Management) project is to provide critical decision-making as well as technical tools to multiple sectors and stakeholders engaged in the protection of cultural heritage from extreme events and climate change. Here, the STORM framework will be presented, focusing on the communication of extreme events and climate change information through the risk assessment procedure, which serves as an important basis of the decision-making tools. Using the climate change communication methodology outlined here, the effect of climate change on cultural heritage specific natural hazards can be quantified and subsequently used in the risk assessment procedure, hereby resulting in an increased understanding of climate change risks on cultural heritage. In addition, STORM-developed technical solutions that aid information transfer during and after extreme events will be highlighted.

Kenya’s Climate Change Act 2016, obligates national and sub-national governments to mainstream climate change responses into development planning, decision-making and implementation. To enhance the capacity of the public service to comprehensively address climate change challenges, the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources and relevant stakeholders developed a training program on “Climate Change Policy, Planning and Budgeting at National and County Level”. The program targets middle level managers and technical government officers involved in policy formulation, planning, budgeting and implementation of programs in sectors vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The paper presents the design and development process of the training program which was an iterative, multi-stakeholder consultative process. This includes the development of the curriculum and training manual and describes the inaugural training program where twenty seven national and sub-national government officers were successfully trained. The training program enhanced the capacities of national and sub-national government officers to understand climate change, its impacts and response actions and will enable them support planning and decision making for climate change response actions. This will form a significant contribution towards implementation of the Climate Change Act (2016) and Kenya’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). Experiences and lessons learnt will inform efforts to develop similar targeted climate change training program and contribute to capacity building efforts to improve climate change response.

In a context in which national and international policy-making have been inadequate and insufficient for dealing with climate change, more recently courts have become a critical forum in which the climate crisis and the consequences of inaction are under debate. Climate change litigation (CCL) is emerging as a valuable strategy to hold governments and private entities accountable for their lack of action and to advance policy and regulation in both, mitigation and adaptation. In addition, CCL also appears to be a powerful tool for communicating the urgency of climate change. Win or lose, climate-related cases can help to promote a better understanding of climate change, raise awareness and enhance dialogue and public engagement in the debate over the actions needed to confront the challenges linked to it. Against the backdrop of the climate change communication discourse, this paper explores how CCL assists in communicating climate change issues. By looking at the experience of some of the most significant climate-related cases that have set important precedents in recent years, this paper highlights that CCL contributes to the public understanding of the causes, risks and consequences of climate change, as well as the adaptation needs, by bringing its realities closer to people—within and outside courtrooms—and by presenting complex related issues in a clear and easy-to-understand manner. Thus, as climate-related cases are reported in a variety of sources gaining national and international attention, they help to increase the public’s understanding of climate issues, raise public and politic awareness and inspire action.

While theater cannot prevent climate change, it can engage with conveying knowledge and attitudes. This paper does not measure the impact of specific theater performances on test participants. It rather analyzes which artistic methods the authors of a specific corpus of texts use in order to communicate climate change. In this sense, this paper is not concerned with pragmatic suggestions regarding climate change per se; instead, the focus is on communicating climate change through theater. Integrating climate-change science into theatrical performances generates aesthetic challenges: how can dramatists represent a long-term global phenomenon within the spatiotemporal limits of a performance? How can drama convey scientifically sound information along with captivating characters and plots? How can performances elicit more nuanced viewer responses than panic in the face of impending disaster or apathy based on lacking concern? Taking transnational American Studies and postcolonial literary theory as points of departure, this paper will discuss English-language theatrical works linked to Climate Change Theatre Action (CCTA), an initiative originally launched by artists in the United States and Canada to publicize the 2015 Paris Climate Conference (COP21) and designed to occur every other year. This activism-oriented project translates issues related to global climate change into a transnational theater practice that experiments with innovative drama aesthetics and that fosters communication across boundaries between theater professionals and amateurs, climate-change specialists and the scientifically untrained general public as well as local action and international orientation. Despite continuing notions that science represents rational thinking whereas artistic depictions express or arouse predominantly fearful emotions, this body of very short performances and the online forum in which some of the same theater practitioners exchange ideas and experiences offer working models for effective collaboration that may support widespread activism.

Living in the era of technology and information, mobile devices, such as mobile phones, laptops, personal digital assistants (PDAs), tablet PCs, are becoming gradually popular and connected with people’s daily lives. The conjunction of the intensification of online technologies and rising public awareness of the changing climate provides numerous opportunities and challenges for climate-change communication. This research concerns the establishment of an environmentally oriented application for mobile phones, focused on climate change, with the intention of raising the knowledge and altering the attitude and behavior towards this crucial environmental issue, based on internet support. The significance of the environmental problem at stake, classifies it as one that mandates immediate awareness. This paper contributes to Climate Change Communication by explaining the use of technological tools, as applications, that are youth friendly and fast, increasing quite effectively environmental awareness.

In Greece, the port of Skyros Island, Linaria, is a small multi-awarded public port. United Nations has characterized it as the “blue port with a shade of green”, because Skyros Port Fund has adopted an environmentally sustainable agenda and has invested in innovations that make this port unique for its tourism and environmental high-end consideration. What has truly escalated the Linaria Port’s global reputation is the highly spoken cooperation of the Port Authority of Skyros with the University of the Aegean’s Department of Environment. The name of the above mentioned, academic collaboration is “SKYROS Project” and it has been in effect since 2015, mostly focusing on environmental campaigns that stimulate climate change awareness for locals and visitors. The SKYROS Project is generating data that are collected through the Tourist Observatory and Maritime Observatory that have been established at the Port. Furthermore a Guests’ Book records the comments visitors make. As a result a holistic picture of the environmental and tourism consequences and/or good practices is gathered on yearly basis. In an effort to interpret what should the next step be in the environmental awareness arena, the idea of an environmental camp for children came up. This study outlines how the SKYROS project has launched a national campaign teaching others how to implement climate change awareness through children’s camps in various geographic locations.

The German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) has reasoned that climate change, resource scarcity and radical social change have been increasingly transforming the economies, lifestyles and communities work. Sustainable development has emerged as a way of shaping a new future, where environmental, social and economic structures are perceived as interconnected. Advancement in all three areas is needed to achieve a sustainable future. The Eco-Village movement has been pioneering into promoting sustainable development, by ways of bringing people together to create intentional communities where sustainability in all three areas constitutes their main drive and objective. Eco-Villages have been rather uncharted territory for academic research. There are though successful examples that have pioneered in communicating environmental issues and have disseminated knowledge towards local municipalities, whilst achieving their goals on sustainability. The object of this paper is to create a tool for evaluating the sustainability discourse of Eco-Villages by means of identifying emerging concepts, common patterns and occurring sustainability themes amongst them, while taking into account their individual characteristics, similarities and differences.

This study attempted to demonstrate the extent at which the combination of a lecture given to the students, in order to educate them in difficult climate change concepts and a digital storytelling (DST) intervention tool named Pixton, were effective in teaching climate change science. The sample of the research consisted of 459 students in the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th grades of school in Athens, during the course of Computer Science. The study assessed the rate of knowledge change, attitude and willingness to change behavior too, driven by pre-post questionnaires, which were given both at the start and at the end of the implementation. The questionnaires are differentiated only in the four questions concerning willingness to change behavior. Initially, the related work on the use of DST, the contribution of learner-generated comics and the use of the specific tool of Pixton, were discussed. The key implication of the findings is that information from climate change lectures is obtained with the aid of DST. The latter is a great tool for teaching climate change issues and influences to some extent even the willingness to change in the future. Concerning the results, it is assumed that students cooperate more when learning is administered in a pleasant and interactive way. Success seems to take part due to the fact that students are given the possibility to be part of a learning experience creating their own content. Finally, the paper concludes with future guidelines in the field of other environmental issues such as recycling-reusing and energy.

The urgent need to inform the general public about climate change is evident. Typically, this is done with the aid of visual and textual interpretations of findings of climate research. Other modes of perception might attract more attention. Sonification is a relatively new means of perceptualizing data by translating it into sound. This paper describes the Klima|Anlage, a walk-in sound installation “performing climate data”. The climate data for this purpose were obtained from a global climate modeling experiment providing climate projections for the latest assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Climate data from 1950 to 2100 can be chosen interactively by the listener for twelve selected regions of the world. The installation is based on four sound generators: a drip device with controlled drip rate for precipitation data, a record player with marble disks for wind data, a tetrachord instrument that is excited by radiation data, and three thunder sheets that play air temperature data. In addition, purely electronic sounds convey data of the global greenhouse gas concentrations. The Klima|Anlage has been exhibited at several locations since 2015, and excerpts of the sound recordings have been broadcast on Deutschlandradio, a German radio station. Sound and video examples may be accessed at http://klima-anlage.org/ and as supplementary material to this paper (http://doi.org/10.4119/unibi/2914786). This paper contributes to a greater understanding of how to communicate complex scientific data to the public, using innovative communication channels. Conclusions on the design of the Klima|Anlage can be generalized to other sound installations at the border of science and media arts.

In the field of environmental communication, short and memorable phrases are often used to convey a message, either in the form of assertive commands or in suggestions. In this article, we are discussing the effects that a video can cause on the willingness of the subjects to adopt proenvironmental behaviors, as well as the effects of assertive and non-assertive slogans on motivation in this area. The sample of the research consisted of 103 students studying in the School of Environment at the University of the Aegean. The results were calculated by measuring how each student perceives the importance of his/her actions related to environmental protection, by answering a questionnaire about their daily habbits; how they contribute to climate change and whether they are willing to change their behavior, before and after viewing an educational video about climate change. The video used was the winner of the Film4Climate competition of 2016. After the video, the subjects were asked to answer again knowledge and attitude questions to measure the changes that occured. Then, they were asked to choose 1 out of 3 possible options regarding the type of a slogan for the video. The first slogan was assertive, the second was non assertive and the third option stated that the language form is irrelevant/the video alone would suffice. The key implication of the findings is that the video use is a great tool for environmental communication since it affects not only the knowledge of the subjects, but also their possible intentions to change their behavior too. The video has an effect on both knowledge, but also a large effect in their intentions to partake in environmental decision making. It was also observed that women were influenced more than men. The present research confirms the existing research and emphasizes the use of media on environmental education and communication.

World society and decision makers are running out of time to implement measures on climate change mitigation and adaptation. Incomplete knowledge and vast challenges in communicating climate change are crucial factors in this problem. In order to increase people’s awareness of their role in climate change, highly specific communication strategies are necessary. Besides insufficient information on group-specific realities of life, existing strategies are often limited by the absence of quantitative data that could give decision makers the opportunity to estimate the potential and evaluate the success of communication measures. In order to meet these requirements, energy use and corresponding emissions must be analysed in relation to behavioural patterns and technology choices of relevant social groups. This perspective leads to a more detailed understanding of how energy use and the responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions are distributed within society. This paper presents an interdisciplinary approach for providing the required knowledge within a single research process and describes its most relevant features as compared to previous methods. We describe the empirical development of an impact based “Energy Lifestyle” typology for the Austrian society and describe the six identified groups in detail with special focus on the challenges that might evolve in group specific communication. Thereafter, we set the six Energy Lifestyles in context with the name-giving concept “Paris Lifestyle” and discuss its role for evaluating the succession towards the goals set out in the Paris Agreement.

Incorporating climate change (CC) impacts and adaptation into planning and development of large-scale infrastructure projects is facilitated by a wide range of international and national guidance material, but is still a challenge, as several studies point out. A number of guidance documents and studies show that Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) could provide a good entry point for incorporating considerations of CC impacts and adaptation into project planning. This paper presents results of a research project aimed at developing recommendations for mainstreaming CC into EIA. Multiple levels of “knowledge brokerage” were undertaken in an actors-based participatory approach. The different formats, which all ensured diverse levels of interaction (knowledge brokerage), proved to be beneficial both regarding the exchange of know-how as well as raising awareness for the consideration of CC in EIA. This paper discusses benefits of knowledge brokerage processes as well as limitations to the mainstreaming of CC in project planning.

Associated with climate change, it is necessary to enable young people to develop adaption strategies and assess impacts on ecosystems and agriculture. This requires an education based on skills rather than pure knowledge. Particularly motivational aspects can be an impulse for future active and responsible decision-making. Thus, primary experiences and problem-oriented learning in extracurricular activities could enforce commitment and readiness for action. Working with living plants and discovering their adaption strategies towards harsh climatic conditions strives for a fundamental understanding of the evolutionary processes that have led to these strategies. This deeper understanding implies also to think about the long period of time needed for the plants to develop genetically fixed adaption methods. This paper describes the development of an action-oriented and problem-based interdisciplinary learning environment for senior grade students in a botanical garden using digital media. Along 16 interactive stations, students can discover adaption strategies of various plants towards climatic conditions with regard to their morphology or physiology. Multimedia learning materials explaining climatic factors in the polar, temperate, subtropical and tropical climatic zone are provided by a web-application, which has been designed for this particular setting. Guided by tablet PCs, the students discover limiting factors like frost, high temperature and insolation, water shortage and snow cover in the various glasshouses autonomously in partner work. Using scientific methods like observing and describing morphological characteristics, they generate hypotheses at first. The web-app offers climate diagrams, maps and information as text or video to come to a solution. Hands-on stations with experiments will help to explain physiological adaption strategies of the plants.

There are 35,000 museums and historic sites, estimated, in the United States, contributing $50 billion in USD to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), including $6 billion USD to trade, transportation, and utilities. Every year people make 850 million visits to museums. If the sector were to track its GHG emissions it could no longer ignore its direct impact on climate change. How can we determine, and can we reduce, the sector’s impact on climate through GHG emissions from energy use? What will mobilize museums to use their valuable relationship with the public to foster climate awareness in ways that lead to broader individual action and support for policies engendering positive climate impacts? This paper examines the slow process of building environmentally-sustainable practice in the museum field in the United States, explains existing programs for monitoring GHG emissions, and identifies how the future of sustainable and resilience action lies with collaboration and cross-institutional movements. It explores the roles of supporting, cross-institutional approaches such as Keeping History Above Water, #NotAnAlternative, and #MuseumsforParis, and cross-sector approaches of #WeAreStillIn. It concludes that, based on field-wide Summits, the success of other standards, and the growth of hashtags as social evidence of a movement, the field can no longer avoid its responsibility to climate. The changes the human world needs most are all related to our changing climate. If humans address the causes and opportunities of that changing climate, we can build a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. Museums have limitless value in building that world.

In this paper, the author proposes that the climate emergency makes it imperative that museum teams should do more frequent and rigorous work of imagining the future. The context of climate change, and disinformation about it, are outlined in order to underline the urgency of this ethical and practical imperative. Envisaging future scenarios in both imaginative and evidenced ways, and then planning for adaptation according to what is imagined, could be called ‘anticipatory work’. Museums should embrace this work because of their trusted role and their duty to preserve heritage into posterity. A museum committed to anticipatory work could be defined as a ‘Possible Museum’, or, one which serves the public by contributing to the possible continuation of biodiverse and civilised life. The future Possible Museum will take an ethical path, validating indigenous voices and proactively engaging communities to shift towards more regenerative lifeways. As the author is a consultant responding to needs of organisations through tendered contracts, she has been unable to carry out controlled academic studies. As such, this is a propositional paper drawing on 15 years of engaged reflection on culture and climate change, and on her promotion of ecologically-informed anticipatory work, in particular Scenario Planning, which she describes in detail. The author has researched to discover the current extent of anticipatory work in museums, internationally. While Scenario Planning is common across other sectors, the author has found little evidence of its use by museums. That said, she found that museums are beginning to anticipate futures in various other ways that are public-facing, rooted in places, imaginative and optimistic. McKenzie concludes that these examples, and initiatives such as the Happy Museums Project and growing awareness of Ecomuseums, increase the likelihood of more rigorous anticipatory work being done in future.

Climate change no longer constitutes a prediction for the future but it is already occurring. For this reason what is necessary is both the adaptation of citizens to new changes as well as action by the scientific community and by the bodies involved in the fight against climate change. Thus, the bodies will need to organize and undertake effective action which will encourage citizens to participate in such actions in order to adapt to future impacts. The aims of this research are, on the one hand, the investigation of the characteristics which influence participation in activities and, on the other hand, the discovery of specific characteristics with regard to citizen preferences. In order to achieve its aims this research used a structured questionnaire and 1536 questionnaires were collected from January 2014 to June 2015. The main results include that younger citizens greatly trust scientists, show great willingness for voluntary action and get their information on climate change through documentaries. Also, those with higher educational level trust the actions of non-governmental bodies while middle aged citizens and secondary education graduates trust the actions of governmental bodies while older citizens prefer activities for the reduction of pollutants.

Museum of Water invites people to gather water: any water in any bottle, encouraging people to look closely at this extraordinary substance and detail the way it impacts on their life. It is both live artwork and museum, a chorus of voices from all ages, races and social backgrounds, influenced by each donor, changing shape with each new gift and comment. This is a museum that remembers your words; it moves beyond treating people as visitors or audience, instead making everyone donor, curator, protagonist and custodian. It seeks to engender a new relationship between people and the world, a responsibility for care, fostering the role of custodian in each of us. Museum of Water began in 2013 and has travelled to 50 sites worldwide, been visited by over 60,000 people, and was nominated for European Museum of the Year 2016. It has used its work to curate wide, cross-cultural programmes to explore questions of water, migration, fear, climate change and urbanisation through science, literature, ecology and anthropology, music and play. Water is the most important substance for human life, and is the substance at the front line of Climate Change. Questions of access, ownership and care will define the coming century: this Museum and its programmes help to equip people to play an active role in the situations and debates to come. This paper details the work of this unusual museum, exploring its spectacular public engagement and the radical challenge it presents to previous systems of collecting and to traditional processes and economies, how it treasures a substance and experience that we cannot hold onto, the process of evaporation itself. Museum of Water is an act of witness, providing a platform for different voices, and an instigating force for future care. This paper will look at the different systems and ways of listening it promotes, supporting responsibility and bravery for the coming century: how to look more closely and not look away.

The aim of this paper is to identify groups of citizens and their characteristics so that effective climate change communication strategies can be designed. The research was carried out from January 2014 to June 2015, 1536 questionnaires were completed which were evaluated on the basis of the co-efficient α-Cronbach, descriptive statistics, Friedman’s non-parametric criterion, factor analysis and cluster analysis. The research showed that Greek citizens think that the most important concerned parties for taking action against climate change are environmental organizations, scientists and local citizen environmental groups. In addition, two groups of citizens were identified. In the first group belong mostly citizens aged 31–40 and less citizens aged 41–50, married, mainly graduates of secondary and tertiary education, most are public servants or unemployed and satisfied from governmental activities regarding municipal projects concerning adaptation, energy saving and lifelong learning. In the second group of citizens also belong young to middle age citizens, unmarried, who mainly work in the public and private sector, who are satisfied both from the activities of non-governmental concerned parties as well as governmental activities regarding adaptation to extreme environmental phenomena, mitigation and waste management.

Ten years ago the Science Museum commissioned research in advance of the development of its new climate science gallery, finding that ‘museums are high on the trust scale, but currently have a low profile in the climate change debate.’ A decade later new research is needed into the role that museums can and should play in exploring the impacts of climate change. With eight diverse museums and a botanic garden, the University of Cambridge Museums are well placed to carry out research with a range of audiences and collections, not only those that are actively engaged with science and the environment. In January 2018 over a three-day ‘climate hack’, teams of climate experts, collections experts, storytellers, makers and hackers produced prototype exhibits that interpreted the links between museum collections, narratives and climate change. The event straddled the different types of collections held at the Museum of Zoology, Whipple Museum of the History of Science, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and the Polar Museum. It explored changes in animal diversity, the long history of scientific investigations, climate refugees and polar tourism. Visitor and participant feedback provides us with useful insights for developing future displays and developing a programme of audience research about how climate change might be interpreted across different types of collection and audience.

Custodians of cultural heritage have begun to employ Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to evaluate the environmental impact of materials and actions that curators, conservators, registrars and art handlers employ. LCA is a popular systems modeling tool useful for quantifying the total resource inputs and environmental burdens of a particular product or process. This paper discusses a US-based, federally-funded project established to create a free online LCA library of materials and methods relevant to preservation of cultural heritage. The project will also produce an LCA beta tool that provides collections care professionals with guidance to achieve sustainable goals through informed choices. The paper reports on two of the three LCAs, both addressing different aspects of maintaining cultural heritage: (1) cleaning methods and their environmental and human health impacts, and (2) cradle-to-gate impact of manufacturing, using and displaying three seventeenth and eighteenth century silver objects. The lists and categories gathered to populate the beta LCA tool are also discussed. The specific scoping and classification challenges that were encountered during the initial project phase are presented, and the methods for fulfilling the grant, the specific LCAs and materials lists are described. The issues learned and information acquired during the project will be useful in defining the terms for the next project phase where the full tool and library are realized. The final project will be freely available to users worldwide, and will support further research in preventive conservation, treatment, and exhibition through conducting material analysis, organizing knowledge and sharing it openly.

Climate change communication tailored to different target groups aims at creating awareness of climate change and willingness to engage in climate change mitigation, adaptation, and transformation, thus fostering a development towards a low-carbon society. As there is a long way to reach these goals, the question remains how to create effective communication strategies and topics. This paper identifies the status quo of climate change communication including existing challenges by taking the example of Austria. 101 stakeholders from science, civil society, public administration, media, and economy, who are actively communicating climate change, were questioned on their goals, target groups, strategies, and topics of communication. Further, they were asked to assess existing challenges in climate change communication from their experience as communicators. In order to derive recommendations for a practical application, the results were discussed in expert interviews. Recommendations include a stronger institutionalisation of climate change communication as well as target-group-specific communication strategies. The findings presented in this paper contribute to a greater understanding of climate change communication in its practical dimension. They can support stakeholders in applying climate change communication approaches aiming towards sustainable development, by contributing to the implementation of climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies.

With the emergence of Climate Change as a grave issue across the globe, media houses are using the environmental appeal in advertisements frequently and hence the media advertisements are major contributor towards public awareness about the significance of green lifestyle by highlighting aspects of climate change communication. In underdeveloped countries with low literacy rate, environmental appeal in ads is still not very common and the consumers’ awareness about the environmental issues is slim. This study offers a content analysis of advertisements of automobiles and housing schemes appeared in Pakistani Media exploring the frequency and kind of appeals (Green or Non-Green), the style in which they have been appeared and also the depth of green appeal specifically used in these ads during the past one year. Both categories (Automobiles and Housing Schemes) were selected carefully with an understanding that auto industry is a major pollutant and housing schemes are growing on the expense of forests and agricultural land and with the new wave of urbanization in Pakistan both of these sectors are touching new heights of production and expansion. Results offer a depiction of how shallow and deceptive the use of environmental appeal in Pakistani advertisements which resulted in inadequate climate change communication. Also the slender use of climate change communication in ads, when compared to the pressing need of communication about the subject, the results offer nothing as promising. The final outcome is a consumer mind-set who has little or no clue about the grave issue of climate change Pakistan has been facing for years.

Our museums are not only a space for promoting education concerning climate change, but they also must function as the forward-thinking green institutions of the future. Taking measures to educate about climate change is our moral duty, but we must go a step further and set the example by creating and implementing greener business strategies that enable us to operate sustainably, whilst creating and maintaining a dialogue surrounding climate change with our staff and visitors. By following the research and hard work of green museums around the world, much can be learned regarding the most efficient methods for communicating to visitors and delivering the sustainability message of change. We must make haste to combat climate change, not only in our museum narratives, but in our entrepreneurial activities too. This paper challenges the common perception that business development must be compromised in order to pursue greener business strategies for our organisations. By detailing examples of more suitable workspaces, the importance of green policies and practices, better communication strategies, and energy-saving installations, materials and technology, this paper will provide the tools for museums to adapt their management approach in order to pursue an energy efficient, greener and more cost-effective future.

This paper examines the content and responses to an art installation addressing climate change in the Pacific, collected at the Adapt and Survive exhibition held at the University of the South Pacific Oceania Centre Gallery in 2014. The artist statement on the exhibition emphasised that it sought to explore the causes and effects of climate change, and to raise awareness of its wider impacts for cultural loss and societal change. As well as conducting a series of interviews with the artist, visitors to the exhibition were invited to complete a short survey concerning their thoughts about climate change and reactions to the exhibition, both before and after they viewed the artworks. The artist’s perspectives emphasised the significance of climate change for the region, in the context of traditional responses to environmental problems. The audience survey results suggest that there were high levels of agreement among visitors that the place where they live is being affected by climate change. While emphasising both negative and positive emotional reactions to the artworks, people for the most part expressed confidence and hope that climate change can be effectively addressed, although there was uncertainty on whether or not Pacific islands had the resources to do so. Our study is limited by the small sample size available, but points to directions for future research in this under-developed field.

In many countries of the world the dream of achieving education, free and compulsory for all, remains elusive for large parts of the population. Bangladesh is a case in point. Drawing on field research conducted in Bangladesh in 2008, 2011 and 2012, including in conjunction with the international development organisation World Vision, this chapter discusses some of the linkages between education, extreme levels of poverty, forced human migration, environmental change, and disaster readiness. The study identifies protracted poverty as the predominant impediment to schooling in Bangladesh. It extends previous research by expressly inviting the participation of respondents in coastal villages in the Bhola and Satkhira districts, as well as in urban slum communities in the country’s two largest cities Dhaka and Chittagong. The findings show that severe poverty forces school age children to work in low-paid jobs as garbage collectors, recyclers, domestic workers, servants, street vendors, hotel boys, burden bearers, couriers, etc., thereby thwarting their education and perpetuating the cycle of poverty. The research recommends a holistic portfolio of educational strategies comprising formal, non-formal and informal learning approaches that are integrated at the community level. Multi-stakeholder strategies seem to be best suited to Bangladesh’s dynamic environmental, geodemographic and socioeconomic context. Disaster risk education offers auspicious benefits for resilience and disaster preparedness.

The aim of this chapter is to discuss key findings from the Australian Research Council funded international project, “Hot Science Global Citizens: The Agency of the Museum Sector in Climate Change Interventions” (2008–2012). The project looked to the museum sector—natural history, science museums and science centres—to play a role as resource, catalyst and change agent in climate change debates and decision-making locally and globally. The discussion focuses on a section of the research findings relating to the current and potential roles and agencies of natural history, science museums and science centres in polycentric climate change governing assemblages within Australian and US contexts. Through the analysis, eight strategic positions and role changes emerge for the different forms of the museum with a greater emphasis on collective action, networking and building more critical information on climate change as a complex issue and governing subject alongside activism in community and political contexts. In addition, re-working the relations between nature and culture across museum practice through a series of ecologizing experimentations was identified as a key role change in advancing sustainable practices in the long term.