Handbook of Climate Change Communication: Vol. 1

This paper is based on a study that advances the argument that Africa’s approach to understanding climate change dynamics is compromised by the fact that instead of complementing each other universalistic science and indigenous technical knowledge (ITK) seem to be pulling into diametrical opposite directions. The aim of the paper then is to identify the fissure in communication that arise from these different perspectives and how best the two worldviews may be merged so as to craft the most sustainable solutions for climate change adaptation, mitigation and communication. The paper engages literature review on ITK and universal science and uses case studies from across the region to demonstrate this in the thesis of the paper. Interviews have also been conducted with key informants who include environmentalists and traditional leaders. The problem with gathering information on ITK knowledge is that most of the information is undocumented and in most cases is known by a few people usually the elderly. The results indicate that universalistic science has a tendency to ask for collective action based on regional and global trends to climate change while indigenous technical knowledge begins with an observation that ‘something is wrong somewhere’ but it is the responsibility of the individual to make sure they do the right thing in a bid to achieve environmental harmony. In the latter, there is reference to Spiritism and Nature because the “spirits are angry”. To some extent these beliefs by ITK seem to be well placed with the only problem being that much of the information remains enclosed and unknown to many. Communicating ITK then becomes the way to go considering the potential impacts of such initiatives in the realm of climate change. Yet, in universalistic science such claims are hogwash and absurd. In most cases, in Africa the division is also explained by the generation gap between the youthful and elderly as well as between religious inclinations that different people adhere to. This paper will useful to policy makers, academics and community members so that they all get to accept and appreciate the utility of ITK in climate change communication.

It is a fact that the geographical position of Greece is in the boundaries of three continents. Its complex geological history and its large topographic heterogeneity is characterized by complex terrain, extensive fallow fragmentation, large number of caves, huge coastline and relatively mild human intervention. Due to all of the above Greece is characterized by its great biodiversity. The most serious consequences of climate change can be detected in biological diversity, which can be influenced by a combination of direct effects on organisms. It is a fact that temperature affects the survival rates and the reproductive success. Also there are indirect effects via biotic interactions, like the allocation of the competitive advantage. On the other hand, there are effects in the change of the abiotic parameters (e.g. flooding’s, changes in ocean currents and other). Due to all of the above, Greece serves as a barometer, as firstly the significant increase in temperature and the reduction in rainfall, positions the country in the heart of climate developments. This paper presents a thorough study of the climate change impact on the biodiversity of ecosystems. More specifically, it is presented a spatiotemporal analysis and recording of the invasion of invasive species in the flora and fauna of the Greek territory. Another important aspect of this research is modeling of the future impacts based on the most probable climate change scenarios.

Community-Based Adaptation (CBA) is increasingly recognised as a promising approach for the most vulnerable people to adapt to climate change impacts. However, CBA has conceptual and procedural challenges, e.g., lacking of an established theory. Under this context evaluating the suitability of CBA merits a closer look. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the suitability of CBA to determine the positive and negative factors of it so that the application of CBA can contribute more to build community’s adaptive capacity. A hybrid method Analytical Hierarchy Process in SWOT was applied to derive the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) around CBA, drawing a case study in flood-affected, drought-affected and coastal areas of Bangladesh. Results overwhelmingly explain the presence of strengths and opportunities of CBA to climate impacts, and the low importance of threats and weaknesses around CBA. The study indicates CBA has a lot of potential for building climate resilience and/or adaptive capacity—by building social assets—and fostering transformational adaptation, which requires a meticulous CBA planning for addressing diverse social contexts, the dynamics of vulnerability, and their linkages with socioeconomic processes. Yet, practitioners must find ways to overcoming the challenges through placing communities at the heart of CBA’s planning and implementation, and complementary actions across levels. Concrete policy implications are outlined to enhance the effectiveness of CBA.

This chapter evaluates the role of communication in building support for climate change adaptation through urban spatial planning. We take Durban in South Africa as our case study, a city with significant vulnerability to climate change which is widely regarded as having successfully implemented climate adaptation initiatives through spatial planning, despite a challenging socio-economic context. In particular, we aim to assess the role of communication in initiating and sustaining Durban’s climate adaptation initiatives, and evaluate wider lessons and challenges for the role of communication in climate change action with reference to social theory on science and environmental governance. We pay particular attention to the role of communication at the personal, institutional and municipal scale in eThekwini Municipality’s Municipal Climate Protection Programme, focusing on how framing and argumentation around the role the city’s open space system may support progress towards ecosystem-based adaptation. Drawing on a narrative literature review and associated content analysis of planning documentation and peer-reviewed literature, we argue that climate adaptation initiatives which carry multiple rationales in addition to the scientific basis for action stand the greatest chance of reaching implementation. We argue this is important because: (a) the complexity of governance structures mean many actors with different priorities and value positions must be engaged to enact policy; and (b) the short-term nature of political attention necessitates rationales that sustain their appeal to a broad range of viewpoints over time. We caution, however, that there is a need for ongoing critical reflection as to the grounds on which the ‘success’ of a climate adaptation intervention can be claimed, and that care must be taken to ensure a focus on framing and getting buy-in does not deflect attention away from debating the underlying causes of vulnerability.

Public apathy on the issue of anthropogenic climate change is widespread, with more than half of surveyed Australians in denial that it is happening, and only 46% of Britons agreeing that humans are contributing significantly to the phenomenon. Successful communication of this complex issue is key to engagement, and much existing communication theory focuses on framing, rhetoric, fear and other high level strategies that can lead towards this aim. However, there is little understanding of how these messages and strategies are subsequently translated into designed visual communications (visual artefacts) for public consumption. This paper approaches these strategies and theories from a graphic design perspective, focussing on how the aesthetic style of visual artefacts—designed in line with these strategies—can influence their reception. The phenomenological research in this paper is taken from a larger study into the relationships between three selected real-world anthropogenic climate change visual artefacts, their production by graphic designers, and their reception by a set of viewers. A particular focus is the viewers’ interpretations of the “authority” behind each of the three visual artefacts, and how aesthetic style can influence this interpretation and consequently the trust and subscription to the message itself. This research makes a key contribution to climate change communication across fields such as science communication, sociology and graphic design.

The Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change are directed to prevention of anthropogenic changes of environment. The Montreal Protocol and Kyoto Protocol complement these conventions and contain demands to district specific pollutant emissions. Effective policy is impossible without communications with national and international stakeholders. Besides that the communications between different conventions and protocols are essential for better process understanding. There were the attempts to put communications between these conventions in recent years, but mostly they have evolved in parallel. The aim of the paper is a consideration of need and opportunity of inter-protocol communications. This requires the identification of similarities and differences between conventions and its protocols. Such analysis allows understanding why the interaction between protocols was still impossible to establish. The paper methodology is based and limited by analysis of international conventions and a protocol, reports of international organizations, scientific publication, etc. and includes the results of research in elucidating the mechanism of “climate change-ozone depletion” interaction. Analysis of reports of international organization, such as WMO, UNEP, UNDP and IPCC, shows that they comprise information about “ozone depletion-climate change” interaction, but not include often the information about the influence of physical, chemical and meteorological processes on this interaction. Studies have shown that over the past few years the role of the ozone layer in the regional climate became clearer confirming the need for inter-protocol communications and new opportunity of such communications.

Climate change communication in the Global South requires attention, as effective communication can assist communities to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Communication studies in the Global South largely have focused on the frequency of coverage and the quality of climate-change news content. This chapter sets out theoretical perspectives that work towards climate change communication in the Global South. One theoretical approach cannot efficiently describe communication for development in general, hence the need for a multi-pronged approach that builds on theoretical interdependency. In order to theorise climate change communication several theories are borrowed from health and social change communication. Within the field of social change and development communication current attention focuses on the adoption of participatory communication for structural and sustainable social change. This chapter illustrates how communicating climate change might adopt a structural approach that appreciates scalar relations of existence and a social-ecological perspective that acknowledges the global, regional, national and interdependencies with the aim to develop a ‘glocal’ framework. This chapter illustrates each level and the benefit of these theoretical perspectives that aim to advance a two-way exchange of knowledge and information on climate change.

There is an increasing attention to climate change across various media platforms, and a significant role is played by fictional films. A review of the studies on visual representations of climate change in the fields of risk communication and environmental communication reveals a lack of attention to the analysis of audio-visual narratives and fictional films in particular. Through enjoyment, transportation and identification, fictional films have the potential to engage the audience and trigger emotions that can lead to action and behavioural change. As the audience is immersed in the story, they are less motivated to counter-argue with what is presented to them, leaving a better chance for persuasion to be successful. This chapter will highlight the necessity of analysing climate change films through multimodal methods, and it will demonstrate the reasons and the benefits for using audio-visual fictional narratives to communicate issues related to climate change. A project between the Department of Media Studies at Bangor University and the Department of Engineering at Swansea University gives a practice-based example to sustain these theories. The project involves the production of a short fictional film about the need of developing sustainable material to enable the use of carbon dioxide with renewable energy.

Climate change is increasingly becoming a challenging issue for policy makers and societies, but the question is why the public does not pay more attention to this issue. Climate change is a complex environmental, cultural, social, psychological and political issue. What role, if any, do emotions play in the public’s beliefs about climate change and support for climate policies? Several studies show that emotions affect people’s views on climate change. Empirical studies show that communicators can use emotions to motivate and support climate change solutions. However, emotions are the missing link in effective communication about climate change. The aim of this paper is to discuss the potential role that emotions play in climate change communication. The paper concludes that emotions are the missing link in climate change communication. It is important to know what motivates the audience to behave in certain ways and what might inspire them to change that behaviour. There is an urgent need to consider emotional aspects when we discuss the implications of climate change and how to communicate adaptation and mitigation to climate change.

The aim of this chapter is to analyse the relationships between the Australian fossil-fuel industry, politicians and the news media as a prerequisite for understanding the limits and opportunities for climate change communication in Australia. The dominance of the fossil-fuel industry in Australian society is deeply entrenched, demonstrated by a largely unchallenged discourse about their necessity in the mainstream media, and the role they play in funding the election campaigns of the two largest political parties. This paper draws on the theoretical tradition of political economy to argue that there is a well-defined fossil-fuel industry–political elite–mainstream media nexus, that shapes the reporting of climate change and the policies set by successive Australian governments. Australia has compelling reasons to undertake urgent and effective action on climate change. Yet, as this chapter argues, it is Australia’s exposure to extreme weather events that has ensured a consistently high level of public concern for climate action. Remarkably, public support for strong action on climate change continues to build, including as a defining issue in elections. This is despite a highly concentrated mainstream media that is largely hostile to climate science and emissions reduction initiatives.

Concerns of climate change impacts and adaptations have continued to receive much attention in both local and international climate change debate. It is now understood that the challenge of climate change cannot be addressed as a standalone issue but within different social, economic, and environmental contexts. It is currently acknowledged that Africa’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions is insignificant. Except for South Africa, all the countries in Africa contribute below the global average of 3.5 m/ton of CO₂ per capita. However, Africa is very vulnerable to climate change given its low capacity to respond and adapt. Furthermore, progress in enhancing better understanding of gender variations on the impacts and adaptation to climate change has been relatively limited. The differentiated impacts of climate change at local level add to the complexities of developing gender sensitive response strategies. With the endorsement of the Paris Climate agreement of 2015, African countries are now gearing up to implement international and national climate change adaptation and mitigation initiatives. While progress has been in developing polices and strategies for climate change adaptation and mitigation, it is critical to ensure that these do not lead to further inequalities during implementation. This chapter, therefore, aims at reviewing climate change related policies and strategies in East and West Africa through a gendered lens. The countries are Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania in East Africa, and Ghana and Nigeria in West Africa. Drawing upon a common framework/guideline, we examined commonality in policies, while recognizing the complexity in the social, economic and ecological systems of each country. The chapter further assesses the importance of integrating and mainstreaming gender into Africa’s national adaptations plans of actions (NAPAs), and Intended Nationally Distributed Contributions (INDCs), and the need for better gender oriented climate change policies, programs and plans.

Initiatives such as the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) and Future Earth aim for co-design and co-production to create specific climate services, which in turn, require dialogue with stakeholders. Climate change communication research can help enable this dialogue. This paper proposes a more explicit articulation of the paradigms grounding climate change communication research to provide more balanced research for climate services. Paradigms or worldviews contain assumptions about the nature of reality and knowledge, and therefore drive the construction of research questions and methodologies. An assessment of peer-reviewed articles between January 2010 and August 2014 using the key phrase “climate change communication” reflects research paradigms that are dominantly post-positivist, seeking large-scale patterns to make generalizations. While these are useful, climate change communication research must also consider what approaches would value and use stakeholders’ differing perspectives towards encouraging dialogue and implementing long-term solutions with purveyors of climate services. Future research should balance the approach by exploring the use of constructivist or critical paradigms to support dialogue-based climate services. Such research is valuable in addressing the need for climate change communication professionals and scholars to (1) localize messages and (2) frame them in terms of values and issues pertinent to specific populations and groups.

The aim of this paper is to examine how UK Faith-Based Organisations (FBOs) communicate climate change through narratives. Through a cross pollination of science and theology this chapter examines different ways of communicating climate change from faith perspectives. The data was generated from three UK based FBOs using the qualitative methods of interviews, observations and document analysis focusing on the organisations campaigns rather than their supporter’s responses. The paper examines the use of the language of science in campaign narratives communicating climate change. Proceeding on to examine how theology surpasses climate science in campaign narratives aimed at raising awareness of climate change and inspiring responsibility to act. This paper discusses the challenges faced by the FBOs when using scientific data, as science and religion have not always been harmonious companions. This paper analyses how the FBOs aim to overcome messages of doom and gloom to create hope for the future by communicating climate change using narratives. Examining how, through theology, the organisations harness the psychology of hope appraising whether science can play a role in this approach and, if not, how it is overcome.

Much framing research has focused on climate change, the threat of the 21st century. Drawing on theoretical conceptualizations, however, the authors argue that these empirical studies largely fail to provide more thorough insights: They use frame as a ‘catch-all term’ or do not account for the hegemonic nature of framing. Therefore, attempting to add more depth and breadth to the research on climate change framing, the authors have analyzed three mainstream and two alternative news outlets in northern Belgium. This paper will discuss the five detected frames and their respective ideologically coloured ‘subframes’ in detail, providing comprehensive frame matrices. Of particular interest are the similarities and differences among the subframes, for example, regarding the views on mitigative/adaptive action. These stem from the overarching Anthropocentric and Biocentric Masterframes. Most importantly, this research is one of the first to integrate framing and hegemony research, while also making tangible the deconstruction-reconstruction frames of Brulle (2010).

The geographical location, dense population and extreme poverty have made Bangladesh one of the most vulnerable countries in the world, in terms of natural hazards. This chapter is an attempt to explore the role and responsibility of mass media to disaster risk reduction and mitigation in coastal area especially in the south-western part of Bangladesh. The chapter also aims to measure the access of information to the rural masses and their preparedness for mitigation to the losses of upcoming hazards. As part of the methodology, a semi-structured interview was conducted in order to obtain quantitative data and 200 respondents were interviewed using purposive sampling. Along with this, some qualitative tools i.e. FGDs (Focus Group Discussions) and KIIs (Key Informants Interviews) were adopted to support the quantitative data. The findings of the study indicate that Radio and Television are the most effective and usable means, disseminating hazards related-news among the coastal people because of its cheapness and easy accessibility. The findings also reveal that mass media influence people to take precautionary activities such as going to cyclone center, saving property/livestock, shifting children and elderly people to safer place etc. The findings also indicate that many of the respondents cannot have access to media-news due to poor communication system, cost effectiveness, uncertainty to get news, shortage of media workers, poor infrastructural development etc. However, for mitigating the loss of natural hazards effectively, the findings keep emphasize on getting cheap access of news, developing communication system, circulating timely authentic disaster-related news, ensuring disseminate news to remote area and increasing awareness among coastal people in Bangladesh. Very few empirical studies on climate change communication as well as mass media to disaster risk reduction and mitigation are found in the existing literatures. So as a part of effective climate change communication system, this work may help government as well as policy makers to make and implement policy to disaster risk reduction and mitigation in the hazards prone coastal area.

Climate change due to anthropogenic increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide is a global phenomenon with a recognised high public profile. The impacts of climate change, however, are mostly felt at a local level. Communicating climate change relevance where people live and where they can make a difference has proven a greater challenge. The Lancashire Wildlife Trust is engaging people, politicians and businesses with the local causes and impacts of climate change through collaborative working across the 100 km² Carbon Landscape between Manchester and Liverpool. Past coal and peat extraction created the scarred landscapes today undergoing a renaissance as ecologically-rich wetlands. In the face of changing climate, a resilient ecosystem here is vital to ensure that carbon dioxide stays locked up in the remaining peat and restoration offers future sequestration possibilities. The Biodiverse Society Project engages people with wildlife recording and sensitises them to the impacts of climate change. Boosting the biological recording community increases the data available to planners and politicians for effective evidence-based management of landscape scale biodiversity. Reviewing these two projects identifies how engaging communities with landscape scale conservation approaches and including climate change messaging both bolsters local climate action and helps build the wider societal support needed.

Numerous ongoing projects are upgrading climate observation networks to plug the climate data gap in Africa. Projects like trans-Africa hydromet observation (TAHMO) and climate for development in Africa (ClimDev-Africa) will avail increased data for early warning, modelling and research in African. In many cases however, historical climate data still remains on paper and thus beyond reach. As cited by IPCC assessments, the level of accessible climate literature from Africa continues to be significantly low, a situation exacerbated by both inadequate Internet connectivity and climate information that is either not captured or packaged for online and offline access. Poor Internet certainly impacts the access and findability of climate knowledge and research produced in Africa. Indigenous knowledge relied upon for generations in addition remains masked because its purveyors lack channels to codify and share the knowledge. Implementation of the Paris Agreement will entail data collection to monitor progress, as well as sharing of good practices, lessons, needs, challenges and opportunities at sub-national, national and regional levels. This paper will provide tested opportunities to facilitate sound knowledge management for implementation of the agreement by mobilizing pan-Africa climate knowledge partners to create a community for co-producing climate knowledge, sharing it and learning.

A key component in attempts to face the many challenges posed by climate change is the training of a new generation of professionals, who are able to understand the role of climate, climate change impacts and adaptation strategies and mitigation measures, together with communication competencies. The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of students at Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) on change, namely how perceptions are related with the need for effective communication towards a formulation of an ethics of response in higher education. This work was conducted within the Universities of Coimbra and Aveiro and the results in this context should have meaningful implications for institutional university strategies and policies. The data were collected through a self-completion questionnaire (applied to students at the above named universities) aiming at characterising students from the socio-demographic, and from their perceptions, beliefs, motivations, attitudes and knowledge relating to the topic of climate change. A blackboard platform was used to host and disseminate the questionnaire for the online survey. The results herein discussed should have meaningful implications for both national and international educational policies and be useful in respect of curriculum and learning innovation. The results are aligned with previous published research but clear show that the academy/university life seem to contribute to students’ understanding about ethical issues associated with climate change, even though a large percentage state that it was “not very relevant” to influence them in adopting new behaviours. Further research is necessary so that curricular programmes can be adapted to promote better knowledge and attitudes about climate change and an active engagement of future participative citizens, as part of the solution for climate change problems.

Climate principles understanding among childhood and primary school students is critical for effective climate change adaptation measures. Climate change communication and education (CCCE) is now considerably implemented in primary school, less frequently in kindergartens, but two key open questions persist: What nature of knowledge is proper for young children? Who should be involved in the basis of climate change communication and education? Here, we explore how interdisciplinary participatory research and mutual learning processes using cross-areas in curriculum, hands-on activities, and everyday life routines, contribute for improving knowledge about climate principles and effects, and provide children decision-making skills for acting. The ordinary questions and expressions “What is climate?”, “What is greenhouse effect?”, “Why is climate changing?”, “Which problems are caused by greenhouse gas emissions?”, “How can each one of us look after the Earth?”, and “How doing a little can change a lot?”, provided the baseline for the research approach between children, teachers, and academics. Our theoretical framework and participatory research approach also reflect authors that have worked about social aspects of cognitive development of children, namely John Dewey, Jean Piaget, Lev S. Vygotsky, Loris Malaguzzi, and Paulo Freire. The research design involved the selection-[re]construction of 14 activities, explored in-and-out-of classroom according to the age and level of knowledge of children. A total of 320 children between 3 and 10-years-old from two kindergartens and two primary schools have joined the collaborative project “Let’s look after the Earth: doing a little can change a lot!”. Children’s knowledge and actions pinpoint aspects of CCCE that are not generally experienced in curricula, and the misunderstanding of climate principles and effects that are often overlooked in school. Our approach highlight how mutual learning involving academy with school contribute to climate literacy in childhood and primary school, and, directly-and-indirectly, the adaptation to new teaching-learning practices, and the involvement of children families in CCCE. Young children conceive themselves as active contributors to society, using their knowledge and life experiences to understand, be engaged and act; we discuss knowledge-action behaviours in CCCE through drawings and perceptions of children. A questionnaire to children and teachers pinpoints similar behaviours about everyday life routines independently the age or school. Finally, we underline the opportunity of interdisciplinary associated to formal and non-formal education to engage multiple actors in active teaching and learning processes towards new directions to knowledge-action models in CCCE. We feel particularly privileged that our interdisciplinary approach academy-school reached out to other audiences as well as to its publication in book, with children as our main contributors, representing the beginning of the collection Discovering Science [Descobrir as Ciências] by Coimbra University Press.

Paris Agreement notwithstanding, the slim chances that global mean temperature rise can be kept below the 1.5 °C/2 °C international objectives continue to diminish. This unwelcome reality, and growing evidence of limits to adaptation, mean that citizens as well as elite decision makers need to engage with knowledge about the likelihood and implications of severe future impacts, and the scale of mitigation required to avoid them, the likes of which few want to hear. This paper seeks lessons in the existing literature that could inform communication efforts in an era of impending high-end climate change, and uses the outputs of a specially convened workshop to highlight both the scale of the challenge, and elements of an emerging new agenda. To be more than mere ‘narrators of doom’, and promote more adaptive strategies, it argues that communicators must recognise the need for ‘active hope’, constructed from realistic goals, imaginable paths, and a meaningful role for individuals within a collective response to problems at hand. New, more dialogical forms of communication, with various audiences in a range of venues are needed, in which new high-end climate messages can be conveyed and processed with citizens and decision makers. Ideally, these processes should be facilitated by highly skilled teams. These innovative forms of communication will require significant additional investment and training.

An understanding of the relationship between human values and public expression of social and environmental concern leads to several insights of importance to communicators working on climate change. In the first instance, communicators working on climate change should pay careful attention to the values that are implicit in these communications, if they are to avoid the danger of inadvertently undermining public concern about climate change. But research on values also suggests that public support for policies to mitigate, or adapt to, climate change will be importantly influenced by communications that are apparently unrelated to climate change. It is not therefore sufficient for practitioners communicating on climate change to focus narrowly on analysing and influencing public discourse about climate change. Rather, steps must be taken to situate work on climate change communication in the context of wider aspects of public discourse. There are many opportunities for organisations that have no formal remit to communicate on climate change (and that may prefer for various reasons not to communicate directly on climate change) to nonetheless support public discourse in other areas of public debate, and in ways that are likely to contribute to building public concern about climate change. As one example, an understanding of values is helping to inform a project in Greater Manchester, run collaboratively by Manchester Museum and Common Cause Foundation.