One major challenge in communicating climate change is that people are prone to interpret climate change as a faraway, abstract problem. 

It’s often seen as an “environmental issue” – something to care about only if you’re an eco-warrior or nature-lover who wants to save the animals.

For those who do see the human impacts, it’s still easy to feel like climate change is something that’s causing problems for people in distant countries or future generations, not something that will impact our lives directly.

With this framing, it’s very difficult to get a message across and persuade an audience to act. 

So, for climate communication to be effective, it’s vital that we emphasise the personal stories behind climate change, and ideally stories of those that feel close to home.

Why climate change feels distant

When we do think about the human impacts of climate change, it often feels like it will only affect other people, in another place, at another time. 

It’s impacting people elsewhere, not those in our local vicinity

In reality, the human effects of climate change are already being felt across the globe with changing weather patterns and extreme weather events increasing in regularity. 

However, as someone living in the UK, the general narrative here is that the hotter summers are great, whilst elsewhere the impacts are already deadly – like the heatwaves of 50 degrees in India or the wildfires of LA, or the severe flooding of monsoon seasons in South East Asia.  

It’s easy to feel like climate change isn’t going to reach us in our local area.

And it’s that local area that we care about the most.

It’s a psychological fact (via a concept known as place attachment theory) that we all become emotionally attached to the places we live in and visit regularly, like our hometown, holiday destinations, or the local park we visit each week. 

What is place attachment theory?

Place attachment theory refers to the emotional bonds that people form with specific geographic locations.

These bonds develop through experiences, memories, and meanings associated with places where we live, grow up, or have meaningful experiences.

When it comes to climate change, place attachment helps explain why people may care deeply about protecting their local environments while feeling less concerned about distant climate impacts.

This localised focus makes climate change feel less urgent because it’s perceived as happening “elsewhere” – unless those distant places also hold personal significance.

Most of these places are physically close to us, which means we naturally care more about protecting our local area than distant parts of the world.

So, even as extreme weather becomes more common globally, until climate change directly affects places we care about, it feels too distant to demand urgent action.

Research published in the journal Global Environmental Change confirms this psychological pattern, finding that people tend to perceive climate impacts as “more severe in developing countries and in more geographically distant zones” than in their own communities. The study found that “self-closeness to an event appears to be related to a greater concern [about that event]”. (Devine-Wright, 2013).

This means that:

• A farmer experiencing changing rainfall patterns first hand feels greater concern than someone reading about rainfall patterns in another country
• Someone whose hometown experienced flooding will likely feel more concerned about climate-induced flooding than someone who’s never lived in a flood zone
• A person with family in a climate-vulnerable region will typically feel more concerned about those specific impacts than someone with no personal connection.

And so on.

Further, a second study published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology found that this concept has a direct impact on the likelihood to act on climate change – “individuals who believe climate change impacts are unlikely to happen or will primarily affect other people in other places are less likely to be concerned about climate change impacts and less likely to support climate adaptation” (Singh et al., 2017).

It’s a future problem, not one for right now

Another reason that climate change feels like a distant issue is that humans struggle to act on things that feel like a long-term problem, not an urgent one that will impact us in the short-term.

Again, this is just part of our psychology – with the concept of ‘temporal discounting’ the term used to describe how we place heavier weight on the present than the future.

What is temporal discounting?

Temporal discounting is a psychological concept that describes how humans tend to place greater value on rewards or consequences that are closer to the present, while discounting those that are further in the future.

When it comes to climate change, temporal discounting explains why we often struggle to take urgent action now to prevent disasters that might happen years or decades from now.

Even though the future consequences are severe (like coastal flooding or extreme heat), our brains are wired to prioritise immediate concerns (like economic convenience or lifestyle comfort).

We typically think about this in terms of delayed gratification — like the famous marshmallow test – but it applies to how we prioritise social issues too. 

This undervaluing of distant risks has proven to play a significant role in how we perceive climate change risks.

This undervaluing of distant risks has proven to play a significant role in how we perceive climate change risks.

Research into temporal discounting and climate change has yielded compelling evidence that humans consistently prioritise immediate benefits over future consequences. 

For instance, a 2009 paper titled “Judgmental Discounting and Environmental Risk Perception” found that people systematically undervalue environmental risks that are distant in time.”

This psychological tendency creates a significant barrier to climate action because the activities contributing to climate change provide immediate, tangible benefits –like the convenience of driving a car – while the costs seem distant and abstract.

It’s an abstract concept that feels intangible

We struggle to visualise what climate change actually is – we can’t see it or touch it, making it feel intangible.

Research published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour identifies this as a key challenge, noting that climate change is often perceived as “abstract, uncertain, and with consequences in distant places or times” (van Lange et al., 2018).

This abstract nature creates yet another psychological barrier to action.

Without tangible evidence that we can see and feel directly, climate change becomes another item on a long list of potential concerns rather than an immediate priority requiring action.

Given that people typically view climate change as a future problem affecting faraway places, it’s incredibly challenging to create climate communication that really breaks through and motivates action.

But there are effective approaches that can help shift this perspective.

Most communications frame climate change as a human issue, not an environmental issue

One of the biggest problems in climate communication is that we’ve made climate change seen primarily as an environmental problem, not a human one.

This ‘framing’ matters immensely, as George Lakoff explains in his influential work on political communication. 

Lakoff, a cognitive linguist, argues that the frames we use – the mental structures that shape how we see the world – determine our understanding of issues like climate change. 

What is George Lakoff’s ‘framing’ argument in ‘Don’t Think of an Elephant’?

George Lakoff  introduced the concept of framing in political discourse, most notably in his book “Don’t Think of an Elephant!”.

Framing refers to how we use language to shape perception and understanding of issues. Lakoff argues that the words, metaphors, and narratives we use activate certain neural circuits in our brains that influence how we interpret information.

For climate change, Lakoff points out that environmental framing (focusing on “saving the planet” or “polar bears”) disconnects humans from the narrative. This framing makes climate change seem like a special interest issue rather than a human survival issue.

He suggests reframing climate change to emphasise that “we are the polar bears” – highlighting that human existence itself is threatened.

Lakoff’s approach demonstrates why storytelling about real people affected by climate change is so powerful – it reframes climate change from an abstract environmental problem to an immediate human concern that requires action.

Media analysis shows this environmental framing is pervasive in current climate communications.

For instance, one study of climate change imagery found that the most common visuals used in climate communication are polar bears on melting ice, smokestacks, and barren landscapes – all reinforcing the idea that climate change is primarily about “nature” separate from humans (Rebich-Hespanha et al., 2015). 

In another study, children frequently mentioned “polar bears melting” as one of their primary associations with climate change (Lee et al., 2020) – suggesting it’s the impacts on animals and on earth’s geography that are most memorable in existing media and climate campaigns.

When climate change is continually framed as an “environmental issue,” it becomes mentally filed away as a special interest concern rather than a human survival issue.

As researcher Saffron O’Neill notes in her study of climate imagery, “The polar bear has become an iconic symbol of climate change… Yet this imagery may distance people from climate change, as polar bears are perceived to be remote from people’s everyday experiences” (O’Neill et al., 2013).

The way we talk about things, the language and images we use, profoundly influences how people understand them. 

For decades, climate change has been presented as “saving the planet,” “protecting the environment,” or “fighting global warming” – always with images of melting glaciers and sad polar bears. 

The risk to human civilisation is rarely mentioned.

The framing of solutions has been just as problematic. 

Lakoff uses the example of carbon taxes. The term “carbon tax” activates images in our minds associated with financial burden, government overreach, and personal sacrifice. This framing makes it easy for opponents to characterise climate action as costly and threatening to economic prosperity.

The reality is that climate change is an inherently human issue.

Without humans, we wouldn’t be facing climate change in the first place. It’s a problem caused by our industrialisation and use of fossil fuels. And it has very real human consequences too.

The planet has endured dramatic changes in climate in the past. But humans haven’t. 

So, what does this mean for how we communicate climate change?

It means that conveying why climate change actually matters for typical people can be hugely powerful – flipping the narrative from an environmental problem to a human one.

Framing climate change as the human issue that it is should be woven into any climate change campaign by demonstrating how it impacts things all humans care about: food security, water availability, public health, energy security, and protection of disadvantaged communities – with the specific topics focused on led by the target audience being addressed.

And instead of using scientific language and scare tactics, these topics are better introduced through climate change storytelling that illuminates the real, human stories behind this environmental challenge.

The power of climate change stories: connecting with an audience through human narratives

Research has long shown that stories are powerful as a form of communication.

Humans have a long tradition of storytelling as a way to share information, convey meaning, and connect with other people.

Neuroscience studies have shown that stories provoke real cognitive processes and emotions; even to the point where a listener’s brain waves start to sync with those of the storyteller.

We’re better at remembering stories too – much more effectively than remembering facts, which explains why the statistics which have dominated many climate conversations don’t have the desired impact: they simply don’t stick.

More recently, researchers have shown that storytelling is powerful specifically for communicating about climate change.

A 2020 study at Yale found that sharing personal and emotional stories from people already impacted by climate change had the power to engage even the most skeptical audiences across the political spectrum. 

In fact, a personal climate story from a North Carolina sportsman named Richard Mode describing how climate change affected the places he loved to fish was particularly effective at shifting beliefs and risk perceptions, especially among conservatives who are traditionally less receptive to climate messages.

In the study, participants listened to Mode describe in heartfelt tones how he’s seen the climate changing first-hand as ducks migrate later in the year and trout disappear from their old haunts. “Trout require cold, clear, clean water,” Mode explains. “Places that I’ve trout fished in the past that used to hold lots of fish are warming, and the fish just aren’t there like they used to be.” This simple, personal testimony proved remarkably effective at shifting perspectives across political divides.

Plus, stories help to bridge the feeling of distance that often plagues climate communications, as we saw earlier.

According to Yale’s Climate Connections research, “personal stories are particularly powerful because they bridge the psychological distance of climate impacts” and “help us recognize the immediacy of the climate crisis and its impacts” (Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, 2024). This emotional engagement creates the essential foundation for motivating action.

Successful examples of climate storytelling in action

So what do effective climate change stories look like? Let’s take a look at a few examples.

Yale Climate Connections: Everyday voices

Yale Climate Connections (YCC) produces daily 90-second radio stories that feature diverse people talking about how climate change affects their lives and what they’re doing about it. 

These stories reach hundreds of radio stations nationwide, including many in conservative areas.

The program connects the dots between climate change events happening to real, relatable people across America, framing climate change as a local as well as global issue. 

From pastors preparing their congregations for climate impacts to veterinarians advocating for greater heat protection for racehorses, these stories highlight how climate change affects the people, places, and things their audience already cares about.

Climate Generation’s eyewitness stories

Climate Generation has built a powerful programme around the concept of climate stories. 

Founded by polar explorer Will Steger, who has witnessed climate impacts firsthand in Arctic regions, the organisation now collects and shares personal climate stories from people across the country. The organisation also hosts storytelling workshops, helping people discover and share their personal climate change stories – everyone has a story to tell.

Their approach emphasizes that while the climate stories represent individual perspectives, “it is our collective stories that have the power to shift the narrative.” 

WaterAid’s climate stories

WaterAid’s series of ‘climate stories’ shows how climate change impacts communities through water-related challenges. 

One powerful example focuses on Lake Chilwa in Malawi, which has dried up significantly, affecting local livelihoods – like Samson the fisherman with no fish to sell, or Belita who makes an income selling rice porridge to fishermen but was unable to grow enough crops due to the lack of water.

These stories bring abstract climate impacts down to the human level, showing real consequences for real people trying to support their families.

The “Barrio Fridge” movement

The “Barrio Fridge” started a grassroots movement of community fridges to prevent hunger and reduce food waste simultaneously. 

This story demonstrates how local climate solutions can address multiple community needs at once, and how ordinary people can create meaningful change through simple, practical actions.

By sharing these stories of community-led initiatives, climate communicators show that solutions don’t have to wait for top-down policy changes – they can start with neighbors helping neighbours.

How to use climate storytelling to strengthen communication campaigns

As we’ve seen, climate storytelling is perhaps a crucial tool for overcoming psychological distance, ensuring our audiences understand the true human impacts of climate change.

To craft impactful climate stories that motivate action:

1. Make it local. Focus on climate stories in places your audience cares about and can relate to. Localised stories that show climate change happening “here, not just there” are more likely to overcome the psychological distance problem. 
2. Feature diverse voices. Include stories from people your audience identifies with or respects – research shows that trusted messengers within communities are more effective than outside experts.
3. Balance impacts with solutions. While it’s important to honestly portray climate impacts, stories that include practical solutions and actions avoid triggering despair. Per Espen Stoknes suggests using the “3:1 rule” — including three hopeful, solution-oriented framings for every one threat.
4. Connect to existing values. Frame climate stories around values your audience already holds, whether that’s protecting family, creating jobs, strengthening community, or preserving traditions.
5. Emphasise the present, not just the future: Stories should highlight climate impacts happening now, not just those predicted for distant decades, to overcome the psychological distance issue.

This article is part of a series on effective climate change communication. Check out the rest of the series:

• Two-way dialogue over one-way lectures
• Tailoring climate communications to a specific target audience
• The importance of optimism in climate change communications
• Why trusted messengers make all the difference in climate campaigns

When it comes to climate campaigns, who delivers the message matters just as much as what’s being said.

For decades, the climate crisis narrative has been dominated by voices that many people simply don’t trust. 

From politicians who make empty promises to economists with competing agendas, these messengers have muddied the waters, transforming what is truly accepted science into something that feels like an ongoing debate.

Our receptiveness to climate messages often has less to do with the facts presented and more to do with who’s presenting them.

So who are the trusted messengers that people will actually look up to on climate issues? 

And how can we leverage this understanding for more effective climate campaigns?

Table of contents

1. Table of contents
2. What is a trusted messenger?
3. The trusted messenger paradox in climate campaigns
4. Who qualifies as a ‘trusted messenger’ on climate change?
5. How to find the right trusted messenger for your climate campaign
6. Successful examples of trusted messengers in climate campaigns
7. In summary

What is a trusted messenger?

Before we dive into the climate campaign side of it, let’s get clear on what we mean by a ‘trusted messenger’.

In communication theory, a trusted messenger is an individual or entity that audiences perceive as credible, authentic, and reliable—someone whose message they’re willing to hear and consider seriously. 

Research has consistently shown that when people evaluate information, they place greater weight on the trustworthiness of the messenger than on their expertise alone – it’s something that’s deeply rooted in the way that humans process information and make decisions.

The concept relates closely to the psychological principle of source credibility – wherein the trustworthiness and capability of a person or entity is directly related to how credible they are as a source, and therefore how likely individuals are to believe the information they impart. 

It’s a cornerstone of social influence and persuasion theory dating back to Aristotle’s focus on ‘ethos’ in rhetoric to explore the credibility or trustworthiness of a speaker or argument.

Here’s a couple examples of recent research on the topic of trusted messengers to illustrate the importance they hold.

Firstly, a 2022 paper by Loeb et al explored the relative effectiveness of different messengers in communicating public health information and encouraging vaccination during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The key finding was that community-based organisations who already had an established relationship with vulnerable communities were the most effective for these campaigns because pre-existing trust increased their credibility around the highly-debated topic of vaccines.

Interestingly, the study also discovered that trust can be transferred by association – when a primary trusted messenger introduces or endorses a secondary messenger, some of that established trust transfers to the previously unknown entity. 

As a second example, a 2023 research paper by Chi-Horng Liao explored how mass media impacts altruistic behaviours. A key insight from the study was that audience trust in the media source is crucial for determining whether information will be perceived as useful and reliable – with trusted sources having far greater influence on attitudes and behaviors.

In the specific context of climate communication, trusted messengers function as individuals who can help “bridge the climate change communication gap” between scientific facts and public understanding. 

Communicators like these can transform abstract climate data into climate campaigns that resonate emotionally and culturally with their intended audiences.

The trusted messenger paradox in climate campaigns

When we consider who the most credible messenger for a climate campaign is, the instinct might be to think of climate scientists. 

These are the people who have the deepest knowledge of the subject matter, the experts on the matter who audiences will surely respect, right? 

Wrong. 

The evidence is clear: scientists may be the ones who conduct the research, but they aren’t necessarily the most effective at communicating it – in fact, the public generally has lower trust in scientists than we might expect. 

There are several reasons for this trust deficit, with three that research has found to be particularly damning:

• Use of technical jargon
• Unwillingness to speak in ‘certain’ terms
• Too many statistics, a lack of storytelling.

Use of technical jargon forms a communication barrier

Scientific communication relies heavily on specialised terminology that creates significant barriers to public understanding. 

Research published in the Journal of Language and Social Psychology found that the mere presence of specialised terminology in science communications triggered negative reactions in audiences, even when definitions were provided (Shulman et al., 2020). 

The study demonstrated that jargon doesn’t just make content harder to understand – it actively signals to non-experts that “this message isn’t for them,” creating psychological distance between scientists and public audiences.

Unwillingness to speak in ‘certain’ terms: when scientific caution backfires

Scientists are trained to express appropriate uncertainty and nuance in their findings – the argument being that there is always some level of uncertainty in science, some unknowns that haven’t been factored into a particular piece of research. 

It’s a methodological strength that unfortunately becomes a communication weakness in public discourse.

Research published in Nature concluded that uncertainty was found to erode trust in scientists and their research (Howe et al., 2019). 

The paper particularly highlighted how the subtle difference between scientific and everyday understandings of “uncertainty” leads to public misinterpretation of normal scientific caution as evidence of disagreement or lack of consensus.

“In scientific discourse, [‘uncertainty’] conveys the degree to which something is known. In the vernacular, the word conveys rather the sense of not knowing”.

The emotional storytelling gap – statistics aren’t enough to persuade

Perhaps most critically, scientific communication often lacks the emotional resonance and narrative structure that research shows is essential for motivating action on climate change.

Scientists typically focus on facts, statistics, and research findings.

In reality, it’s personal stories that make a successful climate campaign.

A study in the journal Climatic Change found that to trigger action on climate change, campaign messages needed to be structured as stories, rather than as analytical presentations of facts. Storytelling facilitates “experiential processing” that heightened emotional engagement and arousal – crucial factors for motivating pro-environmental behavior (Morris et al., 2019).

Research published in Communication Reports provides further evidence that personal stories about climate impacts can shift beliefs and risk perceptions even among political moderates and conservatives – with these effects mediated specifically by emotional reactions like worry and compassion (Gustafson et al., 2020).

Who qualifies as a ‘trusted messenger’ on climate change?

So, if not scientists, who should we be incorporating as trusted messengers for climate campaigns?

A trusted messenger is, quite simply, someone the audience already trusts. 

Research from Climate Outreach’s “Britain Talks Climate” study reveals that David Attenborough stands out as the UK’s most universally trusted voice on climate issues. 

Described as “a trusted messenger across all seven segments” of British society, Attenborough transcends political and social divides in a way few other public figures can.

His effectiveness stems not just from his knowledge, but from his authenticity, consistency, and ability to communicate complex ideas in accessible ways. 

He connects the scientific reality with the emotional impact in a way that resonates across demographic boundaries – getting that balance between fact and relatable storytelling right, which we’ve seen is vital for success.

But beyond celebrity figures like Attenborough, trusted messengers can come from many places – with different audiences trusting different messengers.

Social identity theory has an important role to play in this, because it’s typically people in our ‘in-group’ who we naturally perceive as trusted figures.

Social identity theory, first proposed by Henri Tajfel in 1979, explains how our sense of self is deeply intertwined with the social groups we belong to. We naturally divide the world into “us” and “them” – those who align with our identity and those who don’t.

With climate change having become an increasingly debated and politically polarising issue, it has, as George Marshall notes in his excellent book Don’t Even Think About It, become “polluted with social meaning.” 

It means that we need to be looking to the ‘insiders’ of our audience when we think about the right trusted messengers for climate campaigns, people like:

• Local community leaders
• Religious figures
• Respected professionals (doctors, teachers, etc.)
• Friends and family members
• Social media influencers relevant to specific communities.

The right messenger varies dramatically depending on who you’re trying to reach, so the place to start is always with a deep understanding of your target audience and the people and organisations in their life that they have pre-existing trust with.

How to find the right trusted messenger for your climate campaign

It’s clear that, for those embarking on climate campaigns, getting the messenger and the voice of the campaign right is absolutely crucial for success. 

Without the right messenger, the campaign will fall on deaf ears.

With the right messenger, you’ll be able to leverage ‘trust transfer’ – gaining trust from an audience through your organisation’s new association with a voice that they already know and trust. This is especially important for climate campaigns trying to reach skeptical or disengaged audiences.

As we’ve seen, before selecting a messenger for your climate campaign, you need to understand the specific audience you’re trying to reach. 

Consider these questions:

1. What social circles does your audience belong to? (Professional, religious, cultural, geographic)
2. What values and beliefs define these social circles? (Conservative, progressive, traditional, innovation-focused, family-driven)
3. Who do these groups typically trust for information? (Both within their immediate social circle and farther afield e.g. social media influencers, media outlets)
4. Where do they consume information? (Social platforms, community spaces, traditional media)
5. What existing views and knowledge does this audience have about climate issues?

The answers will guide you toward appropriate messengers who can genuinely connect with your target audience.

Successful examples of trusted messengers in climate campaigns

Celebrity messengers: Olivia Colman and Make My Money Matter

One successful example of a trusted messenger in recent climate campaigns is Academy Award-winning actress Olivia Colman’s work with Make My Money Matter.

In late 2023, Colman took on the role of “Oblivia Coalmine,” a villainous fossil fuel CEO in a campaign that exposed how UK pension funds are financing climate damage.

The campaign generated more than 15 million organic YouTube views within just three weeks and led over 70,000 people to visit the organisation’s website to learn more about how their pensions were being invested. 

As a widely respected actress with broad appeal across different demographics in the UK, Olivia Colman brought credibility and attention to an issue many people had never considered before. 

Campaign director David Hayman noted that having “a well-known and popular spokesperson” helped the campaign go viral, particularly when they can “bring their own personality and humour” to the issue.

By personifying the fossil fuel industry in a darkly comedic way, Colman made a complex financial issue both accessible and emotionally engaging, with a clear story. 

Reaching niche audiences through Social media influencers

An increasingly important category of trusted messengers for climate campaigns is social media influencers who have built dedicated followings around specific interests or identities.

Take, for example, Pattie Gonia, a drag queen environmentalist with over 770,000 Instagram followers, who combines LGBTQ+ advocacy with climate activism. By merging these identities, Pattie Gonia (the drag persona of Wyn Wiley) makes climate activism inclusive and accessible to LGBTQ+ communities.

Pattie Gonia has successfully collaborated with major environmental organisations on climate campaigns. 

For instance, in 2024, Pattie partnered with The Nature Conservancy on an educational campaign about forest management through controlled forest fires.

The video, which featured Pattie in a fire-inspired dress talking to a firefighter about how indigenous communities have used controlled fires as a forest management tactic for centuries – combatting misunderstanding and promoting greater understanding of environmental and social issues. 

It quickly became The Nature Conservancy’s second-highest performing Instagram reel ever, generating over 210,000 likes and 14,000 shares.

Other campaigns have included a 2023 Pride Month collaboration with the Audubon Society on a YouTube music video ‘The Song of the Meadowlark’ which highlights how climate change is impacting birds – with a hopeful message of ‘let’s go birding together’ aiming to spark action amongst the audience.

The effectiveness of influencers stems from their ability to connect with specific communities through shared identities, interests, and values. 

Unlike celebrity messengers who offer broad reach, these influencers provide deep engagement with particular demographic groups who might otherwise be overlooked by mainstream climate campaigns.

Faith leaders as climate messengers: The Islamic Declaration on Climate Change

Faith leaders have emerged as particularly powerful trusted messengers on climate issues, especially in communities where religious identity is central. 

Religious leaders shape the attitudes and beliefs of their congregations and are among the most trusted voices in many communities.

The effectiveness of faith leaders as climate messengers stems from their ability to frame climate action in terms of shared religious values.

For example, in 2015 Muslim leaders from 20 countries issued the “Islamic Declaration on Climate Change”, calling for action to phase out greenhouse gas emissions and framing climate protection as a religious duty. 

In summary

Finding those trusted messengers who can truly cut through is vital for effective climate campaigns. 

In a landscape clouded by denial, fossil fuel industry influence, and greenwashing, the right voices can transform how climate messages are received and acted upon.

The science of climate change is settled. Now, the challenge is ensuring that science is communicated by people your audience is ready to hear.

This article is part of a series on effective climate change communication. Check out the rest of the series:

• Focus on human stories and impacts
• Tailoring climate communications to a specific target audience
• The importance of optimism in climate change communications
• Aim to build two-way conversation, never lecturing

Know your audience, and understand what they value the most.

That’s step 1 in the start of any marketing campaign or piece of content – and it’s even more crucial when communicating about climate change.

Why does understanding the target audience matter in climate change comms?

There are two reasons that make understanding your climate change target audience absolutely essential:

• Climate change can be interpreted in a multitude of different ways
• Climate change is inherently polarising.

Climate change can be interpreted in a multitude of different ways

Climate change is inherently difficult to communicate about.

As George Marshall puts it, climate change is “exceptionally multivalent.” 

It’s simultaneously an urgent, life-threatening crisis and something intangible that we can’t see, touch, or feel day-to-day.

“Climate change is, I suggest, exceptionally multivalent. It lends itself to multiple interpretations of causality, timing, and impact. This leaves it extremely vulnerable to our innate disposition to select or adapt information so that it confirms our pre-existing assumptions. If climate change can be interpreted in any number of ways, it is therefore prone to being interpreted in the way that we choose.”

 – George Marshall, Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired To Ignore Climate Change

This ambiguity leaves climate change naturally open to wildly different interpretations by different audiences – depending on their existing worldview.

No piece of communication ever stands alone, because humans will always take new messages and immediately mould them to fit our existing opinions, beliefs, and worldviews – known as confirmation bias. 

When you combine this with a topic like climate change that’s already wide open to interpretation, you end up with vastly different existing connotations depending on your target audience.

So, having the context of those existing opinions, beliefs, and worldviews of the audience you’re trying to communicate with about climate change is incredibly important to understand how your messaging will be interpreted.

Climate change is inherently polarising.

Climate change as a concept has become increasingly polarised in society, over time becoming intrinsically linked with politics and identity. 

Generally speaking, liberals or left-leaning people will tend to see climate change as scientific fact which needs to be urgently addressed, whilst more conservative and right-wing people are skeptical and generally less concerned. 

The debate on climate change has evolved into a moral one socio-cultural one, with an ‘us vs them’ dynamic and strongly held beliefs on all sides of the equation.

If you don’t take the time to understand your specific climate change target audience’s existing knowledge and viewpoint, then you risk deepening the already enormous divide that exists on this topic, potentially generating heated contention rather than productive conversation.

There’s no one-size-fits-all in climate change comms – tailor to your target audience

The key takeaway is this: there is no universal approach when it comes to communicating about climate change – tailoring the message to the audience you’re targeting is a must.

As Katharine Hayhoe writes in her excellent book ‘Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World‘:

“On climate change and other issues with moral implications, we tend to believe that everyone should care for the same self-evident reasons we do. If they don’t, we all too often assume they lack morals. But most people do have morals and are acting according to them; they’re just different from ours. And if we are aware of these differences, we can speak to them.” 

Katherine Hayhoe, Saving Us

So, messages and campaigns about climate change must always start with a nuanced understanding of the specific audience receiving the communication. 

Only then can your message be carefully tailored to resonate with who that audience is, how they already see the world (and climate change), and what they care deeply about.

Consider these drastically different climate change target audiences:

• A right-wing leaning policy maker in America
• A masters student studying sustainable tourism
• A rural coffee farmer in Indonesia
• A small business owner in a UK seaside town

These different people will all have drastically different reactions to the same climate change communication campaign.

So, depending on your goal, you would want to tailor your message to each specific audience to maximise impact.

Examples of tailoring messages to your climate change target audience

Let’s explore some real-world examples of how to effectively tailor climate communications to specific audiences.

Example 1: The Conservative Climate Leadership Council for politically conservative audiences

The Climate Leadership Council targets conservative Americans by framing climate action around economic opportunity, national security, and market-based solutions.

The campaign’s core pillars are:

• Carbon advantage. By manufacturing goods with lower emissions, America can improve its economy whilst also lowering emissions.
• Trade. By rewarding and encouraging lower carbon supply chains we can reduce the impact of the global trade system.
• Carbon dividends. The ‘Baker-Shultz Carbon Dividends Plan’ is a proposal to charge fossil fuel companies a carbon fee, and put that fee back into the pockets of all American families – as well as doing the same at borders for global trade.
• Measuring emissions. Supporting a clearer view of climate impact through a streamlined emission measurement and reporting approach.

All of these pillars focus on the economy, trade, wealth creation – topics which are typically associated with that more conservative audience. 

By building a campaign around market-based solutions, the Climate Leadership Council is able to push for change whilst not alienating its target audience.

Example 2: The Laudato Si’ Movement for religious audiences

The Laudato Si’ Movement (formerly the Global Catholic Climate Movement) engages religious communities in climate change by framing climate action as a moral and spiritual imperative.

Their approach centres around:

• Creation care theology. Climate action is presented as “caring for our common home” and protecting God’s creation, drawing directly from Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’.
• Intergenerational justice. Their messaging emphasises our moral responsibility to future generations, framing climate inaction as a failure of stewardship.
• Concern for the poor. They highlight how climate change disproportionately affects the world’s most vulnerable populations, connecting environmental action to core religious teachings about caring for the poor.
• Parish-level engagement. The Laudato Si’ Action Platform provides practical tools for local religious communities to reduce their environmental impact through concrete actions.

By connecting climate action to deeply held religious values and existing moral frameworks, the Laudato Si’ Movement reaches an audience that might otherwise be disconnected from climate messaging.

Example 3: Project Drawdown’s solutions framework for climate-aware audiences

Project Drawdown targets liberals and progressives who already accept climate science but need direction on specific solutions. 

Instead of focusing on the problem (which this audience already understands), they emphasise comprehensive, actionable paths forward.

Their approach includes:

• Solutions rankings. Their research ranks climate solutions by effectiveness, costs, and benefits, appealing to the data-driven, evidence-based mindset of many progressives.
• Sector-specific tools. They offer targeted resources for different sectors (food, transport, buildings, etc.), allowing people to focus on areas most relevant to their existing interests.
• Co-benefits framework. Each solution is presented not just for its climate impact but also for its benefits to health, equity, and economic wellbeing, connecting climate action to broader progressive values.
• “Climate solutions at your fingertips” messaging. Their communications emphasise agency, hope, and empowerment rather than doom-and-gloom scenarios that can lead to eco-anxiety among the already concerned.

By moving beyond problem statements to detailed solution pathways, Project Drawdown gives already-convinced audiences a constructive way to channel their existing climate concern into specific, effective action.

How to tailor communications to different climate change target audiences

Here’s a few practical steps to follow to effectively communicate about climate change with your specific audience.

Step 1: Get clear on your target audience first

Before crafting any climate communication, define your audience as precisely as possible:

1. What’s their context? Location, age, profession, interests, etc.
2. What do they care most about? Health, family, financial security, community?
3. What are their existing political beliefs, values, and worldviews? How does climate change fit into those frameworks?
4. How concerned are they about climate change? How are they (or people in their circle) likely to be impacted?
5. What communication channels do they use? What other climate change messaging might they be receiving there?

The more specific you can be, the better – “UK homeowners aged 35-55 with centre-right political views who are moderately concerned about climate change but prioritise financial security” is going to be much more useful than simply “homeowners.”

2. Research and listen to understand their worldview

To effectively tailor a message, you then need to gain a deep understanding of that audience’s values, beliefs, and communication preferences, through techniques such as:

• Conduct formal research: Surveys, focus groups, or interviews with your target audience
• Monitor relevant online communities: Forums, social media groups, comment sections
• Review existing studies: The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, for instance, segments audiences into “Six Americas” based on their climate beliefs, with a substantial amount of research on how these different audiences relate to climate change.

Look for:

• What language and terminology they use when discussing climate issues
• Which values they prioritise (e.g., family safety, economic security, community wellbeing)
• What concerns or objections they commonly express
• Which sources of information or messengers they trust – scientists, social media influencers, celebrities, friends and family, etc.

3. Clarify your core message and desired outcome

Be explicit about what you want your audience to think, feel, or do:

• Knowledge outcome: What specific information do you want them to understand?
• Attitude shift: How do you want their feelings or perspectives to change?
• Behavioural change: What specific action do you want them to take?

4. Align your message with your findings

Based on your deep understanding of the audience, now it’s time to frame your message in a way that will resonate with them. 

For instance:

If your audience is already highly concerned about climate change: Focus your message around impacts, action, solutions, and hope. Avoid dwelling too much on doom-and-gloom scenarios, as this audience is already aware and might experience eco-anxiety. Project Drawdown’s solutions-focused approach works well here.

If your audience is religious: Focus on the moral imperative to protect people and the natural world. Frame climate action as stewardship of creation and emphasise the disproportionate impact on vulnerable communities, following the Laudato Si’ Movement’s approach.

If your audience is primarily concerned with economic issues: Highlight the economic opportunities in clean energy, the job creation potential, and the financial risks of inaction. Frame climate solutions as smart investments in the future, similar to the Climate Leadership Council’s market-based approach.

If your audience is highly influenced by their peers: Play into ideas of social norms and what others are doing in response to climate change – the Robert Cialdini “Don’t Throw In The Towel” study is a classic that demonstrates the power of social influence on behaviour change.

Climate Outreach recommends narrative workshops where climate messages are developed and tested directly with members of the target audience.

5. Choose appropriate messengers, channels, and formats

Research consistently shows that trusted messengers are critical in effective communication – for instance, a 2019 study published in Nature Climate Change found that messages from trusted in-group members were significantly more effective at changing climate beliefs than identical messages from outgroup sources.

So, it’s crucial to align this with your audience too:

• Select credible voices: Identify who your audience already trusts (community leaders, industry experts, peers)
• Use appropriate channels: Meet your audience where they are (social media platforms, community events, industry publications)
• Consider collaborative approaches: Partner with organisations or individuals already respected by your target audience.

If we can find that sweet spot where our message truly resonates with what our climate change target audience cares most deeply about, that’s where real impact happens.

Understanding your climate change target audience isn’t just about making your message more palatable – it’s about making it more effective. It’s about ensuring that your communication actually leads to the change you want to see, whether that’s shifting perceptions, changing behaviors, or driving policy support.

By taking the time to truly understand your audience’s values, concerns, and worldview, you can craft climate change messages that don’t just get heard, but actually inspire action. 

And in a topic area as critical as climate change, that’s what really matters.

This article is part of a series on core principles for effectively communicating climate change, with other topics in the series including:

• The importance of optimism in climate change communications
• The role of the trusted messenger
• Aim to build two-way conversation, never lecturing
• Focus on human stories and impacts