Britain Talks Climate is an evidence-based toolkit designed to support any organisation that wants to engage the British public on climate change. It offers a shared, strategic understanding of the British public, and – against a backdrop of growing concern about polarisation – identifies effective ways to engage across the whole of society. The segmentation research underpinning Britain Talks Climate...
What we say about climate change and how we say it matters. It affects how people think, feel and act. The right story can build the public appetite needed to catalyse change. Decades of research and experience shows how stories can shift how people think and feel. They can make important actions feel right, normal and inevitable. Intentionally changing the...
When communicating about the ocean, we all make choices about what we say and how we say it. We can make choices that increase public understanding and boost support for action to heal the ocean. We can avoid messages that get lost in translation. By framing our communications well we can be confident that we’re being heard and understood. These tried-and-tested ways of talking about the...
For a long time, ‘adaptation’ was a dirty word in the campaigning world: if we can just adapt, why bother trying to reduce emissions? But whatever we do to reduce emissions, significant climate impacts are now locked in, and it’s time we started taking the communication about adapting to these risks more seriously. The practical tips and activities in our...
There is a growing appreciation of the need to engage the public around climate change, but how much do researchers and practitioners agree on how to go about this? How do they approach communicating climate change, and what are their motives for doing so? The Climate Communication Project aims to understand and evaluate existing expertise in the UK on communicating...
To accompany this year’s UK Climate Coalition Show the Love campaign, which we helped shape, we’ve created a new practical guide, “Public engagement with climate change post-Brexit: a centre-right perspective”, in collaboration with the Climate Coalition. Many climate campaigners and communicators consistently state that they struggle to have conversations with people of centre-right values – in response, our new guide...
Climate change is an issue many people are passionate about but feel it’s difficult to discuss with a wider audience. This practical guide is designed to help anyone wanting to start, and widen, the conversation about climate change with a small group of people. It can be used to have a conversation about what our options are – locally and...
This initial briefing paper summarises research and expertise on public communication of drought risks in a changing climate. We explore the difficulties involved in building understanding and engagement with the sometimes complex issues surrounding climate change and drought in the UK. The report outlines how communicators can best respond to these challenges. These lessons are intended to support delivery of...
With continuing political polarisation around climate change and energy issues, there is an urgent need to reflect the views of centre-right citizens accurately and build communications around their values. There is no inherent reason why climate change and the centre-right should be incompatible. However, there has long been a vacuum where a coherent and compelling conservative narrative on climate change...
There is a long history of academic interest in how individuals and communities in the UK have responded to floods and other extreme weather events. And there have been some practical responses to the challenges communities in flood-affected areas face (from the emergency plans of regional councils, to the resources of organisations like the Environment Agency). But in a changing...
