The fight to protect the planet and to mitigate climate change is considered one of the great challenges in modern human history. Therefore, mobilizing as many people as possible is essential.
Around the world, numerous campaigns – from non-governmental organizations to governments – call on everyone to do their part and join this planetary-scale effort. Various numbers and scientific facts, such as 1.5 degrees Celsius, the Paris Agreement’s maximum global warming limit beyond which climate impacts would be even more devastating, or the increases in greenhouse gas emissions, are constantly presented to the public. But is this approach effective?
A study led by the Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, at the University of Geneva, reveals that the best way to reach people and stimulate their involvement in climate action is through appeals to emotions, and not so much by presenting scientific facts. In other words, communication campaigns designed to promote climate action are more effective when, for example, they evoke feelings of awe at the beauty of a natural landscape rather than merely transmitting data or numbers.
Moreover, the article published this month in the Journal of Environmental Psychology shows that campaigns whose messages highlight individual and collective responsibility to protect the Earth and combat climate change are little or not effective at all.
This work consists of a review of 71 studies that examine the impact of specific climate communication strategies, collectively encompassing about 216,000 participants.
Fifteen distinct approaches were identified, ranging from presenting factual information to appeals to emotions, including highlighting specific impacts of climate change, such as on health and the economy.
According to the researchers, all these strategies have positive effects – some more than others – on people’s intentions and behaviors, as well as their willingness to support climate policies.
However, as Tobias Brosch, the study’s principal co-author, explains, “strategies based on individual and collective responsibility – with messages like ‘success largely depends on you’ – seem to have little, if any, effect.”
In fact, the researcher even says that this type of campaigns can have the opposite effect from what is intended.
“Campaigns that evoke a strong emotional response – especially through storytelling or by inspiring a sense of awe at the beauty of nature – are significantly more effective than simply presenting facts and scientific evidence,” emphasizes Brosch.
“The messages that are based on moral, ethical or even religious considerations, highlighting our connection to something larger than ourselves that we have a responsibility to preserve, also achieve better results,” he adds.
Beyond all this, the team found that messages accompanied by images tend to be better received and to stimulate action, in this case for the climate, than those that contain only text.
“At a time when scientific evidence is well established and the challenge is to turn knowledge into action, there is considerable room for improving climate communication,” concludes the University of Geneva academic.
