COMMUNICATION TOOLKIT

Communicating Climate Effectively

Practical tools and evidence-based guidance to help journalists, NGOs, educators and communicators create climate messages that people understand, remember and act upon.

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FIND YOUR CHALLENGE

What communication challenge are you facing?

Whether you’re trying to make climate change feel more relevant, inspire action, avoid overwhelm, or engage new audiences, behavioural science can help. Choose a challenge below to explore evidence-based communication strategies.

EVIDENCE-BASED GUIDANCE

Six principles of effective climate communication

Drawn from psychology, behavioural science and climate communication research — these principles consistently improve how messages land.

The single biggest barrier to climate engagement isn't disbelief — it's distance. If your audience feels the issue is happening somewhere else, to someone else, sometime in the future, you've lost them before you've started. Close that gap first.
Do
- Anchor the story in a specific local place
- Use present tense throughout — this is happening now
- Name the human costs: health, food, water, livelihoods
- Find a local voice or witness
Avoid
- Opening with global statistics or planetary framing
- Polar bears, ice caps, distant geographies
- Abstract language: "carbon concentration", "climate system"
- Future projections: "by 2050…"
In Practice
"Mediterranean sea surface temperatures have risen 1.5°C since pre-industrial times."

"Fishing families near Antalya say the fish have moved north. Their catch is down 40% in a decade. Oceanographers say this is exactly what warming water predicts."

Quick Check: Can you answer – Where? Who? Why now? If not, your message needs grounding.
Urgency without a way out produces paralysis, not action. This is the most common failure in climate communication — and the most avoidable. Every threat message needs to arrive with a concrete, believable response. Not a vague call to "do something", but a specific, real thing someone has actually done.
Do
- Always pair a problem with an achievable action
- Show that others have already acted — normalise the response
- Emphasise collective efficacy: what this community can do
- Make the action specific and realistic, not symbolic
Avoid
- Ending on threat or catastrophe with no next step
- Listing problems without naming anyone acting on them
- Suggesting only system-level changes beyond individual reach
- Language of doom, inevitability, or irreversibility
In Practice
A story about extreme heat and elderly deaths shouldn't end on mortality figures.

Show the community shade project that protected a neighbourhood, the residents who organised water delivery, or the policy the reporting helped create.

Quick Check: Does your story contain at least one realistic, achievable action — something a real person or community has already done?
Data informs. Story moves. These are not the same thing. Statistics create understanding but rarely create motivation. A story gives readers someone to identify with — and that identification is what carries the data into memory and action. You don't have to choose between evidence and narrative. You embed the evidence inside the story.
Do
- Open with a person, not a problem
- Use concrete, sensory, specific language
- Give the protagonist a challenge and a response
- Let the data appear inside the story, not before it
Avoid
- Opening with percentages or temperature figures
- Passive constructions that remove human actors
- Writing as if the audience already cares about the data
- Burying the human element at the bottom of the piece
In Practice
"Agricultural yields in the MENA region are projected to decline by 20% by 2050."

Youssef has farmed the same valley for thirty years. Last summer, he left half his wheat crop unharvested. The soil had cracked before the grain could fill. He had seen drought before. He had not seen this.

Quick Check: Who is the human face of this story? If you can't name them, find them before you write.
Fear, hope, indignation, empathy — each drives action through a different mechanism. Using the wrong one doesn't just fail; it can backfire. The question to ask before you write is not "what's the most powerful emotion?" It's "what do I want the reader to do, and which emotion leads there?"
Do
- Decide what you want people to feel and do before writing
- Use fear only when paired with a clear, achievable response
- Use hope and inspiration to build long-term commitment
- Use indignation to drive political engagement
Avoid
- Defaulting to doom as a universal climate strategy
- Suffering imagery without context, agency, or resolution
- Assuming positive framing is always weaker
- Mixing fear with helplessness — this reliably produces disengagement
In Practice
A story about families losing their coastal homes can use grief to build empathy — then pivot to the legal case they launched against the port authority, shifting to purpose and agency. Neither emotional arc is wrong. The question is which serves the story's goal.

Quick Check: What do you want readers to feel? What do you want them to do? Are those two things aligned?
Climate communication that only reaches people who already care isn't enough. Most people who don't engage with climate issues aren't opposed to the values behind it — they just don't connect the framing to their own lives. The barrier is usually the entry point, not the destination. Enter through what your audience already cares about.
Do
- Lead with values your audience already holds: family, health, community
- Find the climate angle in stories about food, water, livelihoods
- Use trusted non-specialist voices whenever possible
- Acknowledge real costs and tradeoffs honestly
Avoid
- Opening with "climate change" for audiences likely to disengage at the term
- Signalling environmentalist identity through language or imagery
- Shaming or blaming audiences for current behaviour
- Relying only on institutional or expert voices
In Practice
A story about water scarcity in a rural farming community doesn't need to open as a climate story.

Open with the family, the livelihood, the way of life under pressure — and let the climate explanation enter naturally once the reader is engaged.

Quick Check: Which value matters most to this specific audience? Start there — not with climate.
People are heavily influenced by what others do — and what others approve of. But these are two different things, and mixing them up can backfire. Before using social proof in your communication, know which type of norm you're working with and whether it's working for you or against you.
Do
- Identify current behaviour norms before drafting your message
- For new behaviours: name what to stop and what to do instead
- When most people aren't doing the behaviour yet, lead with approval messaging
- Connect action to personal values, not just social pressure
Avoid
- Claiming "most people are doing X" when most people aren't
- Sending conflicting signals: "this is the right thing" but "almost nobody does it"
- Inventing or exaggerating social proof
- Relying only on external pressure without connecting to personal values
In Practice
"Everybody wastes food."

"More families are finding ways to reduce food waste and save money."

Quick Check: Does your message reinforce the behaviour you want to encourage — or inadvertently normalise the opposite?

Norm type	What it does	Example message	Use it when…
What people do (descriptive norm)	Acts as social proof — if most people behave this way, it must be normal. Motivates through imitation.	“More than 70% of households in this city already separate their waste.”	The behaviour is already spreading and the descriptive norm is on your side.
What people approve of (injunctive norm)	Signals social approval or disapproval. Motivates through the desire to be seen doing the right thing.	“Local health and education professionals support reducing car trips in city centres.”	The desired behaviour isn’t widespread yet, but social approval for it exists or can be built.
Personal moral obligation (personal norm)	The most durable form: a felt internal obligation to act. Built by consistently connecting action to the audience’s own values.	“People who care about the air their children breathe are making this shift.”	You want lasting behaviour change, not just short-term compliance.

PRACTICAL TOOLS

Tools you can use today

Apply these tools directly to your next climate communication project.

The Little Book of Green Nudges

UNEP · 2020

A concise, evidence-based guide to behaviour change through nudging — originally developed for university campuses but readily adaptable to any communication setting. Summarises what nudges work best across several behavioural categories and offers practical guidance on how to implement and evaluate them.

Download the guide

What Is the Climate Story in 2025?

CLIMATE CONNECT · 2025

A short guide consolidating findings from 20 interviews with leading experts across policy, journalism, campaigns, and research. Helps you situate your message within the current communication landscape — and shape a campaign, article, or speech around what audiences actually need to hear right now.

Read the report

Audience Quick Guide

Tailored recommendations for your communicator type. Select yours to see curated resources.

OVERVIEW

Go deeper — browse by theme

A curated library of research and resources, organised by theme. Click any theme to expand.

Communicating Climate Effectively

What communication challenge are you facing?

Six principles of effective climate communication

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Tools you can use today

The Little Book of Green Nudges

What Is the Climate Story in 2025?

Audience Quick Guide

Moser (2016) — Communicating Climate Change: Research and Practice.

Climate Outreach (2025) — What Is the Climate Story in 2025?

Internews–EJN (2021) — Improving Environmental Outcomes Through the Media

Huber, Viscusi & Bell (2020) — Dynamic Relationships Between Social Norms and Pro-Environmental Behavior

Kronrod, Tchetchik et al. (2023) — Promoting New Pro-Environmental Behaviors: Combined vs. Single Messages

Smith, Louis et al. (2012) — Congruent or Conflicted? Injunctive and Descriptive Norms

Witte & Allen (2000) — Fear Appeals: A Meta-Analysis

Martell & Rodewald (2024) — Promoting Conservation Behaviors by Leveraging Optimistic and Pessimistic Messages and Emotions

Bonan, Cattaneo et al. (2020) — The Interaction of Descriptive and Injunctive Social Norms in Energy Conservation

EC DIY Manual (2021) — Communicating Climate Adaptation

Helferich, Thøgersen & Bergquist (2023) — Direct and Mediated Impacts of Social Norms on Pro-Environmental Behavior

Positive Emotions and Climate Change — Schneider, Zaval & Markowitz, 2021

Go deeper — browse by theme

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