Creating Authentic Connections in Climate Storytelling

How do we make climate communication resonate with the very people it affects the most? 💡 🌎 In my latest essay for Question of Cities, I reflect on this pressing question, drawing on my experience in journalism and storytelling, as well as research and fieldwork in the climate space over the last few years. The article outlines how dominant climate narratives often remain inaccessible, overly technical, and disconnected from everyday lived realities. Some key takeaways: 🔁 1. Translation isn’t enough—localisation matters. Efforts like the UNDP Climate Dictionary are welcome, but we need to go further. People don’t say “Jalvayu Parivartan”—they talk about rain delays, changing festivals, and crop failures. Climate terms must emerge from how people experience change, not how we define it. Climate must be framed as an everyday issue. For most people in India, climate change competes with daily concerns like food, housing, and livelihoods. 📚 2. Storytelling enables agency. We need to shift from policy briefs to bottom-up storytelling, where a fisherwoman in the Sundarbans or a tribal woman in Odisha becomes the knowledge holder. 🎭 3. Embrace diverse media and people’s science. From metaphor-rich language to theatre, dance, and music—creative formats hold emotional and cultural power. Even community-defined terms like “wet drought” offer nuance and should shape climate adaptation strategies. 📰4. Mainstream media must build capacity. At a recent workshop in Maharashtra, we saw how rural reporters struggle to differentiate between climate and weather. There’s little support for them—especially women—to cover these stories. Climate needs to be integrated into all beats, not confined to disaster or weather coverage. 🎯 5. Climate communications is not just outreach—it’s strategy. Too often, communication is underfunded and under-prioritised. But to build inclusive, impact-driven programmes, we must invest in grassroots media literacy, storyteller training, and long-term behavioural change campaigns. 🌏 In the coming years, we will witness a growing wave of efforts to communicate climate change in new and compelling ways as climate becomes centre stage in policy and mainstream narratives. But the real test of these approaches won’t lie in international recognition or polished campaigns. It will lie in how meaningfully they resonate on the ground—in how a coal worker in Jharkhand or a landless labourer in Maharashtra understands, imagines, and navigates a world that is 1.5 degrees C warmer. 🔗 Read the piece here: https://lnkd.in/dGG8ZNZn A big thanks to Smruti Koppikar and Shobha Surin for trusting me with this piece. And of course, this would not be possible without Asar and all the fabulous work that I have got to be a part of in the last 3+ years! #ClimateCommunication #ClimateJustice

I met my inspiration at NY Climate Week and the insights she dropped will shape my work for years. Solitaire Townsend shared something uncomfortable: we've been telling the same "running out of time" story for longer than some activists have been alive. After decades at Futerra studying storytelling, here's the truth → Stories are 22 times more likely to be remembered than facts. Yet we keep managing data instead of managing emotion. Three narrative killers plague climate stories: → Sacrifice – telling people they must give up everything → Agency – making people feel powerless → Fatalism – convincing young people (up to 50%) that we're doomed When she started in the '90s, renewable energy was a joke—"what a few weirdos in California did." Now it's cheaper than fossil fuels. The story changed. The world changed. But we're STILL stuck at the inciting incident without moving forward. That's not how society changes. Society changes through punctuated equilibrium. Everything stays the same, then everything changes at once. We're at that moment. Here's what we miss: people engage with climate differently. After testing across markets from China to the US to Europe, Futerra identified three psychographic groups in your boardrooms and buying committees: GREENS (systems-first) → Push lifecycle TCO, Scope 1-3 cuts, resilience scores. Want credible roadmaps, open data and predictive impact metrics. What stalls them: short-termism and vendor lock-in GOLDS (societal-status focused) → Ask "What are peers doing?" Need recognizable logos, benchmarks, case studies. Move on what will make them look good internally and externally What stalls them: jargon and unclear immediate value. BRICKS (pragmatic operators) → Need <18-month payback, concrete playbooks, role-level wins. Track OPEX cuts and cycle time. What stalls them: Vague benefits and unclear ROI The tragedy is that Greens and Bricks fight each other. Greens push systems thinking; Bricks demand immediate ROI. Both try to convert Golds, who follow momentum. The insight: Stop trying to make every stakeholder Green. Your buying committee has all three. Your roadmap needs to speak to all three. If we change the story, we can change the world. We are homo narrativus : the storytelling ape. It's time we acted like it. -- Looking to tell effective stories for GTM in Climate? Check the pinned comment.

Last week, a brilliant climate tech founder showed me his pitch deck. The technology? Revolutionary. The impact? Massive. The story? Non-existent. 'But look at these numbers,' he insisted, pointing to graphs and data. 'The solution sells itself!' Here's what I told him: - No one has ever fallen in love with a spreadsheet. - No one has ever changed their behavior because of a pie chart. - No one has ever evangelized a product because of its technical specifications. The most powerful climate solutions don't win because they're the most advanced - they win because they tell stories that make people feel something. Tesla didn't sell electric cars by talking about battery chemistry. Beyond Meat didn't transform food by explaining protein extraction. Patagonia didn't change retail by detailing textile engineering. They told stories that made people imagine a different future. A future they wanted to be part of. Your climate solution isn't just fighting carbon emissions or waste or pollution. It's fighting for a story in people's minds. Yes, your solution must fit a need and work well. But in the battle for attention, the best storytellers often win. What story is your climate solution telling? 👇 #ClimateInnovation #Storytelling #CleanTech

I may have a soft spot for communication (it’s what I do!) but I genuinely believe that communication is at the heart of driving meaningful change. And there has never been a more important time than now to use our creative skills to make a difference, regardless of the industry we work in. At the non-profit H&M Foundation, we’re on a mission to support the textile industry halve its greenhouse gas emissions every decade by 2050, while ensuring a just and fair transition for both people and the planet. But making this transformation possible requires every voice and every skill — including the power of creativity and communication.  Communication shapes perception, builds awareness, and inspires action. As communicators and creatives, we can create narratives that balance urgency with hope, showing that positive change isn’t just necessary — it’s possible. The stories we tell can transform passive awareness into active engagement, motivating organizations and individuals to take concrete steps forward and see themselves as part of the solution. However, creating this kind of communication is no easy feat. Climate communication walks a fine line. While we want to inspire action and hope, we must avoid oversimplification. I believe it’s crucial to pair fact-based science and context with creativity and storytelling. Because evidence gives stories substance, but stories give evidence meaning. While it’s clear that meaningful change requires action on many fronts, I think that communication plays a role in raising awareness and driving engagement towards the collective action necessary to address the climate crisis. Of course, communication alone won’t change the world, but I think it can spark the conversations, ideas, and behaviours that lead to lasting impact. So, no matter the industry, I believe this is the time to use our skills to bridge the gap between awareness and action. For anyone in the creative space, I highly recommend A New Era in Climate Communications by New Zero World and the Global Commons Alliance. By bringing together science and storytelling, this report reimagines how we can address the climate crisis. It is a must-read and a call to action to turn our creative energy toward meaningful impact. The challenge is big, but so are our ideas. Let’s get to work! Read the report: https://lnkd.in/dRyvwFRV #ClimateCommunications #ClimateAction #Storytelling #SustainabilityCommunications