The much-touted UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow (COP26) has ended; having secured numerous resolutions, agreements and commitments. Naturally, the next step is implementation. Countries need to figure out policies to initiate and actions to take to meet their targets. To be successful, the largest stakeholders, the public, will need to be involved.
The question becomes, how do you do that effectively? It is easy to resort to scare tactics, threats, public decrees and even begging to get members of the public to take climate change seriously. But it is better if they are engaged and won over; their cooperation and collaboration sought and obtained freely.
It is important to understand the audience and their views on climate change. Knowing what drives those views, how climate change locally affects them and their challenges will go a long way in crafting an engagement strategy with a good chance of being productive. The world over, people are tired of being lord over in dealing with problems they are facing. They are more receptive to you if you take the time to understand them and engage them from that position.
For a majority of the global population, the risks of climate change pale in comparison to their struggles to make a life for themselves and their families. These people are majorly found in our continent, Africa, and Asia. They are also the ones at greatest risk of climate change. Getting them to buy in to the ideas of combating climate change requires one to appreciate this and any approach used should be conversant of their livelihoods and fears.
In communication, dialogue is always better than a lecture or argument. This facilitates an open honest discussion among the parties. Solutions that come out of it are practical with a high likelihood of being implemented by all parties.
To communicate climate change risks, it helps to limit use of scientific languages to the barest minimum. Use of simple language means everyone will understand what you are saying and they will be able to follow your logic. Images and videos are better at making your point across than scientific graphs and reports.
Storytelling is a powerful communication tool that can be used very effectively to communicate climate change risks. Through storytelling, one is better able to connect with the audience and build a rapport. The stories should be human-interest stories that are relatable and localized. This will make them relevant to the target audience.
The stories should not be told to scare the audience into action but rather to inspire them. Therefore, they should focus more on solutions than risks. While it is important for the public to be made aware of the dangers of climate change, too much scaremongering will have the opposite effects to what the stories were intended to do. The audience will be disillusioned, frustrated and despaired into inaction. Making the stories solutions-oriented gives the audience hope, spirit and strength to cooperate in tackling climate change.
The solutions proposed should be local, simple and do-able. Climate change is as much a local issue as it is a global challenge. What works in one part of the world will not necessarily work in another. Locally, people are affected by climate change differently. Complicated solutions easily generate frustrations and they are abandoned. Solutions that ask a lot of the audience and has lofty goals will be hard to get takers in sufficient numbers to have any major effect.
For a global fight that requires each and everyone of us to participate in, effecting a coherent approach to fight climate change that will be adopted widely requires a nuanced approach so as to onboard everyone.