Climate Communications Workshop

Your impact in tackling climate change is not a drop in the ocean. You have far more power to drive change than simply the sum of your own personal actions. The concept of a 'climate shadow', rather than a carbon footprint demonstrates how much you can drive peer to peer behaviour change through speaking about climate issues in a way that engages other people properly. 

The two main reasons that we get involved in anything are joy, and a sense of identity. That makes it tricky to reach past the 'usual suspects'  when we talk about the climate crisis, because a) there's not much joy in climate breakdown, and b) unless people identify as environmentalists they'll often balk at the suggestion of lowering their environmental impact through behavioural change. 

Because we all tend to begin conversations with what feels most important to us personally, we usually miss the opportunity to build a relationship with other people by starting from a place of shared values. For example, many people who talk about the impact on global south countries as a main reason to tackle the climate crisis, and whilst that's absolutely true, only around 13% of the British population state that to be their main concern about climate change, whilst for 50% of the population that doesn't even make their top 3 concerns over climate change impacts! 

Reframing how we talk to people about the challenges ahead is a crucial part of successful engagement on climate change. This doesn't abandoning your own values, it just means that you need to understand what the values are of the people you're talking to first, so that you can build trust in the conversation and ensure you can actually engage them before they decide they don't identify with what you're saying and leave the conversation. 

Thankfully, there is lots of research available to help us develop the skillsets needed, including some excellent toolkits from Britain Talks Climate, which surveyed 10,500 British residents attitudes to climate change. 

Join us for this workshop which brings together the materials available into a springboard to help us all feel more confident about talking about the climate crisis in a way that actually engages those outside of the climate bubble, and allows you to go away and experiment with what works best for your own communication style.