Stockholm (NordSIP) – As part of Climate Week NYC, which runs from 22 to 29 September, environmental activist media platform We Don’t Have Time (WDHT) gathered journalism and communications experts to explore the challenge of effective climate communication.
With global emissions continuing to rise and global climate goals in jeopardy, the influential role played by mainstream and social media, advertisers, and public relations (PR) firms is a growing concern. Investors, consumers, and policymakers are faced with a barrage of confusing, and in many cases misleading messages about the climate crisis. The WDHT discussions raise many interesting observations and potential solutions to address this problem. This week also saw the publication of the 2024 iteration of Clean Creatives’ F-List, which names and shames the marketing firms supporting fossil fuel industry greenwashing campaigns.
Smoke and mirrors
Misinformation and disinformation were named as the topmost short-term risks in the Global Risks Report 2024, which is compiled from the Global Risks Perception Survey (GRPS) of roughly 1,200 experts from academia, business, government, and civil society. Speaking at the WDHT event, Mitali Mukherjee, Director of Journalist Programmes at Oxford University’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism presented data from a survey of eight countries showing high levels of concern about climate disinformation. Roughly three quarters of respondents in Western nations were highly concerned, with even higher levels displayed in India, Pakistan, and Brazil. Mukherjee highlights the fact that the latter countries are among those most exposed to the negative effects of climate change.
The role of social media in disseminating climate related misinformation was also explored by the panellists. According to WDHT, the extent of the problem is apparent in hashtag trends on X (formerly Twitter). Since December 2022 #climatescam has far outperformed both #climatecrisis and #climateemergency. Alastair Bealby, representing the European Commission’s DG Climate Action explained his organisation’s approach to countering climate misinformation. Rather than after-the-fact debunking, they advocate a policy of “pre-bunking” whereby the spread of factual information about new green initiatives pre-empts the inevitable dissenting voices. Bealby cites the case of electric vehicles (EVs), with supporting examples throughout European nations of misinformation and disinformation regarding spontaneous combustion, supposedly worse lifecycle carbon footprints, and other unfounded criticisms of the new technology.
Behavioural approaches to climate messaging
While deliberately or inadvertently misleading information muddies the waters of the debate, the sheer scale and complexity of the crisis can also be a powerful inhibitor. Kris de Meyer, a neuroscientist and Director of the Climate Action Unit of University College London (UCL) presents the case for a more effective way of capturing the public’s attention. He believes that much climate communication seeks to raise levels of concern and fear to spur people into action. According to de Meyer’s research, much better results can be achieved by promoting stories of positive action. These not only raise awareness of the issues but have been demonstrated to be more effective at promoting climate action from individuals and policymakers.
Ulrik Haagerup is CEO of Danish NGO Constructive Institute, which sits within Aarhus University and seeks to raise journalism standards. He agrees that the traditional “if it bleeds it leads” negative news bias of the media is not appropriate for the climate crisis, leading to despair and inaction. Haagerup believes that when all sides of the argument compete to turn up the volume it simply leads to a cacophony of confusion and mistrust. He believes that the solution lies in a solutions-focused, measured tone that highlights the benefits of climate action as opposed to the threats of inaction.
Mad Men fuelling the madness
The need for better climate communication is made all the more pressing by the volume of disinformation being spread by politicians and corporations. In a June 2024 UN climate address United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres decried the role of the advertising and PR companies working on behalf of the fossil fuel industry, describing them as “Mad Men fuelling the madness.” The publication on 24 September 2024 of the latest F-List by environmental media initiative Clean Creatives exposes the more than 1,000 fossil fuel contracts held by 590 advertising and PR agencies over the past year. The aim of the F-List is not only to name and shame the companies, some of which have indeed reacted by rowing back on their fossil industry involvement, but also to hit them in terms of recruitment. Younger professionals will tend to avoid firms linked with greenwashing and fossil industry messaging. Top of the F-List are some of the world’s largest PR companies such as WPP, Omnicom, and IPG.
This year’s report includes extended and freely accessible information on fossil fuel industry-related entities, as explained by Nayantara Dutta, Research Director for Clean Creatives: “With this report, we’ve also launched the only known database of fossil fuel clients, which we define as any company with over 50% revenue or generation from fossil fuels. Oil and gas companies are intentionally vague about their energy mix, so we’ve dug into their annual reports to reveal the 421 companies which are still majority fossil fuel.”
Climate Week NYC runs until 29 September, with certain sessions available to view on demand.
