The climate conversation has lost sight of what matters to people
Have we all got a bit bored of this story now? Whatever the reason, climate-related communication has a credibility problem. Not because there isn’t enough information – there is more climate information than ever – the problem is, much of it isn’t connecting with what people want to know, or can easily understand.
The climate conversation has become increasingly technical and corporate: net zero, Scope 1, 2 and 3, transition pathways, carbon intensity, decarbonisation. All of these things matter, but if people struggle to understand what a company is actually doing, it becomes difficult for them to get behind. Climate risk can feel abstract until it hits something people understand: their home, their insurance bill or the value of their biggest asset.
For example, Cotality research in the US found that for every 10% increase in insurance premiums – often connected to climate-related disasters, property valuations fell by roughly 4.6%. This is something people can easily grab hold of and pay attention to.
The UK’s Energy Security and Net Zero Committee has made a similar point, arguing that the energy transition needs to be communicated through tangible benefits such as lower costs, energy security and jobs, rather than allowing the conversation to become dominated by the term “net zero”.
There is also an increasingly interesting tension between greenwashing and greenhushing. As scrutiny of environmental claims increases, some companies are choosing to say less about their climate activity rather than risk saying the wrong thing.
But silence is certainly not the answer and regulation is reinforcing that caution. New EU rules taking effect this month require environmental claims to be substantiated with accessible evidence and restricted carbon-neutral claims based on offsets.
And as COP31 approaches in Turkey in November, the emphasis is being framed on implementation and turning climate ambition into investment, infrastructure and measurable outcomes that can make a tangible difference to communities and businesses.
One of the clearest messages to emerge from September’s Climate Week in New York was that the climate conversation is entering a delivery phase. The question is no longer simply whether we have the ambition or the technology to act, but whether we can build the infrastructure, unlock the investment and remove the barriers needed to deliver at scale.
If we want people to care about climate and ultimately take action to support this critical delivery phase, then climate-related communications need to be simple and relevant to the things people already care about: their homes, their bills, their businesses, their communities, their jobs and their future.
