COMMUNICATING CLIMATE CHANGE: MAKING IT WORK

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COMMUNICATING CLIMATE CHANGE:

MAKING IT WORK

ÖSTERREICHISCHER KLIMATAG GRAZ 2016

CAREL CARLOWITZ MOHN

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HOW DOES „TALKING CLIMATE“ FEEL TO YOU?

Dass die eigenen Ansichten die Erkenntnisse der Forschung korrekt widerspiegeln, ist nur eines von vielen Zielen, das die menschliche Psyche … verfolgt – noch dazu eines, das häufig überschattet wird von Weltanschauung oder Wunschdenken im Angesicht eines gewaltigen Problems ohne offensichtliche Lösung.

Elke U. Weber

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OVERVIEW

 klimafakten.at: Who we are and what we do

 Communicating climate science: Some initial observations

 Science meets reality: The mechanics of climate science in the public domain

 The effects: How scientists are affected by the climate-communications conundrum

 Social sciences coming in: Some insights for practical communications

 Making it work: What climate science communicators can take home

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klimafakten.at

WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE DO

 Established in 2011

 1st objective: Getting the facts right about climate science

 2nd objective: Providing insights on how the facts can be communicated

 Funded by the European Climate Foundation and Stiftung Mercator

 Working under one roof with Agora Energiewende, Agora Verkehrswende and Clean Energy Wire

 www.klimafakten.at | @klimafakten

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COMMUNICATING CLIMATE SCIENCE: SOME INITIAL OBSERVATIONS

… ON WHAT MAKES IT A DIFFICULT SUBJECT

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COMMUNICATING CLIMATE SCIENCE: SOME OBSERVATIONS

Climate science is highly politicised

Example 1

"Gleichzeitige verbindliche Ziele für Klimaschutz,

Energieeffizienz und erneuerbare Energien … nehmen die ohnehin strauchelnde europäische Industrie an ein planwirtschaftliches Gängelband."

Holger Krahmer, MEP (FDP) on the EU Climate and Energy Package 2030

Example 2

„Klima als …30-jähriges Mittel vom Wetter ändert sich naturgesetzlich immer, war noch nie konstant und kann daher ebenso wenig wie das Wetter geschützt werden.

Selbst wenn bewiesen werden könnte, dass

anthropogenes CO₂ einen schädlichen Einfluss auf das Klima ausübt, würde der minimale deutsche Beitrag zur weltweiten CO₂-Vermeidung … die Schädigung unserer energieintensiven Industrie und die Kostenexplosion für die privaten Stromkunden nicht rechtfertigen.“

Election manifesto of the AfD Baden-Württemberg, p. 48

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COMMUNICATING CLIMATE SCIENCE: OBSERVATIONS 2

Obscurity over what the science is telling us

“The general public has hugely wrong perceptions of the scientific consensus and of the views shared by

scientists.”

ComRes 2014

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COMMUNICATING CLIMATE SCIENCE: OBSERVATIONS 3

Key findings of climate science are denied

Example 1

„…über die Antworten sind sich die Wissenschaftler

durchaus nicht einig. Erwärmt sich das Klima auf der Erde wirklich, obwohl das seit 15 Jahren nicht nachweisbar ist?

Wurden Daten gefälscht, um zum erwünschten Ergebnis zu kommen? Wenn es aber wirklich eine globale

Erwärmung gäbe – wäre das gut oder schlecht?

Cora Stephan, Columnist (Die Welt, Der Spiegel, Wirtschaftswoche, FAZ, Die Zeit, DeutschlandRadio, NDR, NZZ)

Example 2

„Zum einen lässt sich das anvisierte 2-Grad-Ziel

wissenschaftlich nicht stichhaltig begründen, zumal das Ausbleiben des prognostizierten globalen

Temperaturanstiegs nicht gerade das Vertrauen in die modellbasierte Klimafolgenforschung stärkt.“

„Metalle pro Klima“ (steel industry lobby group)

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COMMUNICATING CLIMATE SCIENCE: OBSERVATIONS 4

Climate science is attacked

Example 1

„As a climate scientist, I fled from the United States to Denmark. I wanted to get away from the drumfire and simply do research. I want to focus my energy on solving this crisis – for nature, for our children.

Jason E. Box

Example 2

„A few years ago, I was thinking of doing something

completely different. It was after this thing with the hacked emails.“

Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber

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COMMUNICATING CLIMATE SCIENCE: OBSERVATIONS 5

“Yes, but …“

Example

“Nach wie vor werden alle Ambitionen Europas beim Klimaschutz allein durch die steigende CO₂-Emissionen Chinas aufgezehrt.”

Michael Vassiliadis, Chairman of the German Mining, Chemicals and Energy Trade Union IB BCE on the results of the Paris

Climate Agreement

Jänschwalde, lignite power plant Foto: dpa

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WHY THE DISTORTIONS? THE MECHANICS OF CLIMATE SCIENCE IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN

UNDERSTANDING THE FORCES AT WORK

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WHY THE DISTORTIONS? THE MECHANICS

Key findings of climate science are denied

Explanation 1

Corporate campaigning: Think tanks, NGOs and lobby groups with private sector funding

 disseminate polarising messages on climate change

 question the human impact on climate change

… disproportionally more frequently than other stakeholders.

Farell 2015

Method

Computer-based analysis of all publications of a set of 164 organisations (think tanks, lobby groups, NGOs) and 4.500 individuals

that had published articles critically examining climate science findings betweeen 1993 and 2013.

N = 40.785 texts with more than 39 million words

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WHY THE DISTORTIONS? THE MECHANICS 2

Explanation 2

„Ideology shapes climate perceptions“

People …

 voting for center-right parties, holding conservative political views,

 believing in free markets and being skeptical of market regulation and state intervention

… are more likely to find climate change of little relevance or even non-existent.

Hornsey 2016

Explanation 3

“Echo chamber effect”

Aggregation of people around common interests, worldviews, and narratives.

Fragmentation of the public discourse where views are reinforced by phenomena like “confirmation bias”.

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WHY THE DISTORTIONS? THE MECHANICS 3

Explanation 4

“Fear and the feeling of being overwhelmed”

An analysis of 60 Cli-Fi films has shown that most films left their audience without the information that there are realistic options for mitigation.

Svoboda, 2015

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WHY THE DISTORTIONS? THE MECHANICS 4

Explanation 5

Cognitive dissonance, moral licensing and other phenomena of behavioural economics

Human beings tend to be more attentive towards intentional threats by individuals rather than the

unintended consequences of collective behaviour – such as climate change.

Moral licensing, the phenomenon whereby performing a virtuous action provides you with a self-righteous inner glow, leaving you feeling justified in performing some less virtuous action

Burkeman 2015

©Daniel Effron

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THE EFFECTS:

HOW SCIENTISTS ARE AFFECTED BY THE CLIMATE- COMMUNICATIONS CONUNDRUM

… AND WHAT IS THE EFFECT ON YOU?

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THE EFFECTS: HOW SCIENTISTS ARE AFFECTED

Observations

„Der prüfende Blick aus unserer eigenen akademischen Gemeinschaft ist genauso einschüchternd wie der von Öffentlichkeit und Politik. Das geht so weit, dass wir manchmal zögern, die unangenehmen Wahrheiten auszusprechen, die wir herausfinden.“

Bows-Larkin 2016

„Mitten in einer Phase, die viele Wissenschaftler – und

"viele" bedeutet: über 95 Prozent – als planetarische Krise bezeichnen, merken immer mehr Forscher, dass sie nicht einfach ihre Daten im luftleeren Raum präsentieren

können, um dann abends nach Hause zu gehen und ein Bierchen zu zischen.“

Whalsh 2015

Questions

 How attractive is it for young scientists to enter a

hugely controversial, highly politicised field of science?

 To what extent do climate researcher respond to and thereby accept false framings of climate science, e.g.

the so called “warming hiatus”?

 What does it mean when climate scientists have become more cautious in their language even where their research results are crystal clear?

(Lewandowski/Oreskes)

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“We’ve a weight of evidence that the average person is simply not aware of – and this frightens me.”

Shauna Murray

Photo: Nick Bowers

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SOCIAL SCIENCES COMING IN:

SOME INSIGHTS FOR PRACTITIONERS

ANTHROPOLOGY, COMMUNICATION SCIENCES, ECONOMICS, GENDER STUDIES, HISTORY,

LINGUISTICS, POLITICAL SCIENCE, PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY, THEOLOGY …

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SOCIAL SCIENCE INSIGHTS FOR PRACTITIONERS

New narrative framings: „Talking ethics”

The papal encyclical „Laudato si“ has changed

attitudes towards climate change – beyond members of the Catholic Church:

In a survey of US citizens, 17 per cent of respondents stated that the Pope‘s missive had changed their

views. Among Catholics, this number climbed to 35 per cent.

Maybach/Leiserowitz 2015

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SOCIAL SCIENCE INSIGHTS FOR PRACTITIONERS 2

Talking emotion

Arguing for climate policy with justice and charity arguments resonates strongly universally.

Weber 2015

“I am not here to defend the science. I’m here to show that these scientists aren’t nameless, faceless boffins. They’re real people.

They get it. And they want us to act.”

Joe Duggan, MSc Science Communications, initiator of the “Is this how you feel project?”

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SOCIAL SCIENCE INSIGHTS FOR PRACTITIONERS 3

Social group construction

Labels like “alarmist”, “climate skeptic” or denialist” tend to emphasise pre-defined differences between groups,

rather than referring to common motivations and shared values.

Labels foster an environment where preservation of one’s ideology and group identity takes priority over constructive deliberation of knowledge or evidence. Essentially who one is becomes more important that what one is arguing.

Howarth/Sharman 2015

The influence of semantics and surroundings on perceptions

Experiments have shown that words with positive

connotations like „warming“ tend to lead people to think more positively about climate change compared to more neutral terminology.

The external environment is important, too: As the room temparature increased for participants of a social science experiment, participant‘s likelihood to regard climate

change as a problem increased correspondingly.

Another study found respondents to be more likely to see climate change as a problem or to donate money for

NGOs, when they were interviewed on an exceptionally warm day.

Weber 2015

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MAKING IT WORK: WHAT CLIMATE SCIENCE COMMUNICATORS CAN TAKE HOME

COMMUNICATION HEURISTICS FOR HEURISTICS SKEPTICS

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MAKING IT WORK: SCIENCE COMMS HEURISTICS

1. Avoid simplification and the temptation of stressing mono-causal explanations: The debate over climate change and security is a case in point.

2. Don’t put people off: avoid labelling your

counterparts (e.g. as “denialists”, “alarmists” or

“skeptics”). This enhances the combative nature of the debate – the perception of widespread scientific and policy disagreement makes the public less

certain climate change is happening and lowers support for climate policies.

3. The quality of climate science journalism can be safely assessed: robust quality standards are measured by projects like medien-doktor.de

4. Communicate uncertainties – but do so in a way that people understand what you mean.

5. Talk about the science process: the lack of

knowledge and insight surrounding the methods, processes and inner workings of climate science is a fertile breeding ground for mistrust and uncertainty.

6. Talk about the overwhelming consensus on the anthropogenic causes of climate change is opening the door to wider acceptance of climate science findings. (van der Linden et al., 2015)

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MAKING IT WORK: SCIENCE COMMS HEURISTICS 2

7. “The public” does not exist! Devise communication strategies to match the differing views, values and perceptions of different sub-sets of the public –

which also have different socio- economic features, differ in their educational background and have different media consumption patterns.

“Global Warming’s Five Germanys”

Metag/Füchslin/Schäfer 2015

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

 Bain PG, Milfont TL, Kashima Y et al.: Co-benefits of addressing climate

change can motivate action around the world, Nature Climate Change 6 (2016), S. 154–157, doi:10.1038/nclimate2814

 Bedford D: Does Climate Literacy Matter? A Case Study of U.S. Students’ Level of Concern about Anthropogenic Global Warming, Journal of Geography, online veröffentlicht am 25. November 2015, doi: 10.1080/00221341.2015.1105851

 Biddle, BJ, Leuschner A: Climate Skepticism and the Manufacture of Doubt:

Can Dissent in Science Be Epistemically Detrimental? European Journal for Philosophy of Science 5 (3)(2015): 261-278

 Burkeman O: We’re all climate change deniers at heart, The Guardian, 08.06.2015, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/08/climate- change-deniers-g7-goal-fossil-fuels, abgerufen am 10.03.2016

 ComRes (Hg.): ECIU Launch Survey, 4^thAugust 2014,

http://eciu.net/assets/ECIU_Launch-Survey_Headline-Findings_4-August-2014- 1.pdf, zuletzt abgerufen am 08.03.2016

 del Vicario M, Bessi A, Zollo F, Petroni F, Scala A, Caldarelli G, Stanley HE, Quattrociocchi W: The spreading of misinformation online PNAS 2016 113 (3), S. 554-559; vorab online veröffentlicht am 04.01.2016,

doi:10.1073/pnas.1517441113

 Farell J: Corporate funding and ideological polarization about climate change, PNAS 05.01.2016, vol. 113 no. 1 92-97, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1509433112

 Hornsey MJ, Harris EA, Bain PG, Fielding KS: Meta-analyses of the

determinants and outcomes of belief in climate change: Nature Climate Change (2016), doi:10.1038/nclimate2943

 Howarth CC, Sharman AG: Labeling opinions in the climate debate: a critical review. WIREs Clim Change, 6 (2015), S. 239–254. doi: 10.1002/wcc.332

 IG BCE: Eine Chance auf wirksamen Klimaschutz, https://www.igbce.de/xix-54- ergebnisse-cop-21/118968, abgerufen am 10.03.2016

 Lewandowsky S, Oreskes N, Risbey JS, Newell BR, Smithson M: Seepage:

Climate change denial and its effect on the scientific community. Global Environmental Change (2015), 33, 1-13.

 Linnenluecke MK, Griffiths A, Mumby, PJ: Executives’ engagement with climate science and perceived need for business adaptation to climate change, Climatic Change, Volume 131, Issue 2 (Juli 2015), S. 321-333

 Maibach E, Leiserowitz A, Roser-Renouf C, Myers T, Rosenthal S, Feinberg G:

The Francis Effect: How Pope Francis Changed the Conversation about Global Warming. George Mason University and Yale University. Fairfax, VA: George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication (2015)

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BIBLIOGRAPHY 2

 Metag J, Füchslin T, Schäfer MS: Global warming’s five Germanys: A typology of Germans’ views on climate change and patterns of media use and

information Public Understanding of Science 0963662515592558, vorab online veröffentlicht am 3. Juli 2015, doi:10.1177/0963662515592558

 Metalle pro Klima (Hg.): http://metalleproklima.de/cop21/entruempelt-den- klimaschutz/ , abgerufen am 10.03.2016

 Shi J, Visschers, VHM, Siegrist, M: Public Perception of Climate Change: The Importance of Knowledge and Cultural Worldviews. Risk Analysis, 35 (2015), S.

2183–2201, doi:10.1111/risa.12406

 Stephan C, Eigentümlich frei vom 10.12.2015: http://ef-

magazin.de/2015/12/10/8064-klimawandel-nur-noch-schnell-die-welt-retten, abgerufen am 10.03.2016

 Svoboda M: Cli-fi on the screen(s): patterns in the representations of climate change in fictional films. WIREs Clim Change, 7 (2016), S. 3–64.

doi: 10.1002/wcc.381

 van der Linden SL, Leiserowitz AA, Feinberg GD, Maibach EW: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change as a Gateway Belief: Experimental Evidence.

PLoS ONE 10(2): e0118489 (2015), doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0118489

 Weber EU: What shapes perceptions of climate change? New research since 2010. WIREs Clim Change, 7 (2016), S. 125–134, doi: 10.1002/wcc.377

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Carel C. Mohn

Projektleiter Klimafakten carel.mohn@klimafakten.de Tel. +49.30.2844 902-13 Twitter: @klimafakten www.klimafakten.at

COMMUNICATING CLIMATE CHANGE: MAKING IT WORK