by Harriet Williams

‘Warmists’, ‘eco-fascists’ and ‘alarmists’ – skepticism about the causes of climate change has spawned its own lexicon, in endless blog-inches devoted to alleged data manipulation by climate researchers at the University of East Anglia.

The controversy, dubbed ‘Climategate’,as reported in The Guardian, primarily relates to breaches of acceptable scientific practice, rather than any fundamental challenge to the science of climate change, as a parliamentary enquiry into the affair made clear ahead of its evidence session last week.

Lord Stern, author of the eponymous Treasury review on climate change economics, has lined up alongside other luminaries to state that skepticism over man-made global warming among “real scientists” was vanishingly small.

This hasn’t stopped climate skeptics seeking to turn the affair into a popular referendum on the very existence of climate change as a threat to humankind. In this, they may be judged to have partly won, and partly failed. Failed, because the revelations have largely been shrugged off by political leaders thus far. Despite being timed to coincide with the start of last year’s Copenhagen climate conference, the East Anglia files did not play a starring role in the summit’s demise.

This is a remarkable outcome in itself. Policymakers frequently invoke scientific uncertainty to delay action on environmental problems. As excuses for inaction go, the Climategate saga must look pretty tempting. The fact that most governments chose not to take the bait shows the extent to which climate change is embedded in mainstream political discourse. Environmental policy groups (and their supporters in the grant-making community) can take credit for this.

This week’s launch of Shaping The Future, the report of the joint ministerial and third sector Task Force on Climate Change, is further evidence of engagement amongst government departments and across the third sector. Speakers at the launch reaffirmed concerns that climate change will impact across a wide range of charitable activity.

Where the skeptics’ appear to have more success is in sowing confusion in the minds of the public. Polls in the US and UK show belief in man-made global warming on the decline. Climate skeptics seek to portray themselves as victims, while making wild claims about the costs associated with tackling global warming. These arguments play well with members of the public who don’t like the idea of change, and overcoming them requires the environmental movement to communicate its message more effectively.

As Solitaire Townsend, founder of Futerra Sustainability Communications, writes in a recent Green Alliance pamphlet on environmental communications, “Climate change won’t be solved at the negotiating table, but at the kitchen tables where billions of people choose to accept, support and change.”

Recent years have seen increasing amounts of research into how to translate high levels of public and media concern about climate change into behaviour changes, or support for more ambitious policy measures.

Think tanks, communications consultancies, academics and government departments are all active in this sphere. Yet this expertise has been slow to find its way on to the ‘shop floor’ of the environment movement. Some corners of the websites of the UK’s top green groups still read like a ‘how not to’ guide to communications techniques.

Common errors include using catastrophe ‘frames’ (which makes people feel helpless compared to the challenge faced), and assuming that everyone shares similar motivations and values (not everyone cares about saving the ice caps – for some people messages framed around energy security or human development issues will work better).
How to improve environmental communications is a recurrent discussion topic in the Environmental Funders Network.

Funders can help in several ways. First, they can require that their grantees apply findings from the type of research described above. One idea mooted is to set aside a modest percentage of relevant grants for developing robust communications strategies.

Second, funders could support innovative communications work themselves. This could include projects that apply research on social psychology to the environmental space, experimenting with different messages (and messengers) that appeal to different groups of needs and motivations. A practical example is the coalition of environmental and labour groups that campaign for a cap-and-trade system in the US under the slogan ‘Carbon Caps = Hard Hats’.By framing the legislation in terms of job creation and energy security, the campaign taps the immediate concerns of voters. 

A third and related element is encouraging collaboration around environmental communications. Grant-makers are well-placed to play a convening role, helping groups to develop effective messages and recruit the right messengers.

However we deliver it, environmental communications has to improve if politicians are to walk the talk on the low-carbon economy, and to shore up climate policy against further Climategate style attacks. Failure to inspire public support could lead to a bigger victory for climate skeptics in future, to the detriment of us all.

Harriet Williams helps coordinate the Environmental Funders Network. The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of the of the network.