Teaching others how talk about climate change made easy with new guide

In Detail 15 Jan 2021

The EIT Climate-KIC supported #TalkingClimate Workshop—The Trainer’s Guide by Climate Outreach was recently launched. The new guide, accompanied by a slidedeck and script, aims to train workshop hosts to effectively communicate the #TalkingClimate Handbook’s instructions on how to have meaningful and productive conversations about climate change.

Workshop attendees may range from colleagues to friends to community members. The handbook’s pragmatic and evidence-based principles for how to talk about climate change in daily life—on the bus, at work, at a sports event or at home over dinner—was designed for mass appeal.

The #TalkingClimate training materials are based on the following foundational ideas:

  • Day-to-day conversations about climate change matter. Social science shows that people are profoundly affected by the behaviour and views of those around them, particularly those they respect and trust. Politicians also need evidence of social consent before they will take radical policy action. That means public discussion, and breaking the ‘climate silence,’ is an important part of responding to the climate crisis.
  • Every community matters. We cannot meet ambitious climate targets without universal engagement. Climate change conversations therefore need to be taking place across different parts of society, or climate policies will be rejected.
  • Facts and figures are not enough. Providing more information about the causes and impacts of climate change is an important part of the puzzle in motivating people to take action—but it is not the whole story. Research shows that people are also strongly influenced by the stories they hear around them, their values, and the connections they form. #TalkingClimate is about providing the tools to build skills in this area.

Since the 1990s, psychologists, sociologists and other social scientists have been investigating how to get people thinking about, and acting in response to, the climate crisis. The #TalkingClimate Handbook synthesises this considerable evidence base with data from a wide range of sectors on how to have constructive conversations, combined with a 2019 citizen science experiment exploring how to have good climate conversations.

Download the #TalkingClimate workshop guide:

READ THE guide

EURACTIV recently hosted a #TalkingClimate event, featuring EIT Climate-KIC Advisory Board Member, Julian Popov, as well as Clara De La Torre, DG CLIMA – European Commission, Lídia Pereira, MEP – European Parliament, George Marshall, Climate Outreach and Julia Fiedorczuk, School of Ecopoetics at InstytutR.

Watch the event video to learn about climate literacy’s increasingly important role in helping citizens understand climate change and orienting them towards action.

 
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