18
BAMOS
Jun 2019
Article
Communicating climate
science and impacts
Stephanie Hall and David Holmes
Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub
Email: [email protected]
In late May, the Monash Climate Change Communication
Research Hub (MCCCRH) released its best-practice guide for
communicating climate science and impacts. Commissioned
by the Victorian Department of Environment, Water, Land and
Planning, the guide was based on the findings of an extensive
literature review of international literature on climate change
communication.
Taking ‘best practice’ to mean methods or strategies that have
had a measurable positive impact on effective decision making
on climate change, the review examined 570 academic texts,
1217 climate NGOs, 17 best-practice guides and 580 Australian
government websites to ensure local, national and international
approaches to communicating climate science and impacts
were considered.
The review found that Australian and Victorian audiences are
highly segmented on climate change, and that there are at least
five segments relevant to effective climate change
communication in Victoria: Alarmed, Concerned, Uncertain,
Doubtful and Dismissive. To the extent that audiences are
divided into such segments, any climate change communication
strategy will require at least five different kinds of messages.
Based on these findings, the guide presented a suite of key
recommendations to guide effective policy formation, but
which can also have significant application capacity across a
wide range of communication objectives. Specifically, the guide
highlights the need for clear messages that are repeated often
by trusted sources to large audiences. It also made particular
reference to the acute need for information to be framed with a
local lens, as this was overwhelmingly preferred by all audience
segments to national or global climate information.