Resource Type: Research & Articles

Communicators should highlight the negative impacts associated with fossil fuel extraction and global warming in order to persuade people who are confident in the economic security of fossil fuels. This survey of Canadians shows that the transition to cleaner forms of energy is broadly popular. Further, people who are more likely to favor the energy transition also worry more about climate change, identify on the political left or center, and have less hope in the future economic prospects of fossil fuels. Women, younger people, and higher-educated people also favor the transition away from oil and gas more. This article argues for political elites and other communicators to pay attention to the impacts that their messages can have on what masses of voters think about climate policy.

Optimize your climate messaging with the surprising results and important guidance gleaned from 76 climate persuasion experiments, presented by the social scientists who collectively analyzed them. Individual studies come out all the time (and the Lab loves to let you know about all of them), but it can be difficult to piece together the big picture from all the data points. That’s why it’s so valuable when researchers occasionally comprehensively review and synthesize a whole body of studies, such as this combined analysis of dozens of separate climate persuasion experiments in the US from the last 10 years. The social scientists will also share insights from their review of research on reducing political polarization on climate.

This post includes climate and environment headlines, data points, and key takeaways from recent public polls – including new polling on the Build Back Better plan and its major clean energy and climate provisions and a new poll assessing voters’ trust in the two parties to handle climate and environmental issues. 

40 “systems leaders” from across North America and Africa share their insights in this report on the potential and the challenges of advancing systems change. What do we most need, individually and collectively, to really DO the systems change that’s needed? Diverse leaders shared some common experiences and lessons, including: centering equity and inclusion, expanding capabilities, leveraging indigenous wisdom, deepening collaboration, supporting leaders, resourcing systems change, and increasing capacity. Some of their specific conclusions include prioritizing: a diverse range of leaders working at multiple levels and across sectors, a supported and connected field to scale our individual and collective impact, and grounding change in community and centering local voices and expertise. These leaders work in an array of issue areas, such as racial equity, renewable energy, entrepreneurship, local food systems, violence, and more.

Non-climate global crises can distract people from the climate crisis. Given the immediacy and real-time affectedness of events like the coronavirus pandemic, civil unrest, geopolitical tensions, and economic downturns, it’s easy to understand if attention was slipping away from the looming climate crisis. In an analysis of social media data, the authors of this article find that as other global threats loom large, climate change attention wanes. People engage significantly less with climate change related material as these other crises are introduced. Recognizing this reality, advocates should work towards impressing upon others that the climate crisis is indeed interconnected to these other events. “Systemic sustainability” or a unified message is key for keeping attention and focus on the climate threats, while also acknowledging and respecting the real impacts of these other events.