Resource Type: Research & Articles

A national survey conducted in late August found that:

The coronavirus pandemic has created the urgency to act in a way that climate change hasn’t. 
Despite the fact that voters are less concerned about climate, they still want robust clean energy investments in economic stimulus, seeing that as a great way to create jobs and better than investing in fossil fuels.
Because the urgency to act is already high and voters strongly and broadly support clean energy stimulus, we can still win.
Communications should focus on the need to recover economically from the coronavirus pandemic and the ways clean energy investments can create jobs and growth.
Environmental justice messages should be a part of this: They connect powerfully with communities of color, and there is no apparent backlash effect with white audiences.

In November 2018, residents of Portland, Oregon, made history by passing The Portland Clean Energy Fund (PCEF), a breakthrough initiative that will raise an estimated $44-$61 million annually to support local clean energy and economic justice initiatives. The fund passed with 65 percent of the vote and support from a long list of local businesses and community organizations, including faith leaders, labor unions, and more. This Executive Summary captures toplines on what the campaign learned about what it takes to win.

While previous research has led to significant progress in our understanding of how to effectively communicate the existence and seriousness of climate change—and how to motivate people to behave in ways that help mitigate it—relatively little research has investigated the factors that lead to enduring change. This paper highlights three promising areas of research that can inform efforts to answer the question of how to generate enduring change—deep engagement, general mental models, and social norms—and proposes a research agenda aimed at generating enduring motivation to act on climate change.

The Climate Advocacy Lab and The All We Can Save Project came together to review the latest research and field testing about women’s engagement on climate change, before turning to excpetional female climate leaders – and contributing essayist for the forthcoming anthology, All We Can Save (AWCS) – about the powerful impacts of feminine & feminist climate leadership.