How to write about climate change

A guide to building a career in the climate movement

1. Know your audience.

You are a thought leader and changemaker. Your primary audience is your fellow thought leaders and changemakers.¹

The reports you write for your peers are creating a wealth of knowledge that will eventually trickle down to the lower levels of society (hereafter “the public”).

When your ideas reach the public they will follow your thought leadership, and change their behaviour.²³

It works like this

• History is driven by public opinion.

• Write narratives that change public opinion and inspire a critical mass of people to take action on climate change.

• Governments and businesses will then have to respond to the public’s demands for action.

• As a result, people, governments and businesses the world over will be united in the fight against climate change.

This is called a “Theory of Change.”

As you can see, the good news is you don’t have to actually spend time with the public in order for them to be led and changed by your ideas (though see Appendix 1 - What to do if you find yourself in a room with working class people).

2. Include pictures

Your pictures should show a future exactly the same as today, just minus the emissions of greenhouse gases, and the addition of a few wind turbines.⁴ After all, who doesn’t want things to stay exactly as they are?

If in doubt, make sure to use pictures that show people doing things like outdoor yoga,⁵⁶ or cycling to their local vegan supermarket⁷, because everyone is like you and wants to do the same things as you.

Keep poor people out of your pictures. The transition to net zero will be a ‘just transition’, creating a world without poor people in it. So there is no need to have them in your pictures.⁸

Do not include climate impacts in your pictures. Like poor people, they are depressing and speak of failure.

It must always be sunny in your pictures.

The important point is to show how perfect the net zero future will be, and what sort of people will be happy in that world (yes, people like you 😀).

3. Use uplifting language

Combine your pictures with motivational words. A lot of people understand nothing they do will make a difference to climate change.⁹ You can pretend this isn’t true, whilst inspiring and empowering people, by using happy pictures with a combination of the following words:

Fair, thrive, green, people, nature, place, planet, community, resilience, agency, hope, transition, flourishing, prosperity, together, healthy.

You can use the words in any order or context, e.g “your community can help look after our planet and at the same time give people hope in a prosperous future where everyone has the chance to thrive” or “together we can create a fair and green future in which people, places, and nature flourish.”

Such sentences will alienate the working class, but they will at least give your peers a nice warm fuzzy feeling, and make them feel safe.¹⁰

Don’t be scared to talk about ‘solutions’. Using the word solutions communicates the sense that you have this under control. But avoid getting bogged down into what the solutions solve. Instead say things like “It’s easy to feel that climate change is too big to solve. But we already have the answers, now it’s a question of making them happen” and leave it at that.¹¹

To show climate change can be solved, compare it to other issues that are nothing like climate change, such as COVID¹² or the smoking ban.¹³

Don’t write anything that risks undermining the public’s confidence in us, or stokes their frustrations. Your job is to take all the public’s anger, anxiety and resentment at their situation, and transmute it into something harmless, like deciding whether to have a ground source or air source heat pump, and calling that a ‘solution’.

4. Net zero, not climate change

Limit your use of the phrase ‘climate change’. Write instead about Net Zero. It is one of most effective weapons in your armory for managing the public’s expectations about the type of change they can hope for. Be a Zero Hero !!¹⁴¹⁵

The words ‘climate change’ bring up images of catastrophe, sacrifice and tedium. Yuck!! Net Zero is solutions, Net Zero is prosperity, Net Zero is freedom.

Keep your content vague, distant and abstract, because the public aren’t supportive of Net Zero when they understand the policies.¹⁶ Remember this formula: Solving climate change = reaching Net Zero in 2050. Sticking to this means you can ignore the current challenges people face, and instead tell inspiring stories how much better life will be once a flood of green energy has washed the land of all our fossil fuelled sins 25 years from now. Then, if it is all looking like too much hard work, you have plenty of time to drop the policies before even getting started.¹⁷

The only revolution you should be writing about is an energy revolution.¹⁸

The only systemic change you should be writing about is a change to the energy system.¹⁹

5. It’s a numbers game

Avoid writing about climate change as a moral issue. Use Net Zero to position climate change as a technical problem that simply requires decarbonisation of existing social and economic relations.²⁰

Use the numbers of finance and targets - they are a great substitute for morality.²¹ You can make numbers mean anything, and change them around as suits, whereas people don’t tend to change their morals quite so easily.

You can turn past failures into successes simply by framing the numbers differently. Once upon a time it was all about keeping climate change below the dangerous 2⁰C limit.²² Just because we can no longer avoid the dangerous limit of 2⁰C of warming this is not the time to give up on our existing strategies. To prevent the public exploring other ways of responding to the climate crisis, keep them on track by writing things like:

“We still have a chance to avoid the worst ravages of climate breakdown.”²³

“Once we worried temperatures might rise by nearly 5 degrees centigrade. Now temperatures are expected to rise by more like 2.5 degrees Celsius to 3 degrees Celsius —still bad, but not nearly as catastrophic.”

“Every fraction of a degree counts.”

“There's a glimmer of hope that averting the worst of climate change might still be possible."²⁴²⁵

6. Talk about solutions

Obviously, it is best to avoid all these messy details and stick with ‘solutions’. It is difficult to square dire visions such as ‘we might be able to avoid total catastrophe’ with the promise of human flourishing and shared prosperity in 2050.

Your writing must remain positive in the face of catastrophe. Have as your motto ‘Hope for the best, but plan for the best.’ Though we couldn’t beat Trump we will beat climate change. How? Simply by continuing to hope that we will, and telling the public “Everything you do matters.”²⁶

Even though the world has changed, keep writing the same advice and strategies as you did ten years ago. We know the world we want. If we just close our eyes and wish hard enough, we will get there, blown forward by the winds of hope and repetition.

Don’t write defeatist narratives about the need to adapt to climate change.²⁷²⁸ Instead say something like “To create meaningful change, we need to find new and innovative ways to communicate climate issues that are empowering and inspiring, rather than fear-mongering.”²⁹ Make it seem like the reason people aren’t behaving like good low carbon citizens is because we got the words wrong and a tweak to our language will rectify this issue.

When writing about the need for hope, keep in mind it is easy to be hopeful when you have always got what you want. This may not be the experience of the working class. Show you understand by writing about fairness, justice and caring.

Sustain optimism by saying each year ‘this is the year emissions will peak’.³⁰ Though 2024 saw a record rise in greenhouse gas emissions, one year it may actually be true.³¹³²

Stress that the public are to blame for this mess. Stay focused on the message that the choices the public make are the key to success.³³ Continue stressing positivity, agency and hope, even though there is no evidence it works.³⁴³⁵ Your peers want to believe what you are saying, so they won’t pull you up on it.

7. It’s not just any transition

Don’t forget to mention the ‘just transition’. It’s an idea that everybody can support³⁶ because nobody knows what it means.³⁷ Nobody knows what it means because it doesn’t mean anything. Its crucial value is that it diverts the public’s attention from dreaming of the change they want.³⁸³⁹

It’s fine to write about the carbon footprint of the wealthy, or how a just transition will reduce inequality, but just make sure to avoid using the word class.⁴⁰

Instead, explain that a just transition will dissolve social conflict. Stress our common culpability for climate change, and our concern to save the planet. Write things like ‘It’s us, and together we can fix this’.⁴¹ That way your audience knows not only that climate change will be defeated, but the world will be made fairer in the process. Never let the public forget that we are a global community united by a shared dream of Net Zero.⁴²

Don’t go into too many details about how this will actually come about. Fairness, justice and equality is not for now, it is for 2050, long after we will be held to account for our words.

Don’t worry about contradicting yourself. Write about the importance of reasoned and open democratic debate, whilst at the same time making clear that we need full and unflinching dedication to the goals of Net Zero⁴³ and should treat all questioning of this agenda by the public as bad faith behaviour to be corrected through provision of the right information.⁴⁴

Insist that people and organisations working and campaigning on Net Zero are to be trusted simply by the fact they are working on Net Zero. Their choice of profession is proof enough of their infallibility and purity. In a world of declining trust in institutions, our goal is to make sure the public do not question the actions and words of our climate change thought leaders and changemakers.⁴⁵

Decarbonizing energy is a thrilling prospect, which ever way you cut it. But when you are writing about the need for people to change their behaviours and be good low carbon citizens, you risk being mistaken for just the latest iteration of a Victorian era temperance reformer, lecturing your inferiors on how to make themselves more like you. To avoid this, focus on the ‘co-benefits’ of climate policies.

Include co-benefits in your message by writing things like ‘Net Zero is a chance to build a fairer society, where everyone is healthier, happier and working in green jobs.’ There is little evidence the health impacts of climate policies are of interest to the public.⁴⁶ But stay focused on it because it is for their own good.

Keep hammering the message that Net Zero means good, green jobs, even though workers are not interested in that message.⁴⁷ We think they should be interested. And grateful. Working class jobs tend to be precarious, poorly-paid and disempowering, which makes it difficult for the public to see or believe that green jobs will be good jobs, or what ‘good jobs’ even means. The Amazon delivery driver may think that all Net Zero means for them is driving an electric vehicle instead of a petrol one. You can communicate them out of that illusion by following the writing tips in this article.

Appendix 1. What to do if you find yourself in a room with the working class

The most important thing to remember if you find yourself in a room with working class people is do not panic. The reality is you are unlikely to be in such a situation unless you are there as part of a tightly controlled process, for example a ‘citizen’s jury’ or ‘climate assembly’. These are designed for people who are able to talk and act in a reasoned, respectful and informed manner.⁴⁸⁴⁹ So even if there are any working class people there, they will have been selected on the basis they know how to behave themselves and are likely to share your views.⁵⁰⁵¹

The topic and questions will have been defined in advance. The conversation will usually be focused on harmless Net Zero things. These are not places where participants are invited to plot the overthrow of capitalism, or dream of a better world.⁵²

1. “NGOs, scientists, and government officials tend to communicate quite well with one another when it comes to the climate crisis—but little of it is designed or intended to reach the public.” - Tim Kelly, Director of Earth HQ, Global Commons Alliance, cited in A new era in climate communications, pg 70

2. This speaks to Foucault’s ideas of governance in liberal societies, whereby expertise is employed to govern individual and collective conduct. See Rose, N. (1993) ‘Government, authority and expertise in advanced liberalism’. Economy and Society, 22:3, 283-299, DOI: 10.1080/03085149300000019

3. E.g. “By recognizing the power in every message we share, we can tackle the task ahead by rethinking the way we talk about climate change, and reshaping our collective imagination — redefining narratives that will carry us into a better and more sustainable future.” A new era in climate communications, pg 69

4. https://ukhealthalliance.org/influencing-policy/a-just-energy-transition-for-the-good-of-health/

5. ibid.

6. Oxfordshire County Council 2020 Climate Action framework

7. Cherry, C., Verfuerth, C. & Demski, C.(2024) Social visions for a low-carbon future. pg 21

8. ibid.

9. E.g. “For members of the public, being right or wrong about climate- change science will have no impact. Nothing they do as individual consumers or as individual voters will meaningfully affect the risks posed by climate change.” Kahan, D. Why we are poles apart on climate change. Nature 488, 255 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/488255a

10. See ‘Climate communications New Era White Paper’ pg136 for an example of this approach.

11. What are the solutions to climate change?

12. ClimateXChange (2020). Communicating on climate change after COVID-19

13. Grist (2015). What The Climate Movement Can Learn From the War On Smoking.

14. See this for an example of how climate change quickly disappears from the text in favour of ‘net zero’. Centre For Climate and Social Transformation. Five principles for good public engagement: How to get people involved in the climate.conversation.

15. Here I am parodying the idea of people being climate heroes, the weaknesses of which Rebecca Solnit discusses in this article

16. IPSOS Mori (2021). Public support majority of net zero policies…unless there is a personal cost.

17. See this story for an example of how Net Zero targets were adopted to neutralise protestors demands around the time of Extinction Rebellion and Fridays For Future, and are now being dropped.

18. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ai-opportunities-action-plan/ai-opportunities-action-plan

19. For example, this article from the World Resources Institute describes the need for fundamental change, but does not include politics or economics in the list of systems that need to change: “To achieve all this, we need fundamental change across nearly all major systems by 2030 — power, buildings, industry, transport, forests and land, and food and agriculture.”

20. White, J (2025). The Future as A Democratic Resource

21. “Morality is always an anti-economic impulse”. Philanthropy in the end times. Curtis White. Lapham’s Quarterly, Volume VIII, Number 3. 2015 pg 218.

22. ‘Climate change target of 2C is ‘dead’, says renowned climate scientist. The Guardian 4th February 2025

23. Moore, M-L and Milkoreit, M. (2020). ‘Imagination and transformations to sustainable and just futures’. Elem Sci Anth, 8: 1. DOI: https:// doi.org/10.1525/elementa.2020.081

24. “What's the Best Weapon Against Climate Change? Hope.” Newsweek, 2023

25. ‘Backsliding’: most countries to miss vital climate deadline as Cop30 nears

26. For example: “We need to reposition what climate change is in the minds of the public across every community on Earth so that people understand what their role is and that every single thing they do, it matters.” https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7302298138340450305/

27. This story speaks to the issue being parodied here “Helene destroyed my hometown. I don’t want climate change stories of false hope”

28. Read more on “toxic climate positivity” here

29. A New Era in Climate Communications White Paper, pg 71

30. See this story for claims 2024 may be the year emissions peak

31. These two stories show that emissions actually jumped a record amount in 2024. https://www.nationalobserver.com/2024/03/27/analysis/co2-jumped-record-amount-last-year. https://globalcarbonbudget.org/fossil-fuel-co2-emissions-increase-again-in-2024/

32. Wildfires drive record leap in global level of climate-heating CO2. The Guardian, January 2025.

33. “Are we telling a story about negative emissions, feedback loops, or other things most people don’t understand at all? Or are we telling a story of hope, possibility, and human agency? More importantly, are we making it clear when we talk about this that there are choices we can make that will determine our future.” A New Era in Climate Communications White Paper.

34. For example: “We tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions’ effectiveness was small, largely limited to non-climate skeptics”. Madalina Vlasceanu et al. Addressing climate change with behavioral science: A global intervention tournament in 63 countries. Sci.Adv.10,eadj5778(2024)https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.adj5778

35. Conversely, there is research showing “...doom and gloom messaging can spur climate action, as long as it falls on the right ears at the right time.” Which is basically the same circumstances which dictate the success of positive messaging. ‘Beyond the Doom and Gloom, Here’s How to Stimulate Climate Action.’ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/beyond-the-doom-and-gloom-heres-how-to-stimulate-climate-action/

36. Climate Barometer 2024. Has support for net zero risen or fallen since the election?

37. Climate change isn’t fair, but the transition could be just. (The Conversation, 9/2025)

38. Chomsky, N. (2003) Media Control, pg 2.

39. “Even groups who feel at home with quantified scenarios such as climate researchers and policymakers seem to blindly ‘trust the numbers’. This arguably applies even stronger to other societal actors such as the media and citizens who are less familiar with scenarios but are increasingly engaged in the climate debate”. "Plausibility in models and fiction: What integrated assessment modellers can learn from an interaction with climate fiction". L. Van Beek and W. Versteeg, Futures 151 (2023) 103195

40. E.g. Moorcroft H, Hampton S, Whitmarsh L (2025) Climate change and wealth: understanding and improving the carbon capability of the wealthiest people in the UK. PLOS Clim 4(3): e0000573 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000573. See also The Fairness Test. Friends of the Earth (2025)

41. Cook, J., Supran, G., Lewandowsky, S., Oreskes, N., & Maibach, E., (2019). America Misled: How the fossil fuel industry deliberately misled Americans about climate change. Fairfax, VA: George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication.

42. Why humanity’s survival may depend on us becoming a tribe of billions. New Scientist, (2024).

43. E.g. “One thing … is clear. We won’t reach Net Zero unless people are involved in climate action and supported to make sustainable choices. People need to be at the heart of climate solutions.” Building a Net Zero Future.

44. Catherine Cherry, Caroline Verfuerth, Christina Demski. Discourses of climate inaction undermine public support for 1.5 °C lifestyles. Global Environmental Change, Volume 87, 2024, 102875, ISSN 0959-3780, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102875.

45. “To transition to a low-carbon society, we need to be able to trust the wide range of people and organisations that can help get us there. But trust is at an all-time low. The story we're hearing around the world is of progress stalling, or going into reverse. Despite everyone's best efforts, climate messages aren’t always landing as we want”. Promotional email, Climate Outreach, 13/03/25

46. J.M. Martin-Kerry, H.M. Graham, P. Lampard, ‘I don't really associate climate change with actual people's health’: a qualitative study in England of perceptions of climate change and its impacts on health, Public Health, Volume 219, 2023, Pages 85-90, ISSN 0033-3506, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2023.03.020.

47. Why the public doesn’t buy the idea of a ‘green jobs’ bonanza. Financial Times, November 2024

48. Imagining 2050. Deliberative Futures Toolkit. (2021).

49. Citizens' Conventions: "We must defend democratic debate against the government's participatory whims". Le Monde, March 2025.

50. Rachel Coxcoon (2024). Are local climate assemblies politically representative of the macro-public they represent, and does this matter? Environ. Res. Commun. 6 125011 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2515-7620/ad937f

51. “This is a future for experts and insiders, schooled in the practices of forecasting and calculation, rather than for a public engaged in normative choices.” The Future as A Democratic Resource, White, J (2025). https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/future-as-a-democratic-resource/CA9BE33605CDBCA75240E7BF10483A98

52. “As part of the Seventh Carbon Budget we commissioned a Citizens' Panel to understand how the transition to Net Zero can be made affordable and acceptable for all households. The panel covered changes to how we travel, heat our homes and eat.” https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7302981286636236800/