After decades of telling people what the science says, new research suggests the missing ingredient may be something more human: emotion, storytelling and a sense of connection to what we want to protect.
We have never had more information about climate change.
We also have no shortage of campaigns telling us what we should do about it.
But knowing something matters and feeling motivated to act are not necessarily the same thing.
New research from the University of Geneva suggests that if we want people to take climate action, we may need to stop thinking of communication as an information problem — and start thinking of it as a human one.
Researchers analysed 71 studies involving more than 216,000 people to examine which approaches to climate communication were most effective at influencing behaviour, intentions and support for climate policies.
The result is a useful lesson for anyone trying to turn knowledge into action.
Emotion matters.
From information to inspiration
The researchers examined 15 different communication strategies, from presenting scientific facts and information to highlighting the health or financial consequences of climate change.
They also looked at approaches designed to evoke emotional responses.
The difference was revealing.
Almost all of the strategies studied appeared capable of producing some positive effect. But campaigns designed to generate stronger emotional responses — particularly through storytelling or by inspiring wonder at the beauty of nature — were more effective than simply presenting scientific information.
In other words, the problem may not be that people don’t understand climate change.
It may be that understanding isn’t enough to make us care enough to change.
That distinction has implications far beyond climate communication.
We don’t experience the world as spreadsheets
Climate change is often communicated through numbers: tonnes of carbon, degrees of warming, sea-level rise, percentages and projections.
Those numbers matter. They tell us what is happening.
But humans don’t make decisions based on information alone.
We respond to stories. Images. Emotions. Identity. Belonging. The things we love and feel responsible for.
The Geneva researchers found that messages invoking moral, ethical or even spiritual considerations could also perform better, particularly when they connected climate action to something larger than the individual.
Images mattered too.
That points towards a different model of communication — one less concerned with simply transferring information and more interested in creating meaning around it.
Designing for action
For innovators, there is an important lesson here.
Innovation is often described as creating a new product, technology or system.
But sometimes the breakthrough is understanding why people do — or don’t do — something in the first place.
If the goal is to accelerate climate action, the challenge may not always be developing better information. It may be designing better ways for people to connect with that information.
That could mean campaigns built around stories rather than statistics. Visual experiences rather than data alone. Local examples rather than abstract global averages. Or communication that helps people see what they stand to protect, rather than simply what they stand to lose.
It also challenges one familiar assumption: that putting responsibility squarely on the individual will necessarily motivate them.
The researchers found that messages emphasising individual or collective responsibility had little or no effect and could even provoke resistance.
That matters because telling people they should act is not necessarily the same as giving them a reason to want to.
The next climate innovation may be emotional
The study does not suggest abandoning facts.
Quite the opposite: the science remains the foundation.
But if the next stage of the climate challenge is less about establishing what is happening and more about motivating people to respond, then communication itself becomes part of the innovation challenge.
How do you turn knowledge into motivation?
How do you make an abstract future feel immediate?
How do you help someone care about something they may never personally experience?
And perhaps most importantly:
What if the most powerful climate message isn’t the one that tells us more — but the one that makes us feel something?
That may be one of the most human technologies we have yet to master.
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