#DrivingAmbition: A Climate-Conscious Society

Youth4Climate|Communication
#DrivingAmbition: A Climate-Conscious Society
May 20, 2021
By
Connect4Climate

This article is part of a series on topics to be explored at this year's #Youth4Climate: #DrivingAmbition event. Check back regularly for updated content!

Building a climate-conscious society means cultivating awareness and understanding of key climate issues. Breakout groups at this September's #Youth4Climate: #DrivingAmbition event will explore four avenues by which to achieve this: impactful storytelling, education, public mobilization, and the media. And as we brainstorm how best to spread climate knowledge and build coalitions for climate action, it is vital that we remember to prioritize inclusivity at every step. Inclusive engagement is the only kind of engagement that will build the momentum needed to get the job done.

Showcasing Impacts and Solutions

Sharing the human stories of those most deeply affected by an issue is one of the most powerful ways to galvanize a reponse to that issue. When showcasing impacts, it’s important to give voice to people of disparate identities and lived experiences and to call special attention to those disproportionately affected—often those from groups that have been historically disenfranchised and denied the means to bring about policy change.

Goal: This breakout group will brainstorm how best to achieve equity in climate action, drawing in particular on the invaluable perspectives of local communities, indigenous people, and women.

Education

Education is the mainstay of democratic societies and an excellent way to give young people the courage and knowledge they need to make a tremendous impact on climate and other global issues. What this working group will ask is: How is the climate crisis currently being taught in schools around the world? Where are we lacking? And what are creative avenues for improvement?

Goal: This breakout group will brainstorm the most essential topics and standards that need to come across in climate education and help think up innovative strategies for bringing this content to students around the world.

Public Mobilization

Driving climate literacy in communities and empowering the public to mobilize for climate action means communicating the latest climate research effectively and making climate policy more transparent. Sustained mutual engagement between individuals and governments is essential.

Goal: This breakout group will help develop innovative public and private outreach efforts to make the science of climate change accessible to all and promote climate advocacy and action at the community and individual levels.

Media

On TV and in newspapers, climate change is almost always framed as a clinical, environmental phenomenon. Yet the human impacts of climate change—and the larger climate crisis radiating out from it—are very real. In order to get more people invested in climate action, we have to think about evocative ways in which to reframe the issues in media.

Goal: This breakout group will generate proposals to improve climate narratives in media by recontextualizing them in terms of concrete human impact.

Connect4Climate is a World Bank Group Multi-Donor Trust Fund powered by Italy’s Ministry for Ecological Transition and Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development that drives climate action through advocacy, partnerships, and creative communications.

POWERED BY