Climate change communication forum

Yesterday (3 December) Yiying and I attended a forum on communicating climate change at the Grand Velas Resort. Other than the really great food 😀 the forum brought in many distinguished speakers, including the man behind the idea – Simon Anholt.

“How to engage an indifferent public: the media and public diplomacy” by Simon Anholt discussed the need to fill in the missing gap in communication – the link between a difficult, slow, non media-friendly diplomatic channel and the factual perspective of a scientific channel – to better engage the public in this trans-boundary issue of unprecedented scale. He also spoke about the need for an international forum that discusses and analyses the means to leveraging the power of the 6 billion, as communication as isolated actions is highly ineffective given the nature of this problem.

General details aside, the very idea that climate change also entails human behaviour is an undeniable, but hardly acknowledged fact. Let’s look at it this way – why is it that we wait for scientists and diplomats to come up for the solutions for us when they did not cause climate change? It’s time we realise that unless we start to do something, no one is going to – we have but the power to do good and the power to do bad as well.

Public behaviour is also affected by what Mr. Anholt called a “national brand”. Now this is the point in time that I suddenly heard something click in my head 😀 The idea of a national brand is similar to that of corporate social image – it affects the opinions of people, and is a key driver behind international politics, perceptions and most importantly public behaviour. Perhaps an example to explain this will help: there are strongly rooted negative perceptions of Africa as a continent in general, which in turn negatively affects its tourism and trade.

For countries to climb up the ladder towards higher status on the international platform, they have to have to be admired by others beyond simply economic progress. There presents itself the need to do good. Be it aid, or climate change action, the idea of a positive national brand is the Achilles’ heel of countries as they find a need to be admired by others.

This then serves as a strong motivation and incentive for countries towards adopting climate change action as effective and long-lasting national policy. This is especially so if public opinion skews government emphasis effectively and brings across the understanding that this is what citizens are looking out for.

However, it may be difficult to capitalise on public opinion due to negative messaging commonly associated with climate change. This is frequently counter-productive – the lack of provision of solutions and common use of “scare tactics” causes people to feel a sense of escapism; the need to run away from a supposedly unsolvable problem.

Conveying hope that all is not lost rather than a doomsday picture should be the way to go from here: to show people around the world that they can do something about climate change, and that their opinions matter. It is not fear that drives people, but hope.

Hence, the existing superpower of the day is not nuclear arms, or some secret super-weapon that is waiting to be discovered, but PUBLIC OPINION. It lends an inherently ethical dimension to this process of words, negotiations and disinclined political will; and also makes it apparent that this is what the public wants, thus assisting in changing government policies towards climate action.

Do look out for the next post on Oceans Day that happened today, 4th December (: