This short report was informed by insights from the following partners:

• Anne Marie Cleary Rauker, ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability USA

• Chelsea Warren, City and County of Denver’s Office of Climate Action, Sustainability, and Resiliency

• Emily Gedeon, City and County of Denver’s Office of Climate Action, Sustainability, and Resiliency

• Jennifer Tsang, San Francisco Environment Department

Introduction

When a hurricane threatens a community, government officials have a responsibility to communicate accurate information about the hazard and provide guidance to community members on how to stay safe. Further, they should educate the public about how to prepare for hurricanes long before a storm is forecast. As climate change supercharges hurricanes, heat waves, and other extreme weather, government officials must communicate with their communities about how they can cut carbon pollution and adapt to the climate impacts that are already affecting them. 

Communication is a climate solution, and it catalyzes other climate solutions. Together with policy and programming, communication is necessary to meet climate goals. It can advance community members’ climate literacy so they understand the challenges and solutions to climate change. It can foster civic engagement, boosting voting and public participation. It’s needed to raise awareness of government programs and support behavior change campaigns to amplify the impact of policies and programs. No one will apply for a heat pump rebate if they don’t know about it or why heat pumps benefit them. While many community members are excited to take action, they may not know what steps to take. 

What does successful local government climate communication look like? How can municipal governments communicate more effectively? 

Based on years of research and insights from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (YPCCC) along with expertise from local government climate communication practitioners, this article identifies key steps towards more effective climate communication:

A majority of Americans believe climate change is happening and 56% of registered voters want local government officials to do more to address climate change. With a duty to serve the public, local governments are listening and responding.

Because local government agencies vary widely in their goals and budgets, the specifics of what makes good governmental climate communication depend on the agency’s mission and capacity, but many principles and practices are broadly applicable. This article highlights some examples and best practices from cities across the country.

Invest in Communication

As you engage the public, you have probably heard statements like, “I would have taken advantage of [this climate program], but I didn’t know about it.” Local governments should integrate communication into every program’s budget and process as a standard procedure. Communication needs to be part of climate policymaking from the beginning. Climate communication practitioners recognize this need, advocate for it, and ensure it remains a priority. Likewise, they work across departments, recognizing this as an opportunity to embed climate communication in different budgets and programs. Stable funding is key for a sustained climate communication strategy. 

Know Your Audience and Meet Them Where They Are

Understanding your audience is critical to the design of effective strategies to engage them. Practitioners should conduct background research on the beliefs, attitudes, policy support, and behaviors of their target audiences. Knowing your audience enables communicators to create content that resonates with and meets their audiences where they are, and where they are willing to go. A message that clicks with the team in the Sustainability Office might not work with the Public Safety department, much less the broader community. Your audience will not, and may not need to, think about climate change the way you do. They might best understand it through a cost of living or health frame, rather than an environmental one. Beyond understanding the values and priorities of your audiences, it is also important to know how they receive information, what kind of information resonates most, and how it can be delivered in a way that is linguistically and culturally relevant. Example audiences that climate communication practitioners should consider are local community members, policymakers, government staff, the business community, and civil society organizations. 

Get to Know Your Audience Through Survey Research, Message Testing, and YPCCC Tools 

Conducting a survey and testing messages are invaluable ways to learn about your audiences and what resonates with them. For resource-constrained local governments, the Yale Climate Opinion Maps tool provides audience insights at the city and county levels. For instance, the City of Ann Arbor used this data and then surveyed their community directly using the Six Americas Super Short Survey. The results helped city leaders understand what policies had support and how to engage their community members. Tools like Grow Progress and Swayable can also be used to quickly and cost-effectively test messages with audiences – a good investment if your campaign is going to cost thousands of dollars. 

Use Qualitative Research and Collaborator Engagement 

Use interviews, focus groups, and town halls to listen to community members and potential collaborators. Then use that information to inform your communication strategy. For example, Denver’s Office of Climate Action, Sustainability, and Resiliency hosted focus groups to learn different audiences’ motivations to achieve zero waste. When they promoted the Denver Reuse Business Directory, a tool that maps out reuse-friendly businesses, city staff used the information they gathered during the focus groups to create personas and tailored messages to activate Denverites to minimize waste.

It’s important to know your community inside and out and literally meet people in the places they gather. For example, if a farmer’s market is a popular Saturday-morning destination, set up a table to ask community members how they would like the local government to address climate change. 

Advance Climate Justice and Equity

Prioritize climate justice and equity to build resilience among those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. This may mean acknowledging that the government hasn’t always effectively served Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) or disabled communities. Accordingly, it is important to develop climate solutions that address these inequities. Because Black and Latino communities are more likely to be Alarmed about climate change, and often strongly support climate action, it may be especially impactful to engage them. 

To start, it is important to translate climate messages into relevant languages, as well as incorporate accessibility mechanisms like screen readers. Use free tools like the Hemingway App to verify that content is understandable at an eighth-grade reading level, ensuring no group is left behind. Whenever possible, opt to use multilingual design concepts like images and symbols, instead of words, on public signage or as visual aids in presentations. This makes content understandable regardless of language. Use storytelling, not just data, that resonates with your target audiences. And champion environmental work that some cultures have practiced for generations, like saving and reusing single-use containers. When designing campaigns for specific communities, understand their culture and values and align your messages accordingly. For example, when the San Francisco Department of the Environment launched a toxics reduction campaign for the Chinese community in the city, they planned a launch aligned with Chinese New Year and used messages in red, a lucky color in Chinese culture. Creating an inclusive climate communication strategy can engage community members who might have been historically hard to reach.

Use Messages That Work 

Leverage Social Norms

We look to our friends, family, and neighbors for cues on what to believe and how to act. Our perceptions of social norms, or the unwritten rules for how to behave, are powerful motivators and can be used to build support and encourage action. But, fewer than half of Americans currently understand that most Americans support action on climate change. In other words, Americans often don’t realize that climate change is something that is already important to the people they care about, like friends and family. While 65% of Americans are somewhat or very worried about climate change, only 35% “often” or “occasionally” discuss global warming with their family and friends. To communicate the levels of social norms within a local community, use survey data that reveals high levels of support for climate policies or behaviors. Then bring that data to life by sharing stories of community members role modeling climate action, like how Julie from Michigan helped her neighbors install rooftop solar or how Sarah from Edmonton created a tool to encourage neighbors to work together on climate mitigation and adaptation efforts. Furthermore, to encourage energy efficiency, public utilities can educate customers about their home energy use, offer comparisons to similar, but more efficient homes, and share strategies to decrease energy use.

Minimize Psychological Distance through Education and Storytelling

Many Americans perceive climate change as a problem that is distant in time (a generation or more away) and space (affecting polar bears or developing countries, not the U.S., their state, their community, their friends, family, or themselves). Researchers call this “psychological distance.” Educate your audiences about how climate change is already affecting the people, places, and things that they love. Climate literacy can also be improved using curriculum for K-12 students, outreach to adults, social media, and on-the-ground training with community members and business owners. Likewise, storytelling about local climate actions helps make climate solutions more concrete and achievable.

Empower and Activate

Beyond education, empower the public to take climate action. This could be as simple as including a “call to action” in each message or as complex as informing community members about opportunities for rebates to finance climate-friendly home improvements. What action, knowledge, belief, or behavior is the desired outcome? How is the behavior beneficial to target audiences? What social norms might influence adoption? For example, the City of Minneapolis empowers its community members by hosting a Green Careers Exploration Program to promote climate-friendly jobs. Equipping community members with the tools to take action can transform worry into action. 

Identify Key Messengers

Without the correct messenger, even the best messages will fall flat. We tend to listen to people who we like, trust, and are like us. In general, the closer a relationship we have with a messenger, the more impactful the message. Latino community members might respond better to a pro-climate advocate who lives in their neighborhood and churchgoers might be more inclined to take climate action after hearing a supportive sermon from their pastor, rather than from a social media campaign by their local government. 

Engage community liaisons and partners that are trusted by the community. These messengers could include doctors and nurses, faith leaders, business leaders, and community-based organizations. For example, the City of Dallas engaged several partners, including the University of Texas at Arlington to collect energy use data to improve solar installation assistance programs, and with Texas Trees Foundation to support sustainable urban forestry. Sustained relationships with trusted messengers can establish and maintain trust between municipal governments and their community members.

Consider Diverse Communication Tactics

Find Fun Ways to Engage the Community 

Create opportunities to co-create climate solutions with the public. This could include traditional venues like town halls to get feedback on planning for sustainable modes of transportation, or native plant workshops to encourage water-wise landscaping.

Some local governments have sponsored friendly competitions between neighborhoods or with other cities to encourage energy efficiency or installation of solar panels. Climate action can, and should be fun. The City of Phoenix walked the walk on this by creating a public art project called “Sombra! Experiments in Shade.” During this project, they unveiled nine shade structures designed by artists in response to extreme heat. Featuring a documentary and food from local vendors, the closing event convened community members and the artists who designed the unique structures for a memorable and educational experience. 

Consider Channels

Different audiences consume content in different ways. While a twenty-four year old from suburban Ohio might get their news from TikTok, a seventy-two year old on the Upper East Side might prefer to read a paper copy of the New York Times. A critical part of meeting people where they are is to use the channels that they already pay attention to. Popular channels can include websites and newsletters, newspapers, radio, TV, and social media. They might also include interpersonal networks and community outreach. Each channel has distinct benefits and challenges, so be strategic when deciding which channels to use. One of the most influential channels is conversation with our loved ones. Because different channels will reach different people, it is often important to layer communications, offering the same information on different platforms. 

Embrace Partnerships

To go far, go together. Effective climate communication strategies are ideally embedded across departments and integrated from the beginning to end of a project. Work across departments like Economic Development or Public Works to connect climate solutions to economic opportunities like job training or home needs like water use. This not only expands reach and empowers new audiences, but it also opens the door to co-benefits with other programs.

Partner with diverse groups to meet community members where they are. For example, public-private partnerships might provide technology or capacity to achieve climate goals more quickly than the government alone. Connections with community-based organizations can strengthen ties with people who trust their neighbors more than they trust the government.

Foster Trust

As a steadfast presence for community members, it’s critical that local governments cultivate a trusted relationship with all communities in their jurisdiction. You may need to earn the trust of certain demographic groups who are currently wary of the government. In areas with high turnover, you might also need to continually engage new residents. To offset message decay effects, maintain a steady, ongoing relationship with the communities you serve. Improve transparency using public dashboards, easily understandable reports, and frequent engagement to demonstrate that your local government is serious about achieving your climate goals. Create an advisory group of community members that informs decision-making to help bridge the gap between government and constituents (and help implement the programs). 

Conclusion

A majority of Americans want their local governments to take climate action. Best positioned to communicate local, evidence-based content through inclusive messaging, education, and outreach, local governments have an often underappreciated superpower to catalyze climate action.

Without climate communication from local governments, community members may lack the necessary knowledge to make climate-positive decisions, and may be ill-equipped to respond to the next extreme weather event. When local governments use trusted messengers and effective messages to reach key audiences through the right channels, they can increase public understanding of climate solutions, foster civic engagement, and help make their communities more resilient to climate change.