You might be an exception to this rule but, broadly speaking, “Nobody wakes up thinking ‘What a great day for decarbonization!’” That’s an axiom you’ll hear frequently from John Marshall, who tested different climate messages with nearly 60,000 people around the world trying to figure out how to boost climate action in the public mind. He’s landed on one uniting message — “Later is too late.”
Not that the “later is too late” line will get people thinking about decarbonization, per se. In fact, the marketing guru-turned-climate-communicator thinks the conversation is already far too freighted with jargon like “decarbonization,” “anthropogenic,” and “Paris targets.” However important in their own spheres, those kinds of terms will forever be gobbledygook, turning off the broad public.
Instead, Marshall says there’s overwhelming evidence for one particular line of communication that jumps out from all those message tests, conducted in randomized, controlled trials: Love for the next generation.
Marshall’s organization, the Potential Energy Coalition, teamed up with the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and tested all kinds of reasons for acting on climate: protection from extreme weather, justice, jobs and economic potential. Love won, by a large margin.
It had almost double the impact of “making polluters pay.”
“Across every country, the dominant reason for action on climate change was protecting the planet for the next generation. This reason was 12 times more popular than creating jobs,” according to the research summary. The global report is titled Later is Too Late (marketers are very keen on simplicity and repetition — two things Marshall thinks the climate movement sorely lacks).
Almost 80 per cent of people around the world already want their governments to take action. The 23 countries in the study account for 70 per cent of the world’s population, and 77 per cent of people in the message testing agreed with the statement, “It is essential that our government does whatever it takes to limit the effects of climate change.”
“Whatever it takes” is a very strong position. But as Canadians know, there can be a treacherous gulf between generalized support and backing for specific policies. Winning on any given policy requires a drumbeat of strong framing and that’s where understanding motivation might really make a difference. The most effective narrative, according to Potential Energy, is the “urgent generational message.”
Why do we need clean electricity standards? To protect our kids and the places we love. Why do we have to implement all these new policies in the midst of an affordability crisis? Because “later is too late.”
You won’t be surprised there are several dispiriting findings in the research. But the most refreshing is that the winning climate narrative doesn’t need to be cloaked in appeals to co-benefits like jobs or otherwise overthought. If the message is relevant to people and not technocratic, you can go “right in through the front door and talk about climate and urgency,” says Marshall.
In fact, the research throws a monkey wrench in the debate about motivation by fear versus hope. For normal people, it’s simply the wrong debate. According to the data-crunchers, “The big motivator is protecting what we love.”
Among the dispiriting findings is how poorly people understand the issue. Less than half have heard of the Paris Agreement. Only 20 per cent correctly identify the goals of limiting global heating below 1.5 C or 2 C. If you held any hope of rallying the public behind a temperature target, be forewarned — most people think it should be somewhere around 4 C.
Equally troublesome is that “whatever it takes,” apparently doesn’t include bans and limitations. Support drops nine to 20 percentage points for messages that used words like “phaseout” or “ban.”
Take the controversy about gas in the home: only half the public would be willing to consider a ban on gas-powered appliances and heating/cooling systems. But 70 per cent support a mandate that builders install “the latest clean technology.”
There is one exception to the resistance to limitations, and it’s an impactful one: pollution. People understand pollution, they don’t like it and they support measures to get rid of it. Pollution is a mental model people have already integrated, so it can be leveraged by emphasizing that burning fossil fuels causes pollution that’s heating the planet.
The testing found the most popular policies are designed to boost clean energy or limit pollution and Potential Energy strongly recommends advocates lean into talking about climate pollution much more than they currently do.
Over 2,000 Canadians had their motivations scrutinized during the global study. Compared to the global average, Canadians are less alarmed about climate change and less comfortable talking about it.
On the other hand, Canadians understand the issues better than most. (One-third of us can identify the UN goals of 1.5 C and 2 C.) And Canadians are more “moveable” than average. The argument that “later is too late” to protect future generations generates a lift in support of 14 percentage points — the kind of number political operatives salivate over.
The political dimension is particularly striking in Canada. Not quite as severe as in the U.S., where people who identify as Republican are among the least supportive of climate policy in the entire world, second only to the hard-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Germany. But support for climate action is near the global low among people identifying with the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC).
The CPC is among a small handful of outliers on this score — out of 82 political parties across the 23 countries studied, only six have less than majority support for climate policies. They are political parties in countries that are both wealthy and home to large fossil fuel industries.