Talk of the city: engaging urbanites on climate change
Climate change requires societal engagement on both mitigation and adaptation. With a growing majority of people living in cities, urban dwellers and municipal decision-makers will need to reduce their emissions and other impacts on the regional and global climate while dealing with the unavoidable near-term and potential longer-term impacts of climate change. To facilitate effective societal response to climate change, a busy, distracted, and so far only marginally interested public needs to be engaged on the topic. This poses significant challenges to communication and sustained outreach efforts. This letter draws on critical insights from a three-year multi-disciplinary project that involved academics and practitioners from various disciplines and sectors of (mostly US) society and explored how to communicate climate change in ways that facilitate societal response. The letter raises questions about key audiences, appropriate messengers, framings and messages, reception of climate change information, and the choice of communication mediums and formats to achieve different communication and engagement goals.