The war of words over climate change - Corporate Knights Excerpt
In this recent Corporate Knights article, The war of words over climate change, Alcoba (2025) draws attention to the strategic use of language by various stakeholders in the context of our current climate crisis, and how this varying terminology impacts the effectiveness and direction of climate action.
The largest stand-alone public opinion survey, known as the People’s Climate Vote, took the temperature of 77 countries – representing 87% of the world’s population – in 2024. It found that 86% of respondents want countries to work together to find climate solutions, even if they disagree on other issues such as trade and security. Eighty percent want their communities to strengthen their climate commitments, and 71% want their countries to replace coal, oil and gas with renewable energy quickly or somewhat quickly. A survey by Potential Energy of 23 countries came to a similar conclusion: more than three-quarters of respondents want governments to do “whatever it takes” to limit the effects of climate change.
In its climate marketing guide called “Talk Like a Human,” Potential Energy lays out tips and traps – the latter of which this article has already fallen victim to. Words including “decarbonization,” “net-zero,” “anthropogenic” or “carbon footprint” don’t work. Instead, lean into pollution, overheating and extreme weather. Don’t exaggerate, it says – terms like “climate emergency” or “climate crisis” work much better with people who are already alarmed but not with people who aren’t, Potential Energy has found. Even something like “fight climate change” has pitfalls, its research has discovered. Instead, “fight pollution” is far more effective, accurate and a framing that people are already familiar with.
The fact that politicians are currently the main communicators of climate action is a problem, Velasquez-Rose says, given their lack of credibility in large swaths of the planet. In the United States, which Potential Energy research shows has the greatest polarization on climate issues in the world, climate action is mostly associated with just one party, alienating those who support the other.
It’s not just what is being said, and who is saying it, but how that messaging is being funnelled and funded. For decades, the right-wing media machine in the United States has been building a powerful amplification system that stretches across evangelical churches, radio talk shows, podcasts, influencers and YouTube streamers, with massive amounts of funding from oil and gas interests and beyond pouring into anti-climate messaging that spreads disinformation like wildfire. “Nothing like that exists on the left,” Hertsgaard says. “Instead, there is a mainstream media that is still trying to play by the old rules that we’re going to be so-called objective and we’re not going to take sides. We sure as hell should be partisan as hell on behalf of the truth.”
“We need to challenge any corporate leader [or] CEO of a bank or pension fund who says we need to go orderly on this and slow,” Brooks says. “There’s nothing orderly about wildfires forcing thousands to evacuate [or] Toronto, the financial centre of Canada, flooding twice this summer.” The key, Potential Energy has found, is to frame climate action around materiality – not morality.
And drawing more attention to the gap that exists between what people say they want from their governments on climate action and what governments are doing. Protecting one’s health and protecting our homes and families against extreme weather performs far better as a motivator for action against climate pollution. But fear versus hope is the wrong debate. The biggest motivator is protecting what we love.
Corporate Knights, Natalie Alcoba, January 21, 2025
