By Maha Para, Creative Producer and Team Lead at The Climate Tribe
The impact of effective climate action across the globe increasingly depends on how people understand, engage with, and respond to the world around them. While policy and technology set direction, it is communities that determine whether change takes hold in practice.
According to the International Energy Agency, shifts in everyday behaviours related to energy use, transport, and consumption could reduce global emissions by up to two gigatonnes of CO₂ annually by 2030.[1] The question, then, is whether societies can respond at the pace and scale required.
Bridging this gap depends in part on how climate issues are communicated. Creative platforms have the ability to translate complex environmental issues into formats that are accessible, relatable, and grounded in everyday experience. They shape how people interpret risk, where they locate responsibility, and whether they see a place for themselves within climate action.
Climate change as an abstract problem
One of the central challenges faced by communities in recognising the threat of climate change, is that the issue remains abstract. Research shows that individuals are less likely to respond to risks perceived as distant in time, space, or personal relevance, and for many, climate change is not something that they witness with their own eyes every day.[2]
The most widely cited indicators of climate change – such as glacier retreat, sea level rise, and ocean acidification – for example, do not appear to the ordinary person to be immediate concerns as they are not in their immediate vicinity. Studies also suggest that even when faced with extreme weather events, many people do not objectively link it with climate change, or increase their support of climate policy as a result.[3]
The limitations of this abstraction become clear when examining how climate impacts are actually experienced. Take coral reef degradation. Scientific reports describe it in terms of ocean warming and acidification, with projections that up to 90% of coral reefs could be lost at 1.5°C of warming.[4] For many, this remains distant, yet the consequences are immediate and local.
Coral loss reduces fish populations, affecting food security and livelihoods for coastal communities. It weakens natural coastal protection, increasing exposure to storm surges. It also affects tourism economies, particularly in regions where reef ecosystems underpin employment and revenue.[5] What begins as an abstract environmental change becomes a direct shift in income, access to food, and economic stability.
The need for translation
For communities to engage meaningfully, climate change must be understood in ways that are relevant to daily life.
This requires translation. Climate change needs to move from abstract systems to lived experience. It must be framed not only in terms of global indicators, but in the way it affects food prices, working conditions, and mobility. Without this translation, awareness remains disconnected from action.
This is where creative industries play a critical role. Film, storytelling, and digital media do more than communicate information. They interpret climate change and embed it within cultural narratives that shape how people understand risk, responsibility, and possibility.
Research in climate communication shows that information alone is insufficient to drive action. Approaches grounded in narrative, values, and lived experience are more effective at fostering engagement and behavioural change.[6]
Where action must happen
If climate change is experienced locally, then effective responses must also take shape at the local level. Governments and institutions set direction, and policy frameworks remain essential in defining ambition and enabling systemic change. However, implementation happens within communities. It is in everyday decisions, behaviours, and social norms that climate action is realised.
Evidence from community-based environmental governance shows that local participation strengthens both trust and long-term outcomes, particularly where individuals feel a sense of ownership and shared responsibility.[7]
The challenge, therefore, is not only to design effective policy, but to ensure that communities are equipped to act on it.
From engagement to action
Public engagement must go beyond awareness. It must create pathways for participation that are practical, accessible, and sustained. For change to begin, individuals need to feel informed and capable. For it to continue, they need to see impact. Media and creative platforms play an important role in sustaining this process. They document progress, revisit communities, and show how small actions contribute to larger outcomes. They make impact visible and reinforce the value of participation.
A clear example of this in practice can be seen in the work of the National Geographic’s Pristine Seas initiative, which used film to connect people to what would otherwise remain out of sight. Across its documentaries, including Ocean with David Attenborough, it brought attention to the destructive nature of bottom trawling while also demonstrating the ecological and economic benefits of marine protected areas.
These films were shared widely through public screenings, classrooms, and linked initiatives. Programmes such as Revive Our Ocean, led by Dynamic Planet, then worked directly with coastal communities, using these films as entry points for engagement while providing practical tools and support to establish marine reserves. Since 2008, Pristine Seas has helped establish over 30 marine protected areas, covering approximately 6.9 million square kilometres of ocean, more than twice the size of India.[8]
In making what was once abstract both visible and felt, these efforts contributed to a shift in perception and responsibility, with communities increasingly mobilised to engage with and advocate for marine protected areas.
Realising our power
Communities are not separate from climate systems; they shape them. When individuals see how their actions connect to wider change, and are supported in acting on that understanding, their collective influence becomes visible.
Progress begins here. It takes shape through sustained participation, shared effort, and the alignment of individual behaviour with collective goals. The task ahead is straightforward, make climate action easier to understand, and ensure that participation is within reach.
[1] International Energy Agency (IEA), Net Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector, 2021.
[2] Irene Lorenzoni, Sophie Nicholson-Cole, and Lorraine Whitmarsh, “Barriers Perceived to Engaging with Climate Change,” Global Environmental Change 17, no. 3–4 (2007): 445–459.
[3] Cologna, V., Meiler, S., Kropf, C.M. et al. Extreme weather event attribution predicts climate policy support across the world. Nat. Clim. Chang. 15, 725–735 (2025).
[4] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Global Warming of 1.5°C, 2018.
[5] Ove Hoegh-Guldberg et al., “Coral Reefs Under Rapid Climate Change and Ocean Acidification,” Science 318, no. 5857 (2007): 1737–1742.
[6] Susanne C. Moser and Lisa Dilling, Creating a Climate for Change (Cambridge University Press, 2007); Saffron O’Neill and Sophie Nicholson-Cole, “Fear Won’t Do It,” Science Communication 30, no. 3 (2009): 355–379; Johanna Wolf and Susanne C. Moser, “Individual Understandings of Climate Change,” WIREs Climate Change 2, no. 4 (2011): 547–569.
[7] Elinor Ostrom, “Polycentric Systems for Coping with Collective Action and Global Environmental Change,” Global Environmental Change 20, no. 4 (2010): 550–557; W. Neil Adger, “Social Capital, Collective Action, and Adaptation to Climate Change,” Economic Geography 79, no. 4 (2003): 387–404.
[8] National Geographic Society (2026) Pristine Seas Annual Report 2025. Available at: Pristine Seas Annual Report 2025 (Accessed: 21 April 2026).
