The power of storytelling in climate leadership

This blog series, focused on building a new climate leadership paradigm, is part of CPI's Climate Change Initiative. Partnering with local governments across the world, we test new innovative approaches that can accelerate climate action in cities. Our work currently focuses on four opportunity areas that are ripe for disruption: organisational transformation, building legitimacy, systemic climate finance, and information and learning systems.

Have you ever wondered how a simple story can spark a movement?

Picture this: In the historic city of Durham, a local government initiative transforms homes into energy-efficient havens. Not by preaching about carbon footprints, but by focusing on the immediate benefits of home improvement. This story isn't just about renovating homes; it's about reimagining our approach to climate action.

Welcome back to our blog series on forging a new climate leadership paradigm. In our journey, we've been exploring the different facets of leadership needed to tackle climate change. Today, we’re diving into the crucial role of storytelling in inspiring and mobilising communities around the world.

The importance of storytelling

In our interviews with climate leaders, a recurring theme emerged: the struggle to find compelling language and messaging that drives people to action. As one leader put it:

“You may talk of climate, but really what we are talking about is how do we renew and regenerate and reimagine 21st-century tools to help us navigate this crisis rather than keep referencing 20th-century tools.”

Indeed, climate leaders expressed the need for positive messaging around climate action and how central hope is in inspiring and motivating change.

Storytelling stood out as a fundamental skill that climate leaders need to hone to overcome cognitive and normalcy biases and help people envision more desirable futures.

So, what might this look like in practice? At New York Climate Week 2023, Superflux crafted a two-storey, multi-sensory exhibit that swept visitors away to a transformed city—reimagined in the wake of climate change. This vivid journey showcased how a shift to a tropical climate could alter everything from the scents and sounds to the flavours we encounter daily, affecting agriculture, transportation, and lifestyles. Superflux's innovative display effectively made participants feel the reality of a positive and achievable future. It helped them break free from current limitations in thinking and imagine new possibilities. By mapping out various future paths, they made it clear that our collective actions today directly shape the future.

Different scales of desired change require different methods of storytelling. Superflux illustrates the need for radical methods of storytelling that build legitimacy and support for radical change. Our world will look radically different in the coming years, and storytelling provides an opportunity to support communities in envisioning what a new future vision might look like. The key to this is ensuring that the communities most affected by climate change are at the heart of driving change. Stories provide one avenue to do so, whereby the people involved in driving change own the creation and telling of stories.

Storytelling as a strategy for policy buy-in

The leaders we’ve spoken with emphasised another significant challenge related to storytelling. Climate change is often framed using scientific jargon and technical language (like mitigation, adaptation, and decarbonisation). This distances people from the issue, alienating the very people needed for change, which is detrimental to the need for collective action.

A shift in narratives and language is necessary to provide a more tangible framing for people to get involved. Initiatives around climate tend to reach higher legitimacy and acceptance among communities when “climate” is not the primary focus of a policy change. By shifting the narrative away from focussing on climate change alone, initiatives can gain legitimacy and create buy-in for the successful implementation of climate programmes.

For example, do you remember the story we shared at the start of this piece? Durham County Council rolled out a home improvement scheme to encourage residents to insulate their houses, install solar panels or heat pumps, or tint the facades of their houses. Instead of advertising it as a fight against climate change, they presented it as an opportunity for home improvement. This got residents on board in the community where houses needed upgrades and care. The council’s strategic use of storytelling got local buy-in by framing the narrative as an action for better houses rather than climate action.

Local stories, global impact

Effective storytelling zooms in on local issues, making the global challenge of climate change more relatable and urgent to audiences. It transforms abstract risks into something more concrete. This approach makes not only the problem accessible and easy to understand but also the solutions.

By using storytelling to frame climate action in terms that are more human and accessible to the audience, leaders can forge an emotional connection, foster a sense of shared responsibility, and, most importantly, encourage proactive participation in climate-positive initiatives.

Storytelling is, therefore, not just a tool for communication; it’s an essential mechanism for real-world change, building collective action and shaping a shared vision for tackling climate challenges.

Durham County Council’s initiative illustrates the strategic reframing of climate action as tangible home improvement, appealing to residents’ immediate needs and garnering local buy-in. Conversely, Larger Us adopts a broader approach that focuses on initiating conversations about relatable topics like energy bills and local transportation to facilitate community engagement with climate issues. Both examples underscore the importance of stories as a fundamental tool to drive change. By presenting climate initiatives in terms of tangible benefits and relatable concerns, leaders can inspire action and foster a sense of ownership among community members, ultimately driving meaningful change towards a more sustainable future.

The future is ours to write

As we continue exploring climate leadership, one thing is clear: stories are a powerful tool in the fight against climate change. The stories we tell are as crucial as the policies we implement. They are the framework through which people see their role in the larger narrative of climate action.

So, if you’re a climate leader looking to sharpen your storytelling skills, why not watch our video, where we share our six top tips for better storytelling?