‘Sensemaking’ climate change: navigating policy, polarization and the culture wars

Climate action faces evolving challenges in industrialized, high-income countries, such as increased populist distrust in government institutions, growing polarization, and social contestation regarding types of climate policy. These challenges complexify timely mobilization of climate action, compromising current and future climate investment and policies. Here, we investigate the nuances of ‘sensemaking’, resistance, and polarization in regard to climate change to better understand climate-action barriers in British Columbia, Canada. Through a series of focus groups, leading climate actors from multiple sectors co-produced knowledge on current psycho-social challenges encountered when engaging publics on climate change. Findings explore how emotions about climate transitions are leveraged by disinformation messaging, obscuring an already complicated sensemaking task regarding climate change and contributing to opposition against climate policies and action. The study’s implications are relevant to climate change-related policy creation, communication, and public engagement.