From Diagnosis to Action: A Critical Review of Climate Communication and a New Agenda for Efficacy-Focused Research

Despite decades of research documenting the failures in climate communication — including political polarization and the ineffectiveness of fear-appeal messaging — there is still a persistent critical impediment in public engagement and political action on the issue. The underlying argument is that climate communication has largely reached diminishing returns in diagnosis of the problem, and that we should switch into an empirically-driven testing phase of solution focused approaches. Building upon a systematic review of the literature, we synthesize established knowledge on polarization and message framing to demonstrate a lack of research aimed towards identifying communication strategies that create the perception of collective efficacy and that can reach across partisan divides. To fill this void, we put forth a proactive research agenda that focuses on three transformative shifts in environmental messaging: (1) from fear-based appeals to messages about solutions and collective efficacy, (2) from individualistic stories to systemic and justice-oriented narratives, and (3) from being preoccupied with global abstractions to prioritizing personal, local impacts. This integrated agenda provides a roadmap for researchers and practitioners alike, allowing for the development of more actionable and impactful research, with direct applications to increasing public engagement and informing policy decisions to catalyze climate action.