Thread by @jolwalton

Day 3 of the Climate Risk Summit, focused on communicating climate risk. Liz Bentley of the Royal Meteorological Society kicks off emphasising the need to tailor across sectors and contexts ... #COP26Universities #COP26

... and the tension between needing to deliver a clear message, and the fact that oversimplifying can cause more problems than it solves.

Asks, "Who is best placed to communicate? Experts or communicators?" One ideal answer is climate experts who are good communicators. (Another answer is good collaborative teams, of course ...)

On the basis of work upskilling communicators done over the past few years, Good Morning Britain, BBC, Sky News etc. are now actively communicating climate change and climate risk.

A shout out to the AXA Future Risks report. axa.com/en/magazine/20…

Communicating Climate Risk: I won't be tweeting too much today, but I think you should still be able to register if you like - the sessions build, but they are also relatively standalone if you fancy dropping in #COP26Universities #COP26 digitalevents.uk/climaterisksum…

But I do want to share Mark's scary visual (used to demonstrate the point that there are already a lot of good tools out there that we're not using well enough)

Mark Workman exploring the interface between metric-heavy reasoning in the science and analysis, and the often more narrative-based reasoning that takes place in policy, and then moving on to society as a whole, challenging the "didactic information deficit model"

Kris de Meyer (@Kris8DM) and Freya Roberts (@FreyaERoberts) exploring scientific insights on climate risk communication for the Climate Risk Communications Workshop. Kris uses the metaphor of Reason 🏇 riding Intuition the Often Obstinate and Occasionally Rampaging Elephant 🐘

But sometimes the elephant gets a lot of unfair bad press. Some people think all the irrationality is in the elephant - absolutely not the case. Risk-as-formal analysis can get it very wrong, whereas risk-as-intuitive-analysis can get it just right.

"Good effective climate risk communication is not the same as scaring people [...] It's more important to connect the unfamiliar risks with the risks they already understand [...] Listen first, speak second." @Kris8DM #Cop26Universities #CommunicatingRisk

Understanding speaking at cross purposes with a little help from the Far Side ...

"Conservative risk estimate" and "scientific uncertainty" as examples. Scientific uncertainty as a measure of the spread in data, or is scientific uncertainty as science not adequtely knowing the answers.

Fun wee breakout room where in six minutes we covered "life cycle analysis" meaning different things in engineering and biochemistry, balloon animals and "things that go boom" risk training for oil and gas workers, and "ethics" as legal liability & compliance vs. morality

#COP26Universities Polarisation, and serendipitously stepping off in one direction, then the decision getting increasingly justified. Previously, this would capture the climate action vs. climate change skepticism distinction, but things have changed ...

There is now a much wider fragmentation around what constitutes meaningful climate action. We might think of this as multiple pyramids! (E.g. decoupling GDP and carbon vs. degrowth; tech will save us vs. NETs are untested at scale and an inexcusable gamble ...)

Freya exploring end user engagement, including experiences & laying out a formal process. End user here means a decision-maker -- maybe a policymaker, maybe someone else who can make an impact. Freya suggests we should think more broadly about what audiences we might reach ...

Lucy Hubble-Rose, the End User Whisperer ...

Love that 'baggage drop' tactic🧳

The Do & Discover Framework

#climaterisk #COP26Universities @FreyaERoberts: "Engaging with end users takes practice. Be willing to be a novice."

Lucy and Kris exploring things they wish they had known when they started engaging with end users. (It's like on Drag Race when you get to speak to your younger self ...)

#1 There is always a policy mood music, and you should try to tune into it. That music might be drowning out what you are trying to explain / ask about ... you're not changing the mood music, but exploring different expressions to work within it (or maybe change it a little)

#2 Risk currency. Once we become an expert in a particular problem, risk, domain, we tend to address it intuitively. E.g. jobs and growth, migration, international relations. If you come with risks that are too far removed from these areas, they can't translate it

Not that you need to become an expert in the currency. (This makes me wonder about how a new risk currency emerges, how it relates to questions about Overton window, social imaginary, etc.).

#3 Huge gap between policymakers' ability to take on risk information, and then translate it into action. They are always asking, "What can I do?" Don't expect a leap across that gap ...

... e.g. presentation on climate risk, cascading risks etc. Policymakers ask, "What shall we do? How do we act?" Chatham house are developing a tool to make the connection between the information and the levers they might pull.

#4 Make sure you adapt your events to policymaker timescales - it's gotta be an hour here, an hour there. #5 Focus on listening in a structured way. Don't think you need to tell them everything in your narrow window.

#6 Just getting policymakers from different domains together and facilitating dialogue is not enough to overcome the differences between those domains. Design a process that breaks down the difficult questions into simple chunks that people can respond to ...

... if you're using a professional facilitator, find someone who is willing to work with you on the aims and the design.

Martine Barons kicking off the next session, doing some mini stakeholder mapping. "Who do you think should be involved in the climate decision value chain?" And "What are the barriers to communication?" The value chain is not linear ...

(I'm interested btw in how we think of linearity in Agile vs. Waterfall management, and also things like OODA loop ... there is some relevant literature which might enrich the decision value chain as a tool ...)

(We have also starting to have some Serious Conversations about the whole metaphor, and its analogy with other value chains ...)

Technical officers are perhaps not thought about enough?

"There are going to be winners and losers. Who are they going to be?"

"Who are the community influencers?" (I wonder if we could have theoretical constructs that better reflect the disparate perspectives and interests WITHIN any given stakeholder group ...)

Martine gesturing toward the situated and embodied nature of knowledge: scientists, policymakers, politicians are part of communities. "We live in places, we have relationships, we have activities and hobbies ..."

Next up, @FreyaERoberts drawing on her experience writing for Carbon Brief (aimed at a lay audience) to give us a whirlwind writing workshop on science communication for decision-making #climaterisk #COP26universities

Freya emphasising that communication can't be an afterthought.

Where can you write for policymakers? (And here's a good resource from UCL: ucl.ac.uk/public-policy/…)

Uh-oh. Great "What you say vs. What they hear" exercise. We had to write down our research in three sentences, I think now we're going to have it explained back to us ...

I love (and hate!) the experiment Kris is outlining ... chatting to strangers in shops, on public transport: "Can I explain my research to you?" (In climate science, I guess that's a really hardcore version of, "Funny old weather we've been having recently?")

And as Freya points out, you can ask ("make"?) friends and family too ...

Writing hacks: #1 Ask yourself in a grumpy sarky voice, "So what? Why should I care? Omg whatever" etc. Why is this important? How does it impact people? Why should a decision-maker care? You may want to ask again and again ...

Asking "so what" connects to the earlier point about risk currencies. The suggestion is to try to connect your research to areas that you believe (or know through dialogue) are already intuitively important to your end users ...

Writing hacks for science communication #2: "Use short sentences. Use one idea per sentence."

Complex compound sentences are not WRONG or anything, but they should be used sparingly. Full stops are your friends. Especially when speaking to a lay audience.

Writing hack for science communication #3: Avoid unnecessary repetition. For example, multiple descriptors like "dry and arid," or underusing words that refer back ("It," "These risks," etc.)

Writing hack for science communication #4: Try to find non-technical synonyms where possible. "Store" carbon rather than "sequester," perhaps. Big pompous words sometimes make us feel clever and important and formal: "prohibitively costly" > "too expensive."

Hack #5: Active voice. Avoid "x was verbed by y" or "there were xs that verbed ys." Go for "x verbed y."

There has been a lively backchannel debate about all of these, obviously :)

In the final session we talked about visualisation, both for decision support and more generally, and we opened things out, including sharing perspectives on open problems. There was a lot of interesting stuff, and one which stuck out for me ...

... was the question of how engineers fit into the science / policy landscape. Useful ideas are not implemented because of the constraints of composite policy activity, i.e. *separately* (sometimes at different timescales?) trying to persuade engineers & policy decision-makers.

& then closing off with Alyssa Gilbert, Director of Policy and Translation at the Grantham Institute, picking out some highlights, and reminding us where we are Right Now, as climate themes are likely to be everywhere in the media (and everywhere) over the next couple months

Alyssa also signposting the follow-on activities including blogs and podcasts. And we at AU4DM also have a survey about climate communication tools we would love your input into, whether you're a climate expert, a policymaker, or have another interest (DM me for a link).

And it's a little late, but from Polina's + my session, here are ten tips for visualising climate risk: docs.google.com/presentation/d…