Climate Action After COVID-19: How to Write the Next Chapter

“COVID-19 is the most urgent threat facing humanity today, but we cannot forget that climate change is the biggest threat facing humanity over the long term.”

- Patricia Espinosa, U.N. climate change executive secretary

In the year before the pandemic struck, the climate movement - galvanized by Greta Thunberg’s clarion call for more action - was finally gaining momentum. Weekly climate strikes were taking place around the world. Governments at all levels were enacting policies that signalled the likelihood of a low-carbon future. Titans of industry - such as BlackRock's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Larry Fink, in his annual letter to CEOs - were calling on business to pay attention to climate change.

Now, with most people confined to their homes, all media coverage focused on COVID-19, and governments rolling out record-breaking stimulus bills that will help individuals and businesses survive this crisis, what will happen to that momentum?

For those of us who have lived and breathed climate action for years and even decades, it’s a tricky time. In the face of the death and disruption being wrought by COVID-19, segueing to the clean economy feels potentially insensitive and tone deaf. Our governments, healthcare and financial systems are in triage as a result of the pandemic. COVID has re-framed the notion of our vulnerability as a society and as individuals; no one is immune, whether it's from the disease, the consequences of social isolation, or the economic impacts.

However, can we indefinitely postpone aggressive reductions in carbon emissions and avoid the worst of what climate change will bring? No, we cannot.

We’re going to need a new climate story

“There is…the potential for a much better world after we get through this trauma.”

- Richard Danzig, Center for a New American Security

A COVID-related economic and societal reset is an opportunity to re-think the climate change story we have been telling with only middling success. As strategic communications professionals who work exclusively with climate leaders, we recommend taking the following four principles into account as we shape a new climate narrative:

1. We need to pick the right time to talk about climate again. There are short- and medium-term opportunities to work with governments, industry and others on critical policies and investments that address both the COVID and climate crises. However, it is very likely that we will need to take a collective breath before re-mobilizing the public on climate action. When the pandemic ends, many if not all of us will be short on personal resilience and long on crisis fatigue. We will need to acknowledge people’s grief – even if they are only grieving the end of the “age of predictability,” as coined by CNN’s Chief Climate Correspondent, Bill Weir.
2. We need a story that unites us and storytellers we trust. Last week, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) called for the politicization of the virus to end. Politicization has also characterized the climate crisis discussion, globally and within countries like the U.S. Polarization is paralyzing; we need a climate narrative that unites, that builds on the collective spirit that has sprung up during the pandemic as we fight a common enemy. “We are in this together” is a powerful rallying cry during the COVID crisis; let’s harness that same sentiment for battling climate change. We also need a storyteller that we trust and believe in. Many health authorities are seeing a bump in their profiles and credibility during the COVID crisis…are they our next generation of climate storytellers? We need to identify or even recruit these leaders -- we can’t assume a messiah will emerge from the ashes. As President Barack Obama famously said, “You are the ones you’ve been waiting for.”
3. We need to ditch the “climate change is an environmental problem” positioning. Our current pandemic is showing us in real time how interdependent health, economic and environmental issues can be in a global crisis. Climate change is similarly complex: it is an environmental issue, but it is also an issue affecting our economy, our food supply, our security, our health. It’s a social justice issue, with many of our most vulnerable communities at risk. A complex story can be tough to communicate…but the many branches of the climate change narrative are also an opportunity to connect with people on what matters most to them (post-COVID: jobs, security, health?). Storytellers matter here, too. While many environment- and energy-focused advocates have historically taken up the mantle of climate action, we need a much broader and more inclusive coalition to champion transformational change.
4. We need hope. We will need to overcome cynicism and exhaustion with stories that showcase our ability to overcome the very worst challenges by sharing responsibility for one another. Stories that illustrate what is to be gained after we have lost so much, and that empower us after we have ceded a great deal of control. Stories in which the global becomes local, with examples that average people can wrap their heads around because of the direct impact on their lives, and because they illustrate that what they’re doing is making a difference. Stories that speak to what is best in humanity. We’re seeing these kinds of stories every day during the pandemic – the heroic efforts of healthcare workers, random acts of kindness from strangers, neighbours singing together from their separate balconies. They are an antidote to the barrage of bad news. We will need more of them.

What will your story be?

A race is on to find a vaccine to protect us all from COVID-19. There is not a similar silver bullet for the climate. What we do now on climate change, in the midst of a pandemic with no end date, matters. We have an opportunity to embed climate action in the ongoing health and economic recovery narrative, and to learn from our experience with COVID-19.

Climate leaders cannot wait on the sidelines. While our top priorities should be protecting the health and safety of individuals and helping businesses survive right now, those of us who can spearhead strategies to combat climate change while addressing the pandemic should forge ahead. Others will follow when they are ready.

Navigating the COVID-19 and climate crises is going to require a different kind of story and a different kind of leadership. There has never been a more important time to build trust and define how you can create and deliver value – for your customers, for your shareholders and investors, for society. Leaders will embrace empathy and transparency in new ways. They will create space for innovation and ideas to flourish, for new kinds of partnerships and coalitions to grow, for new kinds of conversations to take place.

Now is the time to start telling a new story – about the role you want to play in addressing the climate crisis, and about how we create a better future together.

Alexandra Carr and Alexandra Wright provide strategic communications counsel and services to progressive organizations around the world. AC can be reached at [email protected]; AW can be reached at [email protected].