Where next for carbon literacy? Tackling climate misinformation and addressing climate (in)justice

McNally, Brenda. (2025). Where next for carbon literacy? Tackling climate misinformation and addressing climate (in)justice. In Alison Anderson & Candice Howarth (Eds.), Routledge Handbook on Climate Crisis Communication. London: Routledge. https://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781003044253-41

Abstract

Tackling the climate crisis requires widespread awareness of the urgency and the scale of the climate challenge as well as greater understanding of climate mitigation actions and how everyday activities contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon literacy research and practice aims to address these information needs and related skills deficits through communication campaigns to motivate and mobilise carbon reduction activities by individuals, communities, and organisations. However, carbon literacy is also a dynamic concept shaped by policies and technologies. As a result, there is a need for ongoing development in this evolving domain of climate communications. This chapter reviews developments in carbon literacy campaigns focusing on the UK. This reveals a shift from addressing knowledge and skills deficits to the more recent focus on specific mitigation actions, as well as new communications approaches drawing on storytelling and experiential engagement. It then highlights two contemporary challenges for climate action communication: the proliferation of climate misinformation, as well as growing concerns about the fairness of decarbonisation processes and the need for a “just transition.” It argues that in the context of a climate crisis, carbon literacy research and practice must take these developments in public discourse into account and engage with climate misinformation and climate justice studies.

Publisher

Routledge

Rights

CC BY-NC-ND

cbn

Collections

Journalism and Media (Book Chapters)