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The purpose of this paper is to explain the US society’s insignificant mitigation of climate change using Niklas Luhmann’s (1989) autopoietic social systems theory in ecological communication. Specifically, the author’s analysis falls within the context of Luhmann re-moralized while focusing on particular function systems’ binary codes and their repellence of substantive US climate change mitigation policy across systems.

The author achieves this purpose by resituating Luhmann’s conception of evolution to forgo systems teleology and better contextualize the spatial-temporal scale of climate change; reinforcing complexity reduction and differentiation by integrating communication and media scholar John D. Peters’s (1999) “communication chasm” concept as one mechanism through which codes sustain over time; and applying these integrated concepts to prominent the US climate change mitigation attempts.

The author concludes that climate change mitigation efforts are the amalgamation of the systems’ moral communications. Mitigation efforts have relegated themselves to subsystems of the ten major systems given the polarizing nature of their predominant care/harm moral binary. Communication chasms persist because these moral communications cannot both adhere to the systems’ binary codes and communicate the climate crisis’s urgency. The more time that passes, the more codes force mitigation organizations, activist efforts and their moral communications to adapt and sacrifice their actions to align with the encircling systems’ code.

In addition to the conceptual contribution, the social implication is that by identifying how and why climate change mitigation efforts are subsumed by the larger systems and their codes, climate change activists and practitioners can better tool their tactics to change the codes at the heart of the systems if serious and substantive climate change mitigation is to prevail.

To the author’s knowledge, there has not been an integration of a historical communication concept into, and sociological application of, ecological communication in the context of climate change mitigation.

This study aims to, using Grande Riviere, Trinidad, as a case study, determine levels of climate change knowledge and awareness in the community. Second, it seeks to provide new knowledge on appropriate techniques for developing climate change literacy. Third, it attempts to highlight action needed for messages to be widely communicated and policy implications for government agencies, non-governmental organisations, communication specialists and educators.

A face-to-face questionnaire was administered to all households, focus group meetings were held and a training workshop was conducted.

A key finding is that despite vulnerability to climate change, climate change literacy is low and is influenced by multiple variables such as household income, level of educational attainment, access to technology, governance structures and political commitment to communicating climate change. A major finding is that access to modern communication modes is limited and therefore verbal communication remains the most powerful means of transmitting messages on climate change. Moreover, opportunities exist for the use of participatory and indigenous communication techniques.

A major policy conclusion is that a practical blend of traditional and modern technologies, which emphasises verbal communication and promotes innovative participatory communication technologies, including indigenous ones, would be effective in strengthening adaptive capacity.

This paper is useful to policymakers, communication specialists, academia and civil society in understanding that there is no universally applicable technology for climate change communication; the type of technology adopted must be tailored to the economic, social and cultural peculiarities of a community.

The purpose of this paper is to comparatively analyze how top corporations in New Zealand, Australia and the Global Fortune 500 group communicate about climate science.

A combination of keyword count and quantitative content analysis is used to develop a reliable set of indicators to measure corporate communication about climate science.

Just a few corporations mention or explicitly agree with scientific consensus on climate change and few report science-based targets. They report more frequently on societal risks of climate change, as well as business contribution and responsibility. New Zealand based corporations generally do poor reporting compared to Australian corporations, who do as well as the biggest corporations in the world.

There is a further need for cross-country research and for more longitudinal analysis to understand how organizations communicate about scientific issues to its stakeholders.

This paper can inform communication managers about the need to pay attention to how their communication, individually and in comparison with their peers, is likely interpreted by the stakeholders. Managers may attend to scientific consensus messaging to gain stakeholder approval for ambitious business actions on climate change.

Organizations are powerful social and economic drivers. Understanding how they interpret and communicate a scientific issue has implications for public and policy discourses and outcomes.

This is the first paper to comparatively identify common and contextual drivers of business communication of complex scientific issues. A reliable scale to measure climate science communication by corporations will be helpful for future researchers to replicate in other sectors.

The purpose of this study is to discuss the concept of information in relation to temporality within the context of climate change communication. Furthermore, the paper aims to highlight the empirical richness of information as a concept by analysing its use in context.

The discussion is based on 14 semi-structured interviews with initiators and collaborators of 6 open letters on climate change published in 2018–2019. By taking three specific notions the interviewees introduced—fast food information, information quality and information gap–as the analytical point of departure, the study aims for a contextual understanding of information grounded in temporal sensitivity.

The paper finds that information in the context of open letters is informed by different, and at times contradicting, temporalities and timescapes which align with various material, institutional and discursive practices. Based on this finding, the paper argues that notions of information are intrinsically linked to the act of communicating, and they should be viewed as co-constituting each other.

The paper contributes with an empirically informed discussion regarding the concept of information as it is used in a specific context. It illustrates how “information” is far from being understood in a singular fashion, but is made up of multifaceted and at times contradictory understandings. Ultimately, they correspond to why and how one communicates climate change information.

The purpose of this paper is to examine why and how an open and participative communication climate matters for employee organizational identification and their change-specific responses, specifically employees’ attitudinal and behavioral reactions.

To test the hypothesized model, the authors conducted an online survey using a stratified and quota random sample of 1,034 US employees working in diverse industry sectors in June of 2018, with the assistance of a premier global provider of survey services, Survey Sampling International. To test the hypothesized model, structural equation modeling analysis was employed using AMOS 24.0 software.

An open and participative communication climate directly contributes to employee affective commitment to change and behavioral support. Communication climate featured by openness and participation boosts employee identification with the organization, which leads to positive employee reaction to change. When employees identify with the organization, they tend to believe in the inherent value of the change and are more likely to support the change initiative in action through cooperation and championship.

Theoretically, the study contributes to the change management and communication literature by focusing on the role of communication climate in inducing employee reaction to organizational change. Practically, the study offers insights for change managers, internal communication professionals and organizational leaders. Organizational leaders need to be open, create a trusting atmosphere and actively involve employees in the decision-making process. Organizational leaders and communicators should also strive to boost employee identification with the organization, especially during change.

This study aims to investigate the role of the visual arts for communicating climate change in the context of the Pacific islands, through the perspectives of artists and climate change practitioners.

As part of an “Eco Arts” project carried out in Fiji, semi-structured research interviews were undertaken with artists and climate change practitioners.

Participants’ motivations to produce art reflected their personal concerns about, and experiences of, climate change. There was an intention to use art-based approaches to raise awareness and promote action on climate change. The artwork produced drew on metaphors and storytelling to convey future climate impacts and aspects of climate change relevant to Fijian and Pacific communities.

The study reports the perspectives of participants and discusses the potential uses of arts communication. Conclusions cannot be drawn from the findings regarding the effectiveness of specific artwork or of arts communication as a general approach.

The research offers suggestions for the inclusion of creative approaches to climate change communication within education and vocational training. A consideration of the perspectives of artist–practitioners has implications for the design and conduct of climate change communication.

The involvement of artist–practitioners in the communication of climate change offers the potential for novel discussions and interpretations of climate change with individuals and within communities, which complement more formal or scientific communication.

The present study identifies the motivations and objectives of artist–practitioners involved in climate change communication. The authors highlight the role of personal experience and their use of artistic concepts and creative considerations pertinent to the geography and culture of the Pacific region.

To combat climate change and safeguard a liveable future, humanity needs fundamental and rapid social change. The purpose of this paper is to show, why and how climate communication can play an important role to nurture the public engagement needed for this change, and to explore, what higher education for sustainability can learn from climate communication.

The scientific evidence base on climate communication for effective public engagement is summarised into 10 key principles, including “basing communication on people’s values”, “conscious use of framing” and “turning concern into action”. Based on the author’s perspective and experience in the university context, implications are explored for sustainability in higher education.

The study provides suggestions for teaching (e.g. complement information with consistent behaviour by the lecturer, integrate local stories and provide students with basic skills to communicate climate effectively), for research (e.g. make teaching for effective engagement the subject of applied research), for universities’ third mission to contribute to sustainable development in the society (e.g. provide climate communication trainings to empower local stakeholders) and greening the campus (develop a proper engagement infrastructure, e.g. by a university storytelling exchange on climate action).

The study provides an up-to-date overview of climate communication research, which is in itself original. This evidence base holds interesting learnings for institutions of higher education, and the link between climate communication and universities has so far not been explored comprehensively.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relevance and implications of the issue of climate change to marketing communicators in both the private and public sectors, and some of the challenges involve in developing effective climate change communications.

This paper uses a combination of findings from secondary sources combined with some specific key insights drawn from primary research.

Effective communication on climate change which is capable of motivating changes in consumer behaviour (rather than simply raising awareness further) will depend upon: the relevance of climate change to consumers' lives and the relationship to their consumption behaviours being made clear; targeting strategies which take account of differences amongst key consumer segments; and developing a message which motivates rather than overwhelms consumers whilst avoiding any perceptions of “greenwashing”.

This paper explores a number of practical aspects of the challenges faced by commercial marketers seeking to engage with consumers about climate change, and it illustrates the potential for the transfer of knowledge and insight with social marketers working in the public sector.

The paper is original in its analysis of the multi‐faceted challenge of climate change as an important but challenging subject for marketing communications efforts, and in exploring the potential for the transfer of knowledge and insight between marketers in the public and private sectors.

The cement industry's environmental implications place climate change at the centre of sector organisations' corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies, such as the Secil Group. The organisation's CSR policies definition, narrative framing and communication are fundamental, as they can affect its reputation. This article aims to highlight the climate change framing in the Secil Group sustainability report (SR) narrative.

The framing theory is applied to analyse the international and sectoral climate change regulatory measures and the Secil Group SR. Document analysis is used to characterise Secil SR as a communication tool. Qualitative content analysis is used to highlight how Secil and the international and sectoral regulatory measures on climate change frame their narrative and compare each other.

The international and sectoral regulatory measures on climate change and the Secil's SR broadly frame climate change, using ethical, efficiency and effectiveness, communication and relations and law and regulation framings. The Secil's Group SR also highlights the financial frame, exposing the challenge of reconciling economic with collective interests. There is room for researchers to explore the concepts of CSR, sustainability and environment, social and governance (ESG) through the lens of complementarity.

This study shows that the Wehmeier and Raaz (2012) model, created to study transparency, can be applied to other communication studies. This paper explores a case study and, for this reason, is not generalisable. Although, the method and theoretical framework can be applied to any organisation.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and analyse interfaces between scholarly and science communication practices by using the production of open letters on climate change as a point of departure. Furthermore, the paper highlights an understudied form of science communication – open letters.

The material consists of nine open letters on climate change, written and signed by academics and published in 2018–2019, as well as 13 semi-structured interviews with the initiators and co-authors of the letters. The interviews were analysed by qualitative thematic analysis and grouped into thematic clusters.

The study finds that three practices used in scholarly communication – more specifically: peer review, professional community building and, to a certain extent, communication as “merit-making” – are central in the making of the open letters, illustrating an integration of scholarly communication practices in academic science communication activities.

The study suggests that the conflation of communication practices needs to be seen in relation to larger structural changes in the academic working environment, as well as in relation to the specific environment in which communication about climate change occurs.

This study contends that the proposed conflation between scholarly and science communication concerns not only texts and genres but also practices integral to contemporary science, thereby conflating the forms of communication at a practical level.