19 Feb 2025 Communicating ways to cope with climate breakdown

Kunda Dixit

In democracies, communication is essential in prompting action to redress environmental damage. The public and policymakers in government need to know what the problems are, and which interventions have worked, before they can start addressing them.

In some authoritarian countries, a top-down approach on environmental regulation and implementation means mitigation measures are put into place impressively fast. And we can see in the less-developed parts of the Asia-Pacific region a certain attraction towards autocrats and efforts to emulate their methods.

In South Asia, we have tried strongman (and strong woman) rule before, and it was a disaster. We therefore have to make-do with a democratic system that is “the worst except for all the others” and make it more accountable. There can be no democracy without participation, and in an open society communication is essential for participation.

Nepal is an important case study to prove this point. Grassroots democracy has worked well because of the pre-Internet spread of community radio stations across the country. Unlike other parts of South Asia, Nepal’s legislature decided that the radio spectrum is a common good and deregulated FM licenses.

And since many of the problems local communities face are related to the environment (deforestation, floods and landslides, ecotourism, balancing development with nature protection) local radio has played a useful role in raising public awareness. In fact, just about everything that has worked well in Nepal since the transition from absolute monarchy to parliamentary democracy in 1990 has got the word “community” attached to it: community forestry, community radio, community-managed irrigation schemes, community-run health programs. It is at the national level that governance has not worked out as well.

The spread of social media platforms and re-centralised decision-making have eroded these gains somewhat, but even now political devolution has meant that municipal councils function better because local communication channels force them to be more accountable.

Exposing corruption and wrongdoing

Freedom of expression and an independent media are fundamental rights, and in Nepal they are critical in exposing corruption and wrongdoing in high places, illegal natural resource extraction, and practices that harm the environment. But a free media is also essential in spreading awareness about best practices and proven solutions for equitable development that does not irreparably damage the ecosystem.

This checks-and-balances role of the media in an open society is needed more than ever as our part of the world tries to cope with the impact of climate breakdown. The South Asia region has communities that are at high risk: the Maldives and coastal Bangladesh try to keep their head above the water as the ocean expands, Pakistan battles historic floods, hundreds of millions of people in northern India are affected by life-threatening heat stress, while Nepal and Bhutan adapt to Himalayan glaciers that are melting into dangerously large lakes.

I wrote about these future crises 28 years ago in my book, Dateline Earth: Journalism As If the Planet Mattered. Environmental journalists have been presenting scientific evidence about climate breakdown for decades, yet it has only been in the past five years that we have seen communication about climate issues starting to have an impact. Except for a few deniers and those in business-as-usual mode, there is now a realisation that communities, nation states and the world need to act.

I have been lecturing university students and journalists about communicating climate breakdown, mainly about how it is not just a story about the environment but one with political and economic roots. The factors leading to climate breakdown are a result of unsustainable economics that stress perpetual growth and consumerism that do not factor in the cost to nature.

Climate change is nothing new. Scientists have been warning about it for more than a century, and the first news item about the greenhouse effect was published as far back as 1902 in newspapers in Europe and the United States. In the 1960s, oil companies deliberately buried findings from their own internal scientific teams that accurately predicted what carbon dioxide buildup would do to the planet in 70 years’ time.

There is no time left for such hide and seek, people all over the world in one way or other are feeling the impact of climate breakdown. There are still some flat-earthers who do not want to accept what is happening, but because of the important mediatory role that journalists have played to communicate scientific evidence to the public, there is now widespread awareness about what a 3.2 degree increase in average global temperatures will do to the planet in the coming years.

The challenge is to turn that awareness into action on mitigation, shutting down the fossil industry, helping national economies with their energy transition to renewables, and providing cleaner alternatives to households.

Swayambhu Mahachaitya, Kathmandu, Nepal. The country’s varied topography and social vulnerability make it particularly susceptible to geological and climate-related disasters. A general lack of effective response mechanisms and strategies for dealing with natural disasters exacerbates this vulnerability. An increase in soil erosion, landslides, flash floods, and droughts has been reported in recent years across the country, with increased intensity and impact on the lives and livelihoods of the Nepalese. Erratic weather patterns projected in climate models may exacerbate these problems in years to come. Source: World Bank. Photo: Philip Lee.

Communicating solutions

We have passed the critical mass in awareness generation through the mainstream press and social media, the remaining anti-science sceptics are those for whom facts do not matter. Reporting on whether a Himalayan glacier is receding by 35 metres per year, or 36 metres per year will not make that much difference, scientists must now also move to action research: for example, pilot schemes to see if it is feasible to generate electricity from expanding glacial lakes, or recharging groundwater by reviving indigenous knowledge about rainwater storage ponds.

And those solutions need to be communicated through appropriate channels to the larger public, planners and international agencies supporting climate adaptation measures.

Mass media is a way of communicating mainly to the adult population. Teaching is also a means of communication but to a future generation. Because journalists are hardwired to cover everything that is out of the ordinary, they tend to headline the sensational or ominous. The direst forecasts of the consequences of the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, or the failure of climate negotiations at COPs get the biggest headlines.

As a result, many of my students are already jaded, cynical or numbed into inaction. Climate anxiety is now a mental health syndrome. Communicating to the public ever more apocalyptic scenarios for the future is not going to help. We are already seeing younger audiences turning off, and scrolling down to escapist algorithm-amplified entertainment on their phones.

In my work as a journalist and educator, I have now consciously altered the content by highlighting positive trends around the world about how local communities and national governments are taking action to reduce emissions or adapt to the already-felt impacts. This is not to say that I gloss over the crises, but give examples of how countries, agencies, private companies and communities are coming up with innovative ways to cope with climate breakdown. And this is mainly happening because of effective communication by the media in the past decades.

For example, there is now 40 times more solar energy generation compared to just ten years ago, and it is projected to overtake fossil fuel generation by 2030. There is now three times more wind power being generated than 15 years ago, and this will double in the next five. Nepal, Norway and other countries use 100% renewable energy; Bhutan is already carbon negative. Turning to electric vehicles also has health co-benefits by improving air quality in our cities.

The climate crisis is a water crisis. Springs across the Himalayan foothills are going dry because of erratic rainfall and over-extraction, but record-breaking rainfall is unleashing floods of biblical proportions. But there are plenty of examples of how national governments, municipalities and even neighbourhoods are learning to be more prepared.

Using new technologies to communicate information and stories

Stories about villagers who have found alternative sources of water can be communicated by journalists, disseminated through interesting multimedia posts on social networking sites so that communities in another corner of the country can also emulate the solution. Information technology allows us to leapfrog and use phones as a dissemination device.

In a way, there is now an over-hype of climate change by the global and national media in our countries so that problems that predate the climate crisis are being blamed on it. Western Nepal has always had a food deficit because of state neglect, lack of investment in irrigation and inadequate government support for small farmers. But it has now become a convenient excuse for politicians to blame food insecurity on the climate crisis.

Global climate breakdown has also coincided with a decline of democracy around the world and especially Asia, as well as the degradation of the mainstream media. At a time when we need independent journalism more than ever before to cover the political and economic policies needed to cope with the climate crisis, the media’s voice is muted.

Legacy and linear media depend on advertising and subscriptions for revenue. But competition for eyeballs with digital content has meant that income from both sources has fallen. Many established media have closed shop, unable to compete with Google and Facebook for advertising.

In addition, corporate ownership and control by political cronies has made the formerly free media less independent, and worse, less inclined to do the investigative journalism needed to expose the greed and power that underlie inaction on addressing the climate crisis.

But digital media also provides us the power to reach users directly with messaging on coping mechanisms and alternative technologies. Us journalists also have to descend from our pedestals and engage more interactively with audiences. The story is the same, it just has to be communicated differently. Readers, viewers and listeners will not come to us; we have to go to them.

Kunda Dixit is the former editor of Nepali Times, and the author of Dateline Earth: Journalism As If the Planet Mattered and a trilogy of photobooks on conflict.