Communicating climate justice with young adults in Europe

Climate advocates around the world are calling for ‘climate justice’ and the term has become increasingly mainstream. But our research found that while young adults in Europe support many of its principles, they have a limited understanding of what it really means in practice (and they’re not the only ones). Sharing a common understanding of climate justice is key – if not used carefully, the language of climate justice could make barriers to action worse.

Our new messaging guide – and its accompanying 90 second animated video (watch it below) – are designed to support communicators in engaging young European adults with climate justice in ways that explain the term, its historical context, and the complex issues underlying it.

Our 3 top tips from the messaging guide are summarised in the 90 second animation below.

The guide is really practical and provides:

a quick reference list of dos and don’ts
three top tips for communicating climate justice
specific keywords, phrases and examples that resonate well with young European adults
guidance on what not to say or how not to frame your messaging on climate justice
suggested approaches for discussing specific topics: addressing imbalances of wealth and power, encouraging grassroots action and explaining responsibility for exploitative systems

Our top tips from the messaging guide were shared in this piece first published by the Big Issue.

We’ve pulled together a guide for how to use social media for youth audiences during COP28. These key recommendations have been taken and built from this messaging guide and Purpose Union’s social media expertise.

These outputs are part of SPARK, a four-year European Union funded project to build the awareness, capacity and active engagement of European Union citizens, particularly young adults, with efforts to bring about climate justice. SPARK is delivered by a consortium of 20 civil society organisations across 13 European countries. See: https://sparkachange.eu/

These have been produced with the assistance of the European Union. The contents of these outputs are the sole responsibility of Climate Outreach and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union.

For those who want to dig deeper and better understand the research evidence behind this work, our relatively short messaging guide is based on a longer report (see below) published in 2022 – you’ll also find the recording of its launch webinar.

Reports & guides