Combining storylines and storytelling to stimulate climate action

User engagement for developing climate services has traditionally displayed a unilateral transaction of climate data to tackle specific needs. However, user-centred approaches with bidirectional interaction are becoming more widely accepted in the climate services field. The use of storylines of how recent extreme events could evolve in different future climates has been identified as an innovative tool for user engagement and communication. However, the meaningfulness of storylines could fall short if the climate community fails to speak to users’ day-to-day tasks and decision-making contexts. Additional effort should be taken to welcome the social aspect of storylines by including storytelling as a tool to facilitate knowledge exchange and spot where climate science can speed up sustainable decisions. Framing information as a story could provide valuable benefits and stimulate action-taking by heightening cognitive processes that rely on emotion (Toomey, 2023). Moreover, stories require causal connections to structure whatever happens makes sense and is credible, identical to how science and decision-making behave (Hertel & Reisberg, 2004).

Following a co-production framework, storylines have been applied to the development of the Digital Twin on Climate Change Adaptation under the Destination Earth (DestinE) initiative. On a case study basis (including wildfire, energy, hydrology, and urban applications), users were invited to discuss the added value storylines would bring to their local context when adapting to future climate change impacts. Preliminary results show that storylines can bring meaningful climate information to users and incentivize action. Its development in DestinE demonstrates the latest aspirations to make scientific results more relatable to non-academic audiences. However, user interactions during the project highlight the considerable differences among the various case studies, even within the same sectoral application. With the addition of storylines in DestinE, we illustrate a first and rather simple attempt to incorporate storytelling elements into user engagement to identify cross-scale cutting drivers of change. Understanding underlying issues and challenges that motivate user’s needs will play a vital role in making climate science meaningful. We recommend that the exploration of storytelling to align climate information to human needs should be recognized as a useful tool to move across both technical and social disciplines.

Hertel, P., & Reisberg, D. (Eds.). (2004). Memory and emotion. Oxford University Press.

Toomey, A. H. (2023). Why facts don't change minds: Insights from cognitive science for the improved communication of conservation research. Biological Conservation, 278, 109886.