7 challenges for the climate movement
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Among all the challenges facing the climate movement, there are some where
•picturing, •narrating and •dramatising climate change matter particularly for shifting climate politics:
Challenges
Issues
Some examples
(1) ‘Winning hearts and minds’
What depth and breadth of public support is needed to create the conditions where we can ensure a safe climate?
Shifting the ‘climate of opinion’
‘Winning hearts and minds’ is at the core of any movement’s task.
How do people come to change their minds, and feel moved to respond?
Across all the twists and turns, conversations and defining moments that are often involved, stories and images are often essential for shifting the ’climate of opinion’ through:
• making ‘the facts’ compelling • enabling people to ‘see’ things in a new way • defining what is at stake • ‘waking people up’ and • moving people emotionally.
(2) Countering the stories and images that are used against the climate movement
Whose stories, images and ‘political theatre’ are the most compelling?
The “battle of narratives” and the “battle of images”…
We might have all the best rational arguments, however we are up against the stories and images that the fossil fuel industry and its allies use to exert power.1 This ‘cultural power‘ needs to be answered with cultural power in response.
There is no shortage of compelling narratives and icons coming from the climate movement. Yet, “battles of narratives” and “battles of images” are not always seen as key “terrains” where climate politics is worked out.2
Politicians like Trump, Johnson, Morrison and Abbott know how to ‘capture the imagination‘, engage the identities and gain the loyalties of large sections of the public.
There is a frequent pattern in politics: conservatives use stories and images, while progressives reply with facts, policies and arguments—and then lose elections or other political contests that need to be won. Replying (or leading the debate) with stories and images of our own is essential.
(3) ‘Making the movement move’
‘Cultural power’ generates energy for ‘people power’.
A source of power
When the task is to ‘make the movement move’, and to generate political energy and momentum, compelling stories, images —and the ‘drama’ that combines them—consistently play an important role.
- Without images, stories and drama, what would happen to the energy and dynamism in the climate movement?
- When energy in the climate movement has been at its strongest, how have the tasks of ‘picturing, narrating and dramatising the issues’ been important?
Stories and images are ‘everywhere’ in the life of social movements. Factors like these that ‘make movements move’ can be recognised as a source of power.
(4) ‘Making the world understand’
‘We have to make the world understand about the crisis, which is the most difficult job. We have got to figure out the way to make them understand’.
—Bill McKibben, speaking at the University of the South Pacific.
Picturing, narrating and dramatising the issues:
could we make a movie out of our message?
When people think of climate change—or “coal”, or “gas”—what stories and images come to their minds?
- We ‘picture’ political conflicts. Our understandings of climate change are strongly shaped by the way narratives combine with images to turn the issues into drama, featuring characters and a plot, and a series of scenes where we are the ‘audience’—as well as the ‘actors’. If stories, images and political theatre were ‘taken out’ of politics, many of the key factors that ‘propel’ political outcomes would no longer be present.
- To ‘make the world understand’, we need stories and images that make the issues visible, focused, tangible and emotionally compelling—to avoid the political consequences that result when climate change is invisible, unfocused, intangible and emotionally flat.
A comparison of how ‘political theatre’ was used by the Pacific Climate Warriors and by the 1960s U.S. Civil Rights Movement in the Selma-to-Montgomery marches.
(5) Creating a crisis of legitimacy for fossil fuels
Gradual erosion of legitimacy / dramatic moments…
If economic resources are a ‘hard’ form of power, legitimacy and social license involve ’soft’ power—however they clearly matter, including when challenging institutions with enormous economic clout. The following quote says it all. Chief Executive of Royal Dutch Shell, Ben van Beurden, describes what he calls his company’s ‘biggest challenge‘:
‘societal acceptance of the energy system as we have it is just disappearing… trust has been eroded to the point that it is becoming a serious issue for our long-term future. If we are not careful, broader public support for the sector will wane…’4
What creates a ‘crisis’ of legitimacy? Sometimes, the process involves the gradual erosion of an industry’s ‘image’. Sometimes, building on this, particular, dramatic moments of crisis shift the ‘political climate’, highlighting what is at stake and the choices that must be made…
(6) Building political will
‘It is a crisis of human rights, of justice, and of political will’.
—Greta Thunberg, Luisa Neubauer and Angela Valenzuela on “Why We Strike Again”
Political will: intangible but powerful…
Some quotes on political will:
- ‘A much better world [is] entirely possible, but that requires intent and political will’: Christiana Figueres.
- Lack of political will is ‘the main barrier to confronting the climate crisis’: Alden Meyer, US Union of Concerned Scientists.
- ‘As yet we don’t have anywhere near enough political will… The question is how to make the change, and this is the hard part. There’s no shortcut to building political will… it’s essential that we build our movement on as big and dramatic and powerful a scale as we can…’ – Bill McKibben, 350.org.
Political will is intangible but powerful. What are the best examples of the climate movement’s work in building it?
(7) Winning a ‘climate election’
—and the one after that…
Building a sustainable base for political change
Opponents of climate action have a large political base – and their use of stories and images is central to how they build it.
When climate change becomes a key election issue, can the climate movement rely on a solid-enough base where climate is a vote-changing issue?
- The Australian experience with attempting to win a ‘#climateelection’ in 2019 was sobering for the climate movement: enough voters supported a climate-denying government for it to be returned to power.</span”>
- Earlier still, Australia had a carbon tax—but then lost it, when a conservative government was voted in, riding on the back of a successful scare campaign, laden with powerful images.
- in 2016, the ‘unelectable’ Donald Trump won power. His 2020 loss to Biden creates opportunities for climate action, yet the danger of climate change has not made Republicans unelectable. Instead, their position in the House and Senate has remained strong.
Persuasion matters in politics. Among all the factors that shape the outcomes of elections, it always matters to (1) tell a compelling story, (2) define the issues through powerful imagery and (3) dramatise what is at stake—sustainable change requires a sustainable shift in the ‘climate of opinion‘.
Some other examples
Notes
[1] The fossil fuel industry’s storytelling
For just one example of the fossil fuel’s use of narrative and imagery to make its case, see the Minerals Council of Australia’s “Australian Mining: this is our story” campaign: (1) Videos (2) website (archived).
[2] “battles of narratives” and “battles of images”
Sometimes, we reply to scare campaigns with ‘the facts’. Sometimes—as we face the combined forces of the fossil fuel industry, conservative politicians and the Murdoch media—we see what’s happening as “a fight between organised money and people power”.
This analysis is fair enough at one level—building people power is essential, for many years it was under-emphasised, and there is no way we will get to where we need to go without people power or the facts,
however we may also need other forms of power as well.
The best people-powered movements often use immensely powerful stories and images.
The question raised here is
(1) whether the use of this cultural power is seen as a form of power standing alongside people power
—which matters because:
(2) lack of a strategic approach to cultural power is a feature of many examples where conservatives have won—the list is long, but it includes Trump’s 2016 election victory, Morrison’s 2019 victory in Australia in what was meant to be a #climateelection, and the way Margaret Thatcher won again and again.
[3] Writing about the divestment movement and legitimacy, she adds,
‘legitimacy gains for the movement and legitimacy losses for the industry undoubtedly increase the pressure’ for governments to act’.
This perspective is backed by an Oxford University study that analyses how changes in the public image of fossil fuels translate into broader outcomes. Atif Ansar and others write that stigmatising the fossil fuel industry
‘poses [a] far-reaching threat to fossil fuel companies and the vast energy value chain’. A firm’s resulting negative image can affect suppliers, subcontractors, potential employees, customers, governments, politicians and shareholders. Stigmatised firms may face restrictive legislation, and they may be ‘barred from competing for public tenders, acquiring licences or property rights for business expansion, or be weakened in negotiations with suppliers. Negative consequences of stigma also include cancellation of multibillion-dollar contracts or mergers/acquisitions’ (pp. 12, 13)
[4] Fossil fuel industry leaders on reputation and social license
van Beurden is not alone:
- Senior BHP Billiton executive Vandita Pant describes the company’s response to falling levels of trust in business: ‘Our license to operate stems from being trusted by the communities [where we work]… The first thing that we need to do, as a business community, is to tell a better story about our contribution to society’..
- The Minerals Council of Australia (2012) writes, ‘The industry’s social license to operate is a critical asset that the MCA works hard to maintain and enhance’. Its Chief Executive Mitch Hooke argues that ‘social licence is as critical if not more enduring than a regulatory licence’.
- The MCA elaborates: Without social licence, communities may seek to block project developments; employees may choose to work for a company that is a better corporate citizen; and projects may be subject to ongoing legal challenge, even after regulatory permits have been obtained, potentially halting project development’.