Importance of localization in climate messaging

How do we make climate communication resonate with the very people it affects the most? 💡 🌎 In my latest essay for Question of Cities, I reflect on this pressing question, drawing on my experience in journalism and storytelling, as well as research and fieldwork in the climate space over the last few years. The article outlines how dominant climate narratives often remain inaccessible, overly technical, and disconnected from everyday lived realities. Some key takeaways: 🔁 1. Translation isn’t enough—localisation matters. Efforts like the UNDP Climate Dictionary are welcome, but we need to go further. People don’t say “Jalvayu Parivartan”—they talk about rain delays, changing festivals, and crop failures. Climate terms must emerge from how people experience change, not how we define it. Climate must be framed as an everyday issue. For most people in India, climate change competes with daily concerns like food, housing, and livelihoods. 📚 2. Storytelling enables agency. We need to shift from policy briefs to bottom-up storytelling, where a fisherwoman in the Sundarbans or a tribal woman in Odisha becomes the knowledge holder. 🎭 3. Embrace diverse media and people’s science. From metaphor-rich language to theatre, dance, and music—creative formats hold emotional and cultural power. Even community-defined terms like “wet drought” offer nuance and should shape climate adaptation strategies. 📰4. Mainstream media must build capacity. At a recent workshop in Maharashtra, we saw how rural reporters struggle to differentiate between climate and weather. There’s little support for them—especially women—to cover these stories. Climate needs to be integrated into all beats, not confined to disaster or weather coverage. 🎯 5. Climate communications is not just outreach—it’s strategy. Too often, communication is underfunded and under-prioritised. But to build inclusive, impact-driven programmes, we must invest in grassroots media literacy, storyteller training, and long-term behavioural change campaigns. 🌏 In the coming years, we will witness a growing wave of efforts to communicate climate change in new and compelling ways as climate becomes centre stage in policy and mainstream narratives. But the real test of these approaches won’t lie in international recognition or polished campaigns. It will lie in how meaningfully they resonate on the ground—in how a coal worker in Jharkhand or a landless labourer in Maharashtra understands, imagines, and navigates a world that is 1.5 degrees C warmer. 🔗 Read the piece here: https://lnkd.in/dGG8ZNZn A big thanks to Smruti Koppikar and Shobha Surin for trusting me with this piece. And of course, this would not be possible without Asar and all the fabulous work that I have got to be a part of in the last 3+ years! #ClimateCommunication #ClimateJustice

🧠 What if the next climate revolution doesn’t begin in Silicon Valley—but with a young climate entrepreneur in South Asia? We talk a lot about innovation, but rarely ask: who is allowed to participate in the global climate conversation? 🔹 90% of climate information is published in English. 🔹 Yet over 80% of the world doesn’t speak it. This isn’t just a communication gap—it’s a structural barrier. It shapes who gets heard, who receives funding, and whose ideas get scaled. At Climate Cardinals, we’re working to change that. Too often, communities already equipped with the knowledge and solutions to lead on climate are excluded—not due to a lack of capacity, but because of limited access. That’s why, in addition to our work translating climate information into other languages, we’re investing in programs that reimagine access through language and localization. 🌱 Our Chapters Program builds one of the most globally representative youth networks in the climate space—localizing education and action across schools, primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. 🌐 And we’re expanding our Translations Program to work both ways—bringing knowledge not only into local languages, but also from them into English and other UN languages, surfacing insights that might otherwise remain invisible. The future of climate leadership is already here. It just hasn’t been fully invited to the table. 📣 If we want a truly just and effective climate movement, we must open it to the global majority of 6.5 billion non-English speakers.

Bisleri Vs COP! When Bisleri shows up as “hydration partner” at a sustainability summit, it feels… off. (Clue - Mint Sustainability Summit) Almost like an oil & gas giant sponsoring COP. That irony got me thinking about another COP — one that feels far more authentic. Not the global climate stage, but the Conference of Panchayats (COP) in Maharashtra — where sarpanches, farmers, and village leaders came together to talk climate action at the grassroots. Why this COP? Because it flips the script. It’s not about glossy campaigns or checklists. It’s about an attempt at real dialogue, local ownership, and governance meeting climate reality. This is exactly what I explore in Issue 2 of Coconut Thinking: 🔸 The good — how Maharashtra has localized climate communication 🔸 The missing — whose voices are still not in the room 🔸 What could be better — ways to turn dialogue into real, lasting change Coconut Thinking is my lens on climate communication — where we unpack the signals, spot the gaps, and imagine sharper, more meaningful engagement. If you care about how climate communication can move from token gestures to true community ownership — this one’s for you. #climatecommunication #communityengagement #climatedialogue