Page 140 - Sustainability Communication Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Theoritical Foundations

11 Climate Change as an Element of Sustainability Communication 123

Climate change communication in the political centre, as communicated by
politicians, is essentially about the power of interpretation. In their analysis rang-
ing from 1975 until 1995, Weingart et al. (2000: 270) illustrate how, “in political
discourse, climate change was first constructed as humankind’s all-embracing
meta-problem and, in a later phase, was reconstructed and transformed into a prob-
lem of normal political regulation and routine”. These dynamics were later partly
reproduced, albeit with a greater level of urgency, in the political debates of the late
1990s and early 2000s, closely coupled to the media discourse outlined above.
Similar to the media discourse, the political discourse initially framed climate
change as a scientific issue but later it was differentiated and integrated into various
sub-fields of public policy such as energy and transport (carbon emissions) or agri-
culture (nitrogen emissions). Yet in every phase, political communication never
simply mirrored scientific discourse but took it up according to its own logic. For
instance, one important function of the political system has been to reduce the
complexity of scientific discourse by concentrating on CO emission targets, thus
2
stressing the relative autonomy of the dynamics of political climate change com-
munication (Weingart et al. 2000).
Most prominently in the United States, political discourse has been divided into
climate change ‘believers’ and ‘sceptics’, characterizing the issue as an intractable
dispute (Fletcher 2009). Former US president George W. Bush declared: “No one
can say with any certainty what constitutes a dangerous level of warming, and there-
fore what level must be avoided” (White House 2001). Years later, in the wake of
the Stern Review Report (Stern 2007), a ‘green transformation/opportunity frame’
emerged in political climate change communication (Fletcher 2009).
Regarding the ‘periphery’ of the political system, the general public, two different
modes of communication can be distinguished. First, large parts of public communica-
tion on climate change happen via the mass media. Indeed, media attention and media
communication can be assumed to mirror public attention and communication (Newig
2004). Second, there is direct interpersonal communication. Clearly, knowledge about
climate change issues has greatly increased in recent years (Nisbet and Myers 2007)
and there is widespread concern about the phenomenon, but personal engagement still
remains on a low level (Lorenzoni et al. 2007). Yet little is known about how people
actually communicate with each other, through which means and how this communica-
tion is linked to the professional modes of the societal climate change communi-
cation discussed so far. Future research will have to employ network approaches in
order to explore the role climate change plays in everyday communication.
Ultimately, the discourse on climate change originated in the sphere of science,
with scientific discourse pointing to the policy relevance of its findings (Weingart
et al. 2000). Within the scientific discourse, there has always been a strong emphasis
on the uncertainties involved and the continuous need for further research efforts. Over
time, perception of the global climate system has changed from a purely physical,
chemical and biological one toward the notion of a system coupled with the human
sphere in that it is affected by human action and in turn is a source of dangers for society
(Weingart et al. 2000). Moreover, scientific discourse has introduced a distinction
as to the two policy options in the face of climate change: adaptation and mitigation.