Program on the Environment

Effective communication and outreach for climate change is essential for local governments to engage in to spur communities to take action against its impacts. Historically, underrepresented communities of color, immigrants/refugee, and limited English speaking communities are impacted the most by climate change, therefore, it is crucial for local governments to tailor climate messaging to these specific groups. The purpose of this study is to research climate communication strategies within King County to determine how departments are talking about climate change to their communities and are tailoring their messaging towards underrepresented groups. To accomplish this task, I conducted interviews with King County staff across multiple departments to gather information on what strategies are being used to communicate about climate change and how messaging is being tailored. Findings include that King County communicators are actively including climate change in their messaging, along with tailoring their messaging to underrepresented groups through transcreating climate materials. However, a majority of internal King County staff express needing more tools, resources, and information on how they can improve their climate communication, including ideas about allocating resources and more collaboration across departments. King County’s effort to include climate change into their community outreach and tailor their messaging towards underrepresented communities provides an excellent case study on how a local government can spur climate action amongst communities. Nonetheless, it is imperative that the barriers and challenges within internal communications is addressed and improved in order to progress efficient time management and productivity of climate messaging.