Kirsty A O'Callaghan

Young people will experience increasingly severe climate impacts, yet they also hold the capacity to design and drive transformative societal shifts toward sustainable futures. Recent research shows that the ways in which young people develop their knowledge about climate change are influenced principally by family dialogue, climate education, youth movements, and examples of youth voices in climate action. This study draws on a 24-question online survey, which employed a mixed-methods approach. It examines the climate change information preferences of Australian and New Zealand youth (ages 16–25), focusing on whom they consider trusted messengers, the significance of communicator gender, and the role of eco-anxiety and political disillusionment in determining engagement and activism. By understanding the preferences and motivations of young people, climate change communicators can develop more effective strategies for enabling youth to acquire and process balanced information that will feed into strategies for a long-term sustainable future. This study builds on existing literature in the field of children’s geographies, relating to climate change communication, that seeks to understand and support youth views.

As climate change communication develops, there is a growing interest in using emotionally resonant messages, particularly those that inspire hope, to motivate public engagement and promote pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours. While traditional approaches often rely on fear-based or problem-focused narratives, hopeful messaging seeks to encourage agency and a sense of efficacy in addressing climate challenges. Although these messages are increasingly used in campaigns and public discourse, their effectiveness remains unclear, especially across different audiences, cultural contexts, and behavioural outcomes.

Effective climate change communication is central to public engagement, self-efficacy, and support for mitigation and adaptation policies. Yet, communicators face numerous challenges, such as misinformation, climate despair, and the complexity of climate science. This study examines the views of 29 climate change communicators from Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand to evaluate the alignment between practitioner insights and research-backed strategies. Findings confirm the significance of audience segmentation, localized, and solution-focused messaging and collaborative approaches. A four-pillar framework, consisting of simplicity and local relevance, audience segmentation, storytelling, and actionable steps, emerges as a strategic model for enhancing the communication impact. This study offers a structured guide for improving climate communication effectiveness within diverse sociopolitical contexts by integrating theoretical insights with practitioner perspectives.

Effective climate change communication is crucial for fostering public understanding, enhancing selfefficacy, and catalysing the behaviour change necessary to address the climate crisis. There is both a perception and scholarly evidence that climate change science is not communicated in ways that always achieve these aims. Both the global scientific consensus on the reality of human activity-induced climate change and the specific mechanisms through which climate change is induced are unevenly communicated or, at least, conveyed in ways that often do not facilitate public engagement nor prompt changes in public opinion or individual behaviour significantly.

Variations in the audience’s knowledge and levels of engagement have been partly explained by examining the impact of socio-economic status, education and literacy levels, and age of audiences, as well as via examining the communication channels chosen to communicate climate science. Communication efficacy is also influenced by the skills, style, tone, and rhetoric of those doing the communicating. The gender of science communicators and climate change communication audiences has received less scholarly attention, and the role of gender in shaping effective climate change communication strategies remains poorly understood. This thesis explores what constitutes effective climate change communication and, specifically, whether communicator gender plays a role in the reach and resonance of climate messages.

This research employs a concurrent mixed methods approach, drawing on in-depth interviews with 29 leading climate change communicators from Australia and New Zealand and a survey-based convenience sample of young people aged 16 to 25 in both countries. This study finds that there is a complex interplay between communicator gender, audience receptivity, and the broader context in which climate messages are delivered that collectively impact perceived efficacy. While gender dynamics clearly have a role in shaping communication strategies, this study finds that the effectiveness of messaging is shaped as much by the overall relationship between the communicator and audience and that the communicator’s gender as an independent variable is not as significant as the study anticipated.

Climate change in Australia is manifesting through rising temperatures, sea levels, extreme weather events, and changes in precipitation patterns, impacting communities through health risks, agriculture disruptions, and threats to biodiversity. Future climate change in Australia is projected to have significant implications on the environment, ecosystems, and society exacerbating existing challenges. Over 67% of Australian schoolchildren consider the environment a crucial issue and express concern about climate change, with many reporting high psychological distress. Australian schoolchildren are keenly aware that their generation is among the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and have expressed frustration at the lack of policy change and action to mitigate climate change. Australian schoolchildren and young people have expressed their concerns and feeling about climate change in public protests, strikes, and demonstrations, and grassroots organizations (e.g. School Strike 4 Climate) calling for urgent action on climate change. The purpose of this chapter is to examine aspects of climate change in Australia, with a particular emphasis on the perspectives and experiences of young Australians.