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Greetings from Antalya, Türkiye!
I’m here for COP31, the United Nations’ annual climate conference, which kicks off today. And I’m doing something a little different this year.
In addition to moderating a panel with the Earth Day Network and other organizations and visiting the Republic of Bati Akdeniz Agricultural Research Institute, I’ll be spending more time in the audience. Listening. Learning. Asking questions. And hopefully hearing some new ideas about how we can finally move from promises to action.
Because, frankly, I’m getting a little tired of all the talk.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve attended these conferences for years, and I know important progress happens here. I’ve met extraordinary farmers, scientists, advocates, policymakers, and young people who are working every day to make our food and climate systems more resilient.
But this is COP31. We’ve been having these conversations for more than three decades. And we’re still not acting nearly fast enough.
More than a decade after the Paris Agreement, we’re facing the very real prospect of exceeding the 1.5°C warming threshold that countries pledged to avoid. In September, the U.N. Environment Programme warned that temporarily crossing that threshold is now all but inevitable.
That’s devastating. And it should make all of us angry.
But it doesn’t mean we give up. It means we need to do things differently—and one place to start is by changing how we talk about climate change in the first place.
I think about this a lot in my work at Food Tank. We know that food and agriculture can be powerful climate solutions. Farmers are restoring soil, protecting biodiversity, reducing waste, and helping communities adapt to extreme weather.
Yet, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, agrifood systems receive less than 8 percent of global climate finance.
How is that possible?
We have solutions. We have evidence. We have people doing remarkable work on the ground. But we’re still not investing in them at the scale we need.
And I wonder whether part of the problem is that we’re not telling these stories in ways that resonate with people.
That’s why I was particularly interested in a new report from Potential Energy Coalition, commissioned by The Rockefeller Foundation. Researchers analyzed more than 83,000 survey responses to better understand how we can communicate about climate change in ways that actually inspire people to act.
Four findings stood out to me.
First, don’t be afraid to talk about climate change. We’re often told to avoid those words altogether and talk instead about jobs or economic development. But the research suggests that being direct about the consequences of climate change can be much more effective. People deserve to know what’s at stake.
Second, talk about what we can gain, not just what we might lose. Nobody wants to hear only about sacrifice, restrictions, and everything they must give up. Let’s talk about cleaner air, healthier communities, affordable energy, and better food systems. Let’s give people something to work toward.
Third, make it personal. Climate change isn’t some distant problem for future generations. It’s already affecting what we eat, what we pay for groceries, our health, and the livelihoods of farmers and food workers. Those connections matter. And so do the stories of real people experiencing these changes.
And fourth, please, let’s stop using so much jargon! Terms like “net zero” and “green transition” might make sense to those of us who work in this space every day, but they don’t necessarily mean much to everyone else. We need language that’s clear, accessible, and, most importantly, connected to solutions people can understand.
None of this means watering down the science or pretending the climate crisis isn’t serious.
Quite the opposite: It means taking people seriously enough to communicate with them in ways that are honest, useful, and hopeful.
One of the things I’ve learned from spending time with farmers around the world is that they don’t always talk about climate change in the language we hear at international conferences. They talk about unpredictable rains, declining yields, the cost of inputs, or whether their children will want to keep farming.
And they’re often the people doing the most innovative work to adapt.
We need to listen to them.
The report also offers four approaches to telling more effective climate stories, and I hope communicators, advocates, and policymakers will take a look.
Because we can’t keep doing the same things and expecting different results.
I’m heading into COP31 with some frustration, yes. But also with hope. Recent elections have reminded us that people care deeply about their communities, their health, their food, and their futures. There’s an opportunity to connect those concerns to meaningful climate action.
And I’m looking forward to seeing what happens here in Antalya. This year at COP, I’ll be listening closely, meeting with people working on solutions, and looking for stories that deserve more attention. We’ll continue sharing reporting, analysis, and reflections at FoodTank.com, both during the conference and afterward.
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Photo courtesy of Conservation Commons, Unsplash
