Featured Roundtable: Between a rock and a hard place: science, politics and the future of climate change communication

Abstract

As climate change impacts become increasingly forceful and the need to mitigate and adapt more pressing (IPCC, 2018), the political dimensions of climate change are poised to take centre stage in media reporting and public discourse about the issue. Climate change continues to touch on a range of political topics and involves difficult questions, for example about social, intergenerational, and global justice. These developments and conditions imply that scientific expertise on the social and political dimensions and implications of climate change is becoming more relevant to publics across the globe. Should political and social scientists follow calls to participate in such debates (Green, 2020)? How can the risks to scientific credibility associated with a highly politicised debate be reconciled with public demands for scientists’ engagement (Cologna et al., 2021)? And do the emerging issues allow for a renewed and potentially more democratic public conversation about the relationship between science and politics (Pepermans & Maeseele, 2016)? This roundtable brings together international experts working at the intersection of politics and communication to debate how we can navigate the challenges ahead.