Is evidence enough? Rethinking climate action as communication
There has never been so much climate evidence available—and yet, action still lags behind. A structured conversation published in the South African Journal of Science takes this contradiction as its starting point: scientific papers number in the millions, IPCC reports continue to accumulate, and climate coverage has become a stable presence in the media landscape.
But more does not automatically mean better. Much of this knowledge remains unevenly accessible—filtered through technical language, hidden behind paywalls, or packaged in formats that are hard to navigate for non-specialists. At the same time, news coverage often follows the rhythm of events, jumping from one crisis to the next, without building a deeper, continuous understanding.
Evidence, power and exclusion
The issue, then, is not just how much evidence exists, but how it is produced and circulated. Climate knowledge does not move in a vacuum; it follows lines of power.
Iqani and colleagues point to persistent imbalances in global knowledge production. Research coming from Europe and North America continues to dominate publication systems, while perspectives from the Global South remain less visible. The same pattern appears in the media, where institutional voices—governments, experts, policymakers—set the tone, and where civil society or everyday experiences struggle to find space.
This echoes a broader reflection already discussed within the Observatory: the idea of a fully neutral, objective science is, at best, incomplete. Knowledge is always shaped by the contexts in which it is produced—social, political, and cultural (as explored in our interview to Sara Giordano). Acknowledging this does not weaken science. If anything, it helps explain why some forms of evidence circulate widely while others remain at the margins.
The risk is that a public conversation becomes overly technical, detached, and ultimately less able to engage those most affected.
The gap between evidence and action
If the evidence is so clear, why does action remain limited?
Part of the answer lies in a structural mismatch. Climate policies unfold over decades, while political systems operate on short electoral cycles. Economic dependencies—especially on fossil fuels—continue to weigh heavily on decision-making, and fragile governance structures often undermine trust.
In this context, more data alone does not move the needle. Without trust, without a shared understanding of what is at stake, and without a sense of collective ownership, evidence risks stopping at awareness—without ever turning into action.
And yet, there are moments when evidence does travel.
It tends to happen when it is translated into forms that people can see, feel and act upon. Activist movements have shown how scientific knowledge can be turned into visible, emotional and collective practices—capable of drawing attention and mobilising participation. At a different scale, local initiatives—from community workshops to everyday changes in behaviour—work because they connect climate issues to something immediate and tangible.
In these cases, what matters is not the sheer volume of information, but its ability to enter everyday life.
Communication as infrastructure
What emerges from the conversation is a shift in perspective. Climate communication is not simply about passing information from experts to the public. It is a more complex, layered process, shaped by inequalities, contexts and forms of participation.
Seen from this angle, communication becomes part of the infrastructure of climate action itself. Evidence matters when it is embedded in dialogue, resonates with lived experience, and helps people understand where they stand in relation to the crisis. It is not an add-on to science, but one of the conditions that make action possible.
The question—is evidence enough?—does not leave much room for optimism.
We already know a great deal about what needs to be done. The scientific basis is robust, and many solutions are well documented. Yet inertia persists.
What seems to be missing is not knowledge, but the ability to activate it. Bridging this gap means rethinking how journalism and science communication operate: not only explaining the crisis, but helping to create the conditions for response. That implies working not just with data, but also with narratives, emotions and questions of justice—moving, in the end, from information to agency.
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