Despite the multiple emergencies around us, global heating–and its causes–are still the top existential issue of our time.

The World Meteorological Organization confirmed in its annual State of the Climate Report that 2025 was the second or third warmest year on record, at about 1.43 °C above the 1850-1900 average. The uncertainty is due to some 2025 data being not yet fully available at the time of reporting. Even though there has been a boom in low carbon energy, the rate of greenhouse gas emissions still continues to rise globally.

Setting the story straight

The first function of storytelling is to communicate reality. We want to tell–or hear–what really happened. Even our wildest myths and fantasy stories–the good ones–remind us of our own personal truths, tell us who we are and what we value. They reveal something about the real world.

This could be one of the reasons no one loves AI-produced content. No matter how much it fools the eye, it still feels like someone’s lying to us. Unless it passes the test of actual human experience, we’re suspicious of it.

What we dub “climate storytelling” is just the latest take on the endless conversation about how human foibles can throw the natural order out of balance. The expulsion from The Garden of Eden and the punishment of The Flood are about humans breaking contracts with natural laws. In Shakespeare terrifying disturbances in nature mirror upsets in the political and social order. Mary Shelley reminds us that technological genius creates and cursesn at the same time.

In movies, recklessness leading to runaway catastrophe has been a staple narrative from Godzilla to Mad Max, from Aguirre The Wrath of God to The Wolf of Wall Street.

The movement of modern climate storytelling continues this legacy, but uses scientific truth as its basis. It does take an unashamedly didactic approach, with the purpose of informing audiences about the climate crisis and offering solutions. You could say it’s unashamedly propagandistic as far as trying to influence public perceptions and mass behavior.

We’ve seen the model before, with the media space often at the vanguard of addressing social issues. Smoking onscreen is a case in point. Despite the power of the tobacco industry, by the 1970s TV and radio had abandoned tobacco ads.

By the 80’s people rarely smoked onscreen unless there was a legitimate character need. In 1992 the EPA classified secondhand cigarette smoke as a Group A carcinogen and a major public awareness campaign followed across multiple media. Even Schindler’s List, in the following year, dropped some deliberate messaging on the issue:

STERN: How many cigarettes have you smoked tonight?

SCHINDLER: Too many.

STERN: (coughing) For every one you smoke, I smoke half.

Stories alone transform human behavior all by themselves, but they can introduce or reinforce ideas that influence choices, and become anchor points for subsequent conversation and thought.

That moment in Schindler’s List makes any impression–coming as it does from two colossal characters in a colossal movie. If you’ve seen it, the odds of you asking a smoker to step outside to light up are going to increase, as is your awareness of your own effect on others. The idea of second hand smoke being a real danger is out in the world.

The Climate Content Pledge

In 2021, UK broadcasters signed onto the Climate Content Pledge, convened by BAFTA Albert. They publicly committed to considering climate themes when commissioning and producing content, to be informed by the science, and recognise the importance of offering visions of more sustainable futures.

British producers haven’t done a terrible job in acting like climate change is a real thing, although the efforts are often more “include when convenient” rather than “include because millions of lives are on the line.” The BBC’s mega-hit The Traitors often looks like an expensive ad for the Land Rover Defender (the Defender is a high-emissions juggernaut that gets about 30mpg). And there really is a lot of stuff on fire in that show.

Fuel for factuality

How creators talk about climate and the environment is as individual as the creators themselves. It’s important to live in a factual world–especially with so many forces taking an active interest in destroying factuality. Getting your climate science right is just the price of admission.

But beyond the science lies a much wider conversation about problems, solutions, experience, vision, information, speculation about the defining issue of our time.

As the conversation deepens and expands, we can discover that CO2 emissions are not the problem at all, but just a symptom. Different viewpoints, discussions, arguments–fights!–over the issue will emerge in a healthy content ecosystem.

When people get together and honestly discuss the facts, there are going to be fireworks. But also, we hope, progress.

Below are some great resources for climate storytelling, put together by people who have really though long and hard about the subject. Check them out, study them, start assembling your own best practices too, and let us know what you discover along the way!