Climate Conversations

Talking about climate change – whether it is a new topic or one you have been exploring for a while the conversations around this subject can be challenging, depressing, and even uplifting. We offer Climate Conversations based on a workshop we helped Scottish Government create. The 1.5 hour sessions are a gentle introduction to engage people in how they feel about climate change and enables them to begin thinking about how they can be involved in tackling dangerous climate change. This we find is a perfect way to start a community on the path toward collective climate action.
The oil industry. What are they doing about climate change? Probably doing some greenwash, but are they really changing? Should be investing in renewables!
Participant at a Climate Conversation
We can run this workshop for you or do a facilitation training for this for some of your group. In one case we ran facilitation training for a group of 6 for 1.5 days and then helped them facilitate a climate conversation for 20 people on the second afternoon.
From 2014 through 2018 The Surefoot Effect facilitated over 40 of these conversations about climate change on behalf of the Scottish Government. The results, drawn from the earliest of these conversations and other Climate Conversations, were used as input to the Scottish Government Climate Change Plan. Please see our reports here and here Climate Conversations Final Report Surefoot 2017 and Climate Conversations final report Surefoot 2018.
Climate Conversations encourage a discussion about how we can reduce the emissions that cause climate change, and prepare for a changing climate. Feedback from these conversations support a better understanding of what people feel about the actions needed to cope with climate change.
The Scottish Government published the third report on the Climate Change Plan in 2018. At least every 5 years they will publish a strategic delivery plan for meeting targets. See the 2018 report here and the monitoring report of 2019.
Here is the ‘How to Guide’ including workshop materials if you wish to run a Climate Conversation yourself.

The work with Climate Conversations on behalf of the Scottish Government showed the following:
​I went from a house where we had recycling bins into a flat where we just had rubbish... for the first six months I was like what can I do with this recycling, it was piling up and I had to take it to the dump. Now they've introduced recycling. When you're used to it, going back is difficult.              Participant at a Climate Conversation
Knowledge of climate change
People are generally aware of climate change as both an issue and a problem and were aware that action is necessary to tackle it. There was some confusion between concepts and some factual inaccuracy in the conversations, however increasingly over time many of the participants appeared reasonably well informed.
Participants want to act on climate change but want more information on climate change, the impacts of climate change and the actions they can take.
Participants felt they were already taking some action on climate change.
Issues/Themes
The most prevalent themes concern the impact of a changing climate in relation to transport disruption, wildlife and ecosystems, changing weather patterns, rising sea levels, food supply and land use, and changes to energy generation.
Local energy and public transport were consistently popular themes in the conversations, with strong support for improvements to the public transport network, and participants favoured increased energy generation through renewables.
Across the groups there were strong views that improving energy efficiency of homes and sourcing power from renewable energy would both reduce emissions and create significant added benefits to local people’s health, wealth and wellbeing.
Going forward
People want to engage but need help to go from interest to action. The low carbon choice needs to be the easy choice and the fair choice.
Some groups highlighted an appetite for an ambitious and holistic vision of the future.
People want a transparent and consistent approach to climate change across government.
See more detail from the reports Climate Conversations Final Report Surefoot 2017 and Climate Conversations final report Surefoot 2018.
Surefoot Effect