Context

• One of the most persistent gaps in science outreach lies in Language itself.
• Scientific knowledge, no matter how advanced, loses impact when conveyed through dense jargon disconnected from everyday realities.
• In climate policy, this failure of communication has serious consequences. Words shape how problems are understood and acted upon; when language narrows meaning, it weakens governance and limits the scope of possible responses.
• The evolving use of the term Loss and Damage in climate discourse demonstrates how linguistic slippage can undermine climate action.

The Semantic Collapse of Loss and Damage

• At international climate negotiations, Loss and Damage refers to climate impacts that exceed the limits of adaptation.
• These include not only physical destruction, but also irreversible losses: cultural identity, ancestral lands, biodiversity, and ecosystems that cannot be restored.
• The term is intended to capture what is permanently lost, not merely what can be repaired.
• As this language moves into national and local administrative systems, its meaning narrows. Through bureaucratic translation, loss becomes a post-disaster assessment exercise, while damage is reduced to compensation determined by fixed norms.
• Climate impacts are absorbed into disaster management categories designed for short-term events rather than slow, cumulative change.
• As a result, international discussions of Loss and Damage finance are often understood locally as routine relief funding, stripping the concept of its broader ethical and political intent.
• This semantic contraction is not trivial.
• When language collapses into what can be quantified and closed, policy responses follow the same logic.
• Irreversible climate harms remain unaddressed, and ambitious global commitments risk becoming abstract promises rather than transformative interventions.

The Data–Decision Paradox in Climate Science

• Climate science capacity has expanded rapidly, producing unprecedented volumes of data on heat, floods, crops, and extreme events.
• Yet this growth has not translated into better decisions. Instead, a paradox has emerged: more information exists, but less clarity about how to act on it.
• Technical assessments often rely on indices and probabilistic models that remain distant from real-world decision-making.
• Local administrators may receive complex reports yet struggle to apply them under time pressure.
• Communities encounter fragmented climate messages that lack consistency or relevance.
• Information alone does not drive behaviour; people act when knowledge aligns with lived experience and practical constraints.
• This gap reveals a fundamental flaw in climate policy practice: science is prioritised as output rather than as a usable input into everyday governance.

Communication as Infrastructure, Not an Add-On

• Climate communication is frequently treated as secondary to technology and policy. In practice, it functions as essential infrastructure.
• Heat advisories that ignore informal labour realities, or flood alerts that assume universal access to smartphones, fail because they overlook social context.
• Sophisticated dashboards often go unused because they are not designed around how choices are made in moments of crisis.
• Where communication succeeds, outcomes improve dramatically. Long-term investment in credibility builds trust, enabling warnings to trigger timely action.
• In such cases, communication becomes as critical to preparedness as physical shelters or sensors.
• Clear messaging also strengthens responses to heat and floods by translating abstract risk into tangible consequences: health emergencies, school disruptions, water scarcity, and income loss.
• This framing helps justify public investment and enables communities to respond proactively rather than reactively.

Towards a Use-Oriented Climate Communication Framework

• Effective climate communication begins with use. It links projections directly to choices: changes in work schedules, public health planning, transport routes, and service delivery.
• This requires localisation across languages and contexts, and the humanising of climate science through everyday experience.
• Co-creation with frontline workers, local leaders, farmers, fishers, teachers, and journalists ensures that information fits decision-making realities.
• To sustain this approach, communication capacity must be embedded within institutions, supported by strong partnerships with the media so climate risks are consistently understood and acted upon.

Conclusion

• When communication fails, science remains trapped in reports and policies struggle to reach practice.
• When it succeeds, resilience becomes a shared social and political outcome. Language is not neutral: it determines which losses are recognised and which actions are considered possible.
• Turning climate knowledge into collective action therefore requires treating communication not as an afterthought, but as a central pillar of climate governance.