climate literacy around the world

How much do we know about climate change?

There have been lots of surveys/questionnaires/guides put together lately:

Introduction to the 2024 Climate Literacy Guide | NOAA Climate.gov

Allianz | Allianz Climate Literacy Survey 2023

The challenge of climate literacy – The Earthbound Report

Global Climate Literacy Competitions

What sort of quizzes and such like could we put together?!

Anna Turns, senior environment editor, writes in the latest Imagine newsletter from The Conversation - on what's being done to improve climate literacy around the world:

Understanding complex climate science can be tricky enough, even in your own language. So what happens when none of the mainstream climate information is published in your native tongue?

Most people are excluded from conversations and decisions about how to tackle the biggest threat to humanity because they can't easily access accurate reporting. Almost 90% of scientific publications are in English, explains Marco Saraceni, a professor of linguistics at the University of Portsmouth. "This is a staggering dominance of just one language. But English, often called a global language, is only spoken by a minority of the world’s population." Between 1 and 2 billion people speak English – so, as Saraceni highlights: "At least three-quarters of the world’s population do not speak the language in which the science about climate change is disseminated globally. At the same time, languages other than English are marginalised and struggle to find space in the global communication of science."

Languages are a significant barrier to the global transfer of scientific knowledge, according to a 2016 study. Out of the 100 most prestigious scientific journals, 91 are published in the UK and US. Yet, the biggest effects of the climate crisis are being felt in the developing world. This widespread language bias leads to inequalities, argues Saraceni. One way to break the barrier of English monolingualism involves using AI to promote multilingualism, he explains.

A noteworthy example is the work of Climate Cardinals, a US-based youth enterprise with a mission to “make the climate movement more accessible to those who don’t speak English”. Its network of thousands of young volunteers is translating climate information into more than 100 languages. Now, specialist Google tools are also being used to accelerate the translation of these resources.

Climate science is getting lost in translation

And here's the full report from Mario Saraceni Associate Professor in English Language and Linguistics at the University of Plymouth:

How language barriers influence global climate literacy | University of Portsmouth

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