Recent research revealed that Hungarian decision makers are not well informed about the possible negative consequences their municipalities can face due to climate change. Yet towns and cities can play a very important role in planning for and coping with severe weather effects – from flash floods to extreme heat – that can be a consequence of our changing climate.

A recent initiative spearheaded by the Hungarian NGO Energiaklub, has gathered more than 140 municipal stakeholder groups, to first map existing knowledge on climate change adaptation, and secondly conduct specialized training for municipality leaders.

As the communications expert on the project, BEE not only developed the entire visual identity for the initiative, including the name “Climate Answer” and communication messages, but we were also tasked with developing training materials on communicating about climate change adaptation.

Although practical climate change communication guidelines are readily available, very few specifically address the adaptation topic. The target audience of the training – municipal governments – also added a unique layer of specificity.

We designed the communication training guideline to cover eight workshop sessions. Based on diverse information sources, from risk or catastrophy communication, to awareness raising toolkits, our guideline is framed around major questions: what, why, when, who, to whom, where, and how. For example, the “how” section discusses not just style or appropriate language, but also covers how to talk about uncertainty and abstract concepts such as ‘climate’ and ‘change’ in motivating, eye opening ways.

Communication guideline written by: Gyula Gábor Tóth,

Design: Kata Kerekes