Summary

As the effects of climate change begin to manifest themselves in different ways across the globe, scholars are increasingly interested in studying how such climate-related events are understood through narratives, or stories, and how the stories can be a precursor to action, at both individual and collective levels, to reduce emissions and to adapt to current and future changes. The future is also the object of narrative imaginings, in which expected or possible events form a narrative structure, comprising temporal and causal relations centered on a cast of characters, such as heroes, villains, and victims. Understanding how climate change narratives are constructed, how they circulate in society, and how they impact people’s understanding and willingness to act, may be of vital importance for developing the right communicative tools to stimulate action at all levels of society, from the individual to political institutions. This effort depends on contributions from a multitude of fields, such as climate science, psychology, sociology, linguistics, anthropology, and political science.