Mundukuru Indigeous people at Cop30 Belem, Brazil Antonio Scorza/Shutterstock

When Cop30 convened in Belém, deep inside the Amazon, the world’s attention turned once again to negotiations, emissions pledges and political manoeuvring. The global stage was set against one of Earth’s most biodiverse landscapes and some of its most vulnerable communities, yet the conversation still leaned heavily toward geopolitics rather than people.

Inside the crowded halls of the UN climate summit, Cop30, human stories were everywhere. Posters showed survivors of recent hurricanes, farmers battling crop loss and Indigenous leaders fighting for the survival of their territories. But these voices rarely made it into the mainstream narrative.

Climate change is often framed as a scientific or diplomatic issue, but before it becomes environmental or political, it is profoundly human. The way we communicate about climate change during global summits and in everyday life needs to reflect this reality through stories.

Across developing world and increasingly in developed countries, climate change shapes daily routines in disruptive and often painful ways. In Karachi, Pakistan, a mother lies awake through stifling heat, worried her toddler will struggle to breathe during the next power cut.

In Kingston, Jamaica, survivors of Hurricane Melissa describe “homes that no longer feel like themselves”. In informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya, neighbours share water during heatwaves because municipal supplies have run dry.

These are the intimate forms of environmental grief that rarely surface in international negotiations, even though many communities face climate pressures far more intensely than others.

These experiences carry deep emotional weight. They are not abstract threats for a distant future but lived realities that shape sleep, caregiving, conflict and identity. Yet coverage of Cop30 focused heavily on diplomatic language and emissions curves. Psychology research consistently shows that people engage more deeply when they can recognise themselves, their families, their fears and their hopes in climate stories. Without that human connection, climate messages often become background noise.

A common reaction to climate communication today is exhaustion. People are not disengaged; they are overwhelmed. Years of catastrophic headlines, stalled policies and political gridlock create a sense of powerlessness. This “climate fatigue” is often mistaken for apathy, yet it is more accurately a form of emotional self-protection. At Cop30, fatigue showed up in activists, negotiators and residents who have endured repeated broken promises.

Climate communication has too often relied on doom-narratives that paralyse rather than motivate. When fear dominates, many people withdraw to protect their mental wellbeing.

The alternative is not sugar-coating reality. Effective communication offers grounded hope. This means honest stories of collective action and practical solutions that feel achievable.

In Kenya, communities work together on sustainable cooling. In Pakistan, youth volunteers maintain flood early warning systems. Across European cities, residents develop urban greening projects that cool streets and strengthen community ties.

These are not heroic tales but examples of ordinary people protecting each other amid extraordinary circumstances. They build a sense of agency instead of despair.

Whose voice matters?

Climate messages resonate most when they come from trusted messengers. At Cop30, some of the most compelling communicators were not national delegations but community organisers, Indigenous leaders, youth representatives and climate activists who speak from lived experience.

In many places, trust is grounded in proximity and shared identity. People listen to those who understand their world: a nurse explaining how heat worsens chronic illness, a neighbourhood elder describing changing flood patterns or a farmer talking about soil loss.

Youth leaders and activists from communities already experiencing the strongest climate impacts have become particularly influential communicators because they explain climate change through the realities of daily life. Climate communication falters when experts speak at audiences rather than with them. Lived experience is not an optional extra; it is a form of expertise.

Another key lesson for communicators is that climate messages created in Europe or North America cannot simply be transplanted elsewhere. Media environments vary, trust in institutions differs and histories of colonisation, inequality and recurrent disasters shape how people interpret climate information.

For many communities in the Amazon, climate change is inseparable from land rights, cultural identity and survival. In Pakistan, extreme heat strains fragile health systems and intensifies the emotional labour of caregiving, especially for women. In Caribbean nations, the trauma of repeated storms influences how people view political promises made at global summits.

Cop30 brought together voices from around the world, making it an essential moment for global reporting to recognise how differently climate change is felt and understood across regions. Climate communication must be culturally grounded, attentive to local realities and responsive to the needs of communities most affected.

Events like Cop30 often produce ambitious declarations, but declarations alone do not shift public engagement. People connect to climate action through stories that reflect their own struggles and resilience: a family rebuilding after a hurricane; neighbours sharing water during heatwaves; young people restoring mangroves to protect coastlines; mothers comforting frightened children as storms approach.

These stories reveal immense labour and courage, as survivors in Jamaica and Pakistan emphasise. They show people enduring hardship without adequate support, resisting inequality and surviving systemic neglect.

By placing lived experience at the centre of climate communication, we move beyond abstract numbers toward the meaning of climate change in real lives. And meaning motivates action. Evidence from Africa also shows that stories grounded in local action can increase feelings of efficacy and strengthen community connection.

Cop30 demonstrated that urgency alone is not enough. People engage when they feel seen. Climate communication must acknowledge fear without feeding hopelessness, and it must connect science to daily realities. The clearest messages come from lived experience: women sharing water during heatwaves, families rebuilding homes after storms, neighbours checking on one another during power cuts. These moments reveal what climate change truly means and why action matters.

As global negotiations continue, these human stories, alongside policymakers’ endorsements and policy announcements, must guide us. They do not compete with science; they give it meaning. If climate communication is to meet this moment, it needs to begin and end with people.

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This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Gulnaz Anjum, University of Limerick and Mudassar Aziz, University of Oslo

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The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.