Climate emergency: the choice of words
This summer, successive heat waves took center stage in the news and in the lives of the French people. Climate change is no longer a peripheral issue, the “environmental” component of a corporate social responsibility (CSR) policy or an election platform. It has emerged as a central element in our daily lives, in public decision-making as well as in economic and individual strategies.
And yet, the more climate issues dominate the media space, the less we seem to have a common frame of reference for discussing them, as if we lacked a shared foundation of understanding. As climate discourse evolves into a climate debate, everything hinges on the choice of words. And that choice isn’t always the best one.
Thus, the term « global warming», endorsed and adopted by the IPCC (The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), has become established in media, political, and eventually everyday language, to the detriment of the more descriptive “climate change,” after experts rejected, in the name of scientific rigor, the term « climate disruption », which is even more meaningful in popular language. Yet, at the same time, the recurrence of increasingly cold winters on the North American continent has served and continues to serve as ammunition for climate skeptics, led by Donald Trump, (see Associated Press du 23.01.2026 ), to dispute the very existence of global warming.
In Western Europe, north of the Loire, the prospect of a 1.5 or 2° temperature increase was initially viewed positively from wine production projects in Brittany and the United Kingdom to the promise of tourism development along the coasts of Normandy and the North Sea, not to mention the prospect of a more pleasant daily life for the residents of these regions. It is only recently that the increasing frequency of rainy even torrential episodes and floods in these regions has tempered this illusion.
Faced with the successive heat waves of 2026, several climatologists have in fact admitted to a major communication error: focusing on the average expected rise in temperature rather than on the extreme temperatures and events to come. Saying that the average temperature will rise by 1.5°C does not have the same impact as emphasizing that we will have to get used to repeated periods of temperatures exceeding 40°C every summer. François Gemenne thus published a mea culpa in Les Echos in early July, «Yes, we, as climate researchers, have sometimes sent the wrong messages ». By systematically focusing on a simple and seemingly tangible goal stemming from the Paris Agreement limiting global warming to 1.5°C, political and institutional communication, as relayed by the media, failed to have the desired mobilizing effect. Rather than focusing on the goals, the emphasis should have been on communicating the risks without, however, succumbing to doomsday scenarios. It’s a delicate balance indeed…
Faced with this reality, climate scientists such as Christophe Cassou in Le Monde and Jean Jouzel on France Info have therefore spent the summer reiterating and clarifying the IPCC’s projections: its studies have consistently emphasized that climate change will lead to an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events (temperatures, rain and droughts, hurricanes, marine heatwaves, etc.).
There is a glimmer of hope, however: 8 out of 10 French people now say they fear the consequences of climate change (France Info, 14.08.2026). Reality has hit them hard: they no longer need to be convinced, but they need to be given hope for solutions.
The main communication challenge is therefore no longer to convince. It is now to foster a better understanding, in order to better mobilize people toward the behaviors they need to adopt.
The goal is to create the conditions for shared understanding to build common ground between two parallel conversations: that of the experts rich in data but sometimes inaccessible and that of policymakers, the media, and the general public rich in narratives but increasingly fragmented. This means building a language able to hold together scientific rigor, economic complexity, political debate, and everyday concerns. In other words, moving from a battle of narratives to a genuine, shared culture around climate and its challenges.
Eric Giuily, President
Valentine Busnel, Client Director
Lili Gosnet, Consultant