The importance of communicating information on the environment and climate change has, over the years, been a discourse that received minimal attention among many communication and media studies scholars globally. Currently, concerns about the impacts of climate change everywhere, and the growing trends regarding the climate change scholarship, have attracted more attention and debates about the importance and related dynamics of communicating climate change especially in relation to adaptation and mitigation.

Scholars have underscored the importance and need to communicate better with communities, governments, policy-makers and the society in general about the realities and future regarding climate change to influence appropriate policies in adaptation and mitigation strategies. Through communication, climate change risks can be changed, magnified, dramatised and minimised within knowledge, and to that extent they are particularly open to social definition and construction. Various communication systems (such as different media outlets), together with other systems and structures in the society (such as scientific and legal professions) are in charge of defining risks to become key social and political positions.

Issues related to climate change such as expensive and extensive scientific investigations are often not really noticed in the agency that ordered them until communication through channels such as television or a mass-circulation newspaper reports about them. Communicating climate change offers proper use of (communication) processes, techniques and media to help people attain a greater awareness of their climate change situation and their options for change, to resolve related conflicts, to work towards consensus, to plan actions for change and sustainable development, to acquire the knowledge and skills they need to improve their condition and that of their society, and to improve the effectiveness of institutions.

This description of the role of communication in the society as it relates to climate change emphasizes the abilities and skills of people to deal with climate change issues affecting their lives, based on the knowledge of and experience with an issue of interest. In doing so, people may employ a variety of approaches ranging from modern media outlets or communication systems to village communication channels or indigenous communication systems as well as many approaches and tools. For instance, a study by Gaiballah and Abdalla (2016), ‘Understanding the pastoral production system of East Africa’, established that extensive use of communication, especially the transmission of indigenous knowledge and information enabled pastoralists and their animals to survive in extremely difficult conditions in the East Africa’s arid and semi-arid environments and managed to cope with the harsh conditions.

Climate change currently is not only a scientific or environmental topic; however, as pointed out by many scholars, the public understands it as packaged within more hybrid arrangements that construct scientific and socio-political or moral ordering. As a result, through communication systems and their processes, climate change (and climate change adaptation and mitigation) is now an established fact in public debates, with only a few exceptions. Climate change has become political, financial, and ethical as much as scientific. Hence, for those who are involved in the communication process, such as journalists and the public, their critical and useful roles include interpreting or framing of such climate change issues.

Scholars have clearly identified the significant roles that communication systems or media play in relation to climate change and related processes such as adaptation and mitigation. These involve translating the abstract threats of climate change reported by science into the language of the public; informing people’s opinions; shaping perceptions and reactions to the danger climate change poses; serving as mediaries between the people, science, business and policy makers; and prescribing responsibility for the creation and resolution of problems.

Notwithstanding, climate change communication is very instrumental in the process of continuous and contingent historical-cultural formations of societies and nations in this regard. Climate change communication is an important socialization agent as it is centrally involved in the social construction of ‘climate change reality’ and reproduces related dominant (and other/contesting) social norms, beliefs, discourses, ideologies, and values. Meanwhile, communication systems such as media play a crucial role in disseminating useful climate information to effectively guide practices, public debate and understanding on climate change. Regular and accurate communication on climate change is the first step towards developing coping mechanisms in many parts of the world.

Understandably, it is within these lines that emphasize the importance of communicating climate change in modern times, the International Communication Association (ICA) has placed climate change communication among its priority areas and established the ICA Climate Change Committee. Similarly, it is thus imperative for ICA members to embrace climate change communication, arguably, in terms of Christians et al. (2009) basic roles and tasks of communication systems or media in contemporary societies as identified in their seminal book ‘Normative Theories of the Media: Journalism in Democratic Societies’, that are classified under three main categories. These include, as far as communicating climate change is concerned in this context: observing and informing, primarily as a service to the public; participating in public life as an independent actor by way of critical comment, advice, advocacy and expression of opinion; and providing a channel, forum, or platform for extra media voices or sources to reach a self-chosen public.