California Climate & Energy Collaborative

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Priority Area: Meaningful Engagement & Community Driven Decisions
Barrier: Awareness, Education and Language Accessibility

Challenge/Local/State

Description

Local Solution
(Type of Activity: Community Program Implementation )

Lead climate engagement with everyday health, safety, and affordability impacts rather than technical or emissions framing, using plain language, visual tools, and storytelling to connect climate issues to residents’ daily lives, including converting technical data such as air quality metrics into accessible formats for monolingual and non-technical audiences. 

Existing Examples of Progress: 1. Visual and language-based tools: In Bassett/Avocado Heights, Spanish-speaking communities responded best to pictures, infographics, and descriptive terms rather than literal translations of “amenities” and “energy efficiency.” Murals and multilingual displays (like the water mural in Santa Anita Park) served as effective entry points. 2. COVID-era color-coded risk communication as a model for making complex information understandable to the public. 3. The Pajaro Valley TCC reframed its entire engagement approach around health, safety, and affordability rather than GHG reduction — finding that this shift generated community participation where emissions-focused outreach had not.
Region: San Francisco Bay Area, Central Coast, Los Angeles, Statewide

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