Did you know the word serenpidity (the occurrence of events by chance in a beneficial way) doesn't have an equivalent single word in other languages?
Just like no other language is able to properly encapsulate the meaning in one word,translating the meaning of climate change goes far beyond simply converting words from one language to another. It involves conveying complex scientific concepts, cultural values, and emotional urgency in ways that resonate with diverse audiences worldwide.
Climate change is a highly technical and abstract issue, often discussed in terms unfamiliar to everyday people. We must adapt to bridge language gaps. Susanne Moser, Director and Principal Researcher of Susanne Moser Research & Consulting in Hadley, Massachusetts, emphasised the significance of tailoring communication strategies to target audiences’ cultural and linguistic contexts, thus increasing message understanding through local languages and symbols.
Translating climate change into native languages makes it more accessible and easier to understand than scientific jargon. It also helps build trust, as many communities may not trust information coming from a language different from theirs. It also ensures that even the most marginalized communities have access to and are able to act upon critical information. As Adrien Rich, American Poet, says, ‘Language is power and can be used as a means of changing reality.’
English: The Most Prevalent Language
In an analysis of language diversity in scholarly publishing, languages other than English remain a fairly small proportion–less than 20% of the total. Additionally, more than 50 percent of the world’s technical and scientific periodicals are in English, even when it's spoken by only 17 percent of the world's population.
This creates unnecessary disparity, where most of data and innovations remain inaccessible to the rest of the world. Communities that are perhaps most affected by climate change are devoid of much needed access.
Scientists from non-English native speaking countries face many challenges. They must publish in English to gain recognition yet their work is inaccessible to the very people they wish to help. This leads to local knowledge being under-represented and global science not being translated for local use. In addition to that, when non-native speakers work in English, they end up spending more time and effort writing and revising papers than their native English-speaking peers.
Why Is This A Problem?
A lack of accessible language and exposure to climate concepts creates a negative feedback loop, limiting public understanding and political will to address climate change. This reduces awareness and concern leading to a skewed perception about the urgency of climate change. Low public pressure in turn leads to governments not implementing strict policies, perpetuating a cycle of inaction.
Studies have also found that language barriers can both clarify and distort understanding, leading to varied climate change responses across different communities. With climate change becoming an ever pressing problem, proper translation is vital, so that humanity comes together as a whole to try and solve this problem.
These are the advantages of translation:
- All communities will have access to knowledge. This inclusivity empowers marginalized groups who are often most affected by climate change, but least represented in global dialogues.
- When people receive climate information in their mother tongue, they are more likely to understand, trust, and engage with it. When children learn in their mother tongue, they learn better and avoid emotional toll and fading curiosity.
- Understanding the causes, impacts, and solutions of climate change in one’s own language enables individuals and communities to make informed decisions and participate actively in mitigation and adaptation efforts.
- Language shapes how people perceive climate change—whether as a distant threat or an immediate crisis. Translating messages carefully can shift public attitudes and build political will.
Where Does Language Learning Come In?
Language learning plays a huge role in bridging the gap between global knowledge and local community action. Learning new languages, especially those used in scientific literature, empowers individuals in vulnerable regions to engage with international research, educational resources, and policy dialogues that would otherwise remain out of reach. In turn, when climate advocates, scientists, and educators invest in learning local and Indigenous languages, it enables more meaningful, respectful, and effective communication with frontline communities. This two way exchange increases collaboration and effective communication.
Many Indigenous and minority languages contain unique ecological knowledge about local environments, plants, and sustainable practices. Learning and valuing these languages helps preserve this knowledge, which is crucial for climate adaptation and biodiversity conservation. Conversely, climate change-driven displacement threatens these languages, leading to loss of valuable environmental wisdom. Studies also show that climate change is accelerating language loss. An example is the Sami people in northern Europe, whose vocabulary is deeply tied to reindeer herding and the Arctic landscape. Rising temperatures, rain replacing snow, and shrinking grazing areas have disrupted traditional conditions like ealat—once used to describe the ideal harmony for reindeer to find food. As these environments disappear, so do the words that describe them, leaving younger generations with fewer terms than their elders. UNESCO already classifies all nine Sámi languages as endangered, showing how the erosion of ecosystems leads to erosion of culture and linguistic knowledge.
When we take the effort to learn new languages, record information about climate change in them and in turn learn their information and views, the scientific community benefits as a whole. As such, we should encourage children to be multilingual from a young age.
Scientific journals and media too should publish findings in languages other than english. Importance should be given to make sure that relevant research is available to anyone anywhere around the world to access, no matter what language they speak. Knowledge should not be gatekept as a result of one language dominating the scientific community.
Steps Being Taken
Though there is much progress yet to be made, steps have been taken regarding this issue. One such solution is UNESCO’s open science initiative which promotes multilingualism in science, encouraging the translation and dissemination of research in local and Indigenous languages, thereby ensuring that scientific findings are not confined to elite, English-speaking circles.
Additionally, over 500,000 words from climate change resources have been translated from English into dozens of languages, thanks to the combined forces of a global network of volunteers and one AI-powered model. This shows how emerging technology can be used to help, and not harm.
Conclusion
To confront climate change, we require global collaboration and support. We must be able to communicate with everyone in order to do this. Climate change will not be solved by only the English speakers of the world– it requires everyone's help. To do this, language learning is imperative. It is a simple yet underestimated tool that will help foster global understanding and collaboration. Humanity must act and communicate as one. Only then will we ever have hope of resolving climate change.