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Coaching can be a climate solution

As the world increasingly acknowledges the need to address the existential challenge of climate change, coaching is a profession that can help society progress towards a just and green transition.

by Giles Trendle


 

As someone who has had a long career in the media, I consider journalism as a profession that plays a crucial role in informing people about climate change.

And yet, if the dissemination of facts alone counted, our world be much further down the road to creating a sustainable future. As it is, we live today in a polarised world in which disinformation, deception and denial are weaponised to discredit facts and promote fiction. Objective truth can be hijacked by opinions, distortion and distraction.

I’ve come to learn how the profession of modern coaching can assist in navigating the complexities of a 'post-truth' world and in helping individuals and groups recognize and adapt to the changes required to address the climate change crisis. To reword a famous slogan from a past beer advertisement, coaching can address the parts other professions cannot reach.

That’s not to say I don’t think journalism continues to be essential for climate action. I wholeheartedly believe good journalism – accurate, ethical, impartial - is crucial in covering the climate emergency that we, as a species, are both causing and facing.

Journalism is a public good, and the urgency of the climate crisis — along with public interest in the story — is growing. Reporting in all its forms is an essential element in helping humanity fully understand, acknowledge, and hopefully address the challenges posed by a warming planet.

And yet, the field of journalism finds itself increasingly challenged to maintain its credibility and its relevancy amid, among other things, transformative disruption driven by new technologies, changing audience habits and the proliferation of disinformation.

According to the Pew Research Center, people increasingly find the news media untrustworthy or biased, a perception that seems to be contributing to a decline in engagement with traditional news brands.

News avoidance is high in many countries, according to the 2023 Digital News Report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, as more people shun what they see as a relentless cycle of doom-and-gloom headlines.

Contributing to this avoidance is undoubtedly a sense of information overload. A study from nine years ago revealed that a single Sunday edition of The New York Times contains more information than typical 19th-century citizens faced in their entire lifetime.

It’s little wonder that news of what is happening in the world can evoke feelings of overwhelm, confusion, helplessness, and even hopelessness. Such a disempowered state is hardly ideal for a world that will increasingly demand our participation in sweeping environmental and social transitions.

It seems then that something more than information is needed. And this is, I believe, where coaching can contribute because it can serve as an empowering mechanism to help find a way through the forthcoming challenges and changes.

So, what are these changes that we can anticipate occurring in the future – and to which coaching might help?

Scientists know that climate change is largely caused by human activities, particularly through fossil fuel use. Beyond the established consensus of the scientific community, no less a figure than the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for stopping oil and gas expansion and transitioning away from dirty fossil energy to clean energy in order to achieve a sustainable future.

Our societies have grown accustomed – some might even say addicted – to relatively cheap and reliable supplies of oil and gas. Phasing out fossil fuels – the burning of oil, gas, and coal – will necessitate fundamental and far-reaching changes at all levels of life.

Transitioning to cleaner energy sources will demand significant change, innovation and a willingness to adapt. Though some changes may already be underway, the imperative to live, work and operate ever more sustainably will likely result in substantial shifts in everything from government policies, business strategies, community practices and individual behaviours.

The Merz Institute, an organisation that researches the systemic causes of the climate crisis and how to tackle them, concludes that such change will require modifying some of our most deep-seated beliefs, values and patterns of conduct.

It published a paper entitled ‘World Scientists’ Warning: The Behavioural Crisis Driving Ecological Overshoot’. The paper defined ‘overshoot’ as the human consumption of natural resources faster than they can be replaced and making more waste than planet earth can handle. The authors posit that this ‘overshoot’ is itself a symptom of a deeper problem: a broader crisis of human behaviour which, unsurprisingly, they term 'the Human Behavioural Crisis'.

Simply put, climate change is not just an environmental problem, it’s a human one. And it’s in this dimension of human change - the realm of mindset shifts – that coaching operates.

Neither consultancy nor therapy, coaching can help individuals, teams and organisations to face changes and find their own solutions. The goal in coaching is always to enable people to take accountability for their own positive transformation. This can be achieved by identifying underlying beliefs and patterns of behaviour; overcoming resistance to change; addressing fears, anxiety and psychological blocks; recognising and managing stress and avoiding burnout; and developing solutions and actionable plans.

Cometh the hour, cometh the profession. Modern coaching may play an ever more central role in an impending era of change – all in the service of helping people find their own ways to climate engagement and action.

And so, while I firmly believe in the indispensable role of journalism for fostering an informed and enlightened society, I recognize the potential for coaching to help us face up to and adapt to the sort of personal, organisational, societal and systemic change that is required if we are to create a sustainable future for us all.

Giles Trendle
Giles Trendle
Climate Change Coach at Climate Change Coaches | Our Team

Giles is a trained coach with over 30 years of experience in the media industry. He started his career in the late 1980’s as a frontline reporter in the Middle East. In 2015 Giles became Managing Director of Al Jazeera English, an award-winning international news and current affairs channel where, for 8 years, he led a global team of editorial staff delivering content across linear and digital channels. Leveraging his leadership and communication skills to facilitate positive change, Giles transitioned from his role as a media executive to coaching. In addition to his coaching work, Giles sits on the steering committee of Covering Climate Now, an international alliance of media outlets coming together to collaborate on ways to enhance climate coverage and promote environmental awareness.