Communicating the climate emergency is more than just disseminating data. It's about building meaning, raising awareness, and provoking change. This was the guiding principle behind the meetings of the "Climate Emergency" course, offered at Unicamp in the first semester of 2025. The course brought together professors from different fields of knowledge to reflect on the environmental crisis from multiple perspectives.
The topic gains even more relevance this month, as Brazil hosted COP30 in Belém, Pará – a historic United Nations conference that seeks to accelerate concrete commitments to curb global warming and ensure the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially SDG 13 – Climate Action.
In a scenario where the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns that the planet has already crossed several safe climate boundaries, communication becomes a vital tool for understanding and acting in the face of extreme events, such as the storms and floods that devastated Porto Alegre, the tornadoes and landslides that hit cities in Paraná, and the record heat and drought affecting the entire country.
Addressing the climate crisis
In interviews given in the context of the course, professors Leila da Costa Ferreira, from the Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences (IFCH), Fernanda Surita, from the Faculty of Medical Sciences (FCM), Sandro Tonso, from the Faculty of Technology (FT), and Gilberto Jannuzzi, from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (FEM), emphasized that confronting the climate crisis is not the exclusive task of the university. On the contrary: it requires the joint and critical action of multiple social actors – teachers, students, researchers, technicians, managers, employees, other teaching and research institutions, governments at all levels, companies, social movements, and civil society as a whole.
Each of these actors has a role to play in building just, sustainable, and truly transformative alternatives. To achieve this, communication is strategic: it needs to be pluralistic, accessible, and engaging, building a bridge between science, public policy, and everyday life. In the face of the climate emergency, communication is not just about informing – it is an act of social transformation.
Throughout the course, the discussions were structured around five themes: education, energy transition, health, governance, and communication. In each of these areas, the answers require more than technology or technical knowledge: they demand listening, dialogue, critical thinking, and collective action.
This work focused on interviews conducted with professors of the course "Social Development and Environment – Climate Emergency," seeking to understand how communication is articulated with the themes of teaching, energy transition, health, and governance. Based on the experiences and perceptions of the interviewees, the study aimed to highlight how the university has been acting in the face of the climate emergency.
Deepening inequalities
Sandro Tonso made a powerful statement: either the university transforms itself, or it will remain irrelevant in the face of the climate emergency. "We live in a society built on capitalism. And capitalism doesn't work – or rather, it works for a very small part of the population," Tonso asserts.
According to the professor, environmental solutions focused on the market and mitigating impacts are not solving the crisis, but rather deepening inequalities. One of Tonso's central proposals is to expand the space for non-hegemonic knowledge, especially indigenous and traditional knowledge.
“It’s not about bringing Indigenous students to learn what any other student learns. It’s about listening to what they have to say, incorporating their knowledge. Only then would we have a chance to build other narratives, critical of this white world in which we live.”
For Tonso, this active listening is an essential condition for the university to fulfill a formative, transformative, and politically relevant role.
More critical communication
Gilberto Jannuzzi warns that the dominant narrative about renewable energy is still excessively technological and simplistic. "The communication fails because it doesn't give dimension to what a transition is. It conflicts with our lifestyle, with consumption structures, and with inequalities."
According to the professor, it is necessary to build a more critical, transparent, and participatory communication that helps society understand the real impact of the energy crisis and act collectively. The energy transition, Jannuzzi argues, is not only technological, but also social and political.
Fight misinformation
Fernanda Surita points out that the effects of climate change are already affecting millions of Brazilians, especially the most vulnerable. Heat waves, respiratory illnesses, food insecurity, and mental disorders such as eco-anxiety demand urgent responses. "It is necessary to combat misinformation based on scientific evidence and make this knowledge accessible to the population and to healthcare professionals themselves," she states. In this context, communication becomes a vital tool for prevention, care, and strengthening the public health system.
Dialogue with multiple actors
Leila da Costa Ferreira emphasizes the importance of communication that unites science, politics, and society. "Communication has improved significantly, but it needs to gain more visibility and agility," she points out.
For her, strengthening climate governance requires dialogue with multiple actors, recognition of diverse knowledge, and actions at different scales – such as those conducted by Cameja. Created in 2020 and linked to the Executive Directorate of Human Rights at Unicamp, the commission acts as a reference for research, teaching, and outreach on transformative institutional changes guided by the defense of human rights.
Key Challenges
The interviews conducted in the context of the course reveal a common denominator: communicating the climate crisis requires more than simply passing on information.
It requires institutional courage, intercultural dialogue, listening to diverse knowledge, and the articulation between teaching, research, outreach, and university management around a just and transformative transition.
The main challenges identified by the teachers include:
Education: rethinking curricula and methodologies to integrate diverse knowledge, especially indigenous and traditional knowledge, and to train teachers prepared to act critically in the face of the ecological crisis.
Energy transition: breaking with technocratic and economistic narratives, making communication more participatory, transparent, and connected to local realities.
Public health: strengthening scientific and community communication, combating misinformation, and addressing the psychological impacts of the climate crisis.
Governance: to increase the visibility of initiatives such as Cameja, promoting effective bridges between science, politics, and society.
Recommendations
- To create permanent spaces for listening and dialogue with traditional communities and socio-environmental movements.
- To foster interdisciplinary climate communication labs focused on scientific dissemination and community communication.
- To encourage outreach projects that connect the university to the territories most affected by climate change.
- To form university climate governance networks, with the active participation of faculty, students, and staff.
The climate emergency challenges the university to reinvent itself as a space for listening, solidarity, and collective action. Communication, in this scenario, is more than a means: it is a political practice of transformation. It is at this crossroads that education, energy, health, governance, and human rights need to meet, and the public university has the historical responsibility to lead this encounter, in line with the warnings of the IPCC and the commitments of COP30 in Belém.
This text does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Unicamp.
Adriana Santinom – Bachelor's degree with technological specialization in Chemistry, Master's degree in Inorganic Chemistry, and PhD in Sciences. She joined Unicamp in 2010 as a student in the Chemistry program at the Institute of Chemistry, where she also completed her Master's and PhD degrees. She was a student in the discipline... Climate Emergency, offered at Unicamp in the first semester of 2025.
Ronei Thezolin – Journalist, press officer at the Executive Secretariat of Communication (SEC) and member of the Advisory Commission on Ecological Change and Environmental Justice at Unicamp (Cameja). He was a student in the course. Climate Emergency, offered at Unicamp in the first semester of 2025.
Cover photo:
References
- Science and Culture Magazine – Energy Transition in Brazil – Accessed on 18/06/2025
- The Conversation – More than just changing sources, the energy transition requires redefining our relationship with natural resources. – Accessed on 18/06/2025
- Lectures for the course EM973 – Class A, taken in the 1st semester of 2025.
