Climate Change Communication in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Journal article : Review

Artificial intelligence (AI), and especially generative AI (GenAI), is rapidly reshaping climate change communication (CCC). Once dominated by news coverage and public campaigns, CCC now extends across scientists, NGOs, corporations, journalists, influencers, and citizens—all increasingly encountering and adopting AI tools. This article provides a comprehensive review of scholarship on the nexus of AI and CCC, synthesizing insights scattered across disciplines from social and computer science, and interdisciplinary fields like environmental and science studies. It identifies robust patterns alongside significant gaps, highlighting areas where future research is needed. Based on existing evidence, it shows that AI—as of now—functions less as a disruptive replacement of established communication and information‐seeking practices rather than as an assistive layer in CCC: accelerating routine newsroom tasks, enabling personalized and multilingual outreach, and generating new textual, visual, and multimodal representations of climate change. Stakeholders use AI to monitor discourse, expose greenwashing, and broaden access to climate information, though systematic research on uptake and effects remains limited. Journalists experiment cautiously with AI, emphasizing human oversight, while influencers and content creators are understudied despite their growing role. The potential of AI‐driven systems for fact‐checking, policy analysis, and creative engagement has been explored, yet studies remain heavily English‐centric and focused on text. Citizen studies reveal promises and risks: generative dialogues can reduce skepticism and foster engagement, but biases, misinformation, and equity concerns persist. Advancing the field requires comparative and interdisciplinary agendas that integrate computational and traditional methods, foreground transparency and inclusion, and address how AI can equitably support awareness, trust, and climate action. This article is categorized under: Perceptions, Behavior, and Communication of Climate Change > Communication

Authors: Schäfer, MS; Chen, K; Mahl, D; Painter, J; Volk, SC

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Wiley
• Journal: Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change
• Volume: 17
• Issue: 3
• Article number: e70073
• Publication date: 2026-05-25
• Acceptance date: 2026-05-15
• DOI: 10.1002/wcc.70073
• EISSN: 1757-7799
• ISSN: 1757-7780
• Language: English
• Keywords: climate change communication; ChatGPT; climate change; climate change education; artificial intelligence
• Subtype: Review