Climate action begins with collective understanding
From Switzerland’s climate vote to Denmark’s political consensus: what it takes for a society to be ready for real climate action.
The climate crisis is often framed as a failure of politics. In many ways, it is. But it is also something deeper. It is a failure of collective understanding.
We are no longer in a world where climate change is something abstract or distant. It shows up in insurance premiums that quietly double. In homes that can no longer be insured at all. In floods that used to be called “once in a century” and now arrive every few years. In rising food prices, in disrupted supply chains, and in the growing unease that something fundamental is shifting beneath our feet. The consequences are here.
Yet the response remains inadequate. Global emissions are still rising. Not because we don’t know what to do, but because our societies are not yet ready to support it. In mainstream media and politics, fossil fuels continue being talked about as a societal necessity, not as something we urgently need to stop using.
Sure, some progress is happening – but not at the speed or scale required. Humanity is very close to failing at its attempt to turn the massive fossil ship around, and the consequences long-term could become devastating. A recent report from the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries warned that, in an extreme scenario of 3°C warming by mid-century, the consequences could include billions of deaths and widespread societal breakdown.
This is the paradox we are living in. We are witnessing a failure of action, and a failure of readiness. At the same time, we know from poll after poll, survey after survey, that the majority of people want action on climate. The issue is not that people don’t care. It is that we have not yet built a shared understanding of what action is required.
People support what they understand. Even more so when everyone else around them share that same understanding.
. . .
The Swiss lesson: democracy is not enough
Switzerland is often held up as one of the most advanced democracies in the world. Citizens vote regularly. They are informed and engaged.
And still, when Swiss voters were recently asked to support a large national climate fund – a proposal to invest significantly in the transition to a low-emissions future – nearly 70 per cent voted no.
This wasn’t an outlier. It follows a pattern: Moderate climate policies tend to pass. More ambitious, structural changes tend to fail.
Even a well-functioning democracy does not automatically produce adequate climate action. Not because people don’t care. But because they are not yet ready to support what meaningful action requires.
. . .
The illusion of political solutions
For decades, we have looked to political processes to solve this crisis. COP conferences. International agreements. Global treaties. National legislation. Net zero targets.
New efforts are emerging, such as the push for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, with conferences aiming to build momentum for phasing out coal and other fossil fuels.
These initiatives are important. They reflect urgency and intent. But they often share a common weakness. They assume that if the right frameworks are proposed, public pressure will follow.
What is less clear is how that pressure is actually created at scale. How does a society move from general concern to informed, sustained demand for change?
That question is still largely unanswered.
Over more than a decade, much of Australia’s climate movement has focused its attention on politicians in Canberra. The assumption has been that if enough pressure is applied at the top, change will follow.
But what if the real leverage point was elsewhere? What might the landscape look like today if the same energy had been directed towards building collective understanding across society?
Because without that foundation, political pressure alone rarely leads to durable outcomes.
. . .
Clarity without a pathway
Former corporate lawyer Robert Hinkley offers a different approach. His proposal – “The Code” – is striking in its simplicity:
He suggests to add seven words to corporate law where it requires corporate directors to act in the best interests of their company: “...without causing severe damage to the environment.”
Hinkley points out that broad public support for climate action already exists. What is missing is something specific that people can rally behind.
Hinkley’s suggestion is specific and concrete. It cuts through complexity. But even here, something is still unresolved.
Clarity alone does not create momentum. A powerful idea does not automatically translate into political inevitability.
The question remains: how does it gain traction across an entire society?
. . .
The bottleneck: collective understanding
We often talk about raising awareness about the climate issues. But awareness is no longer the issue. Most people know that climate change is real. They know it is serious. What is missing is a shared understanding of:
• how the system works
• what the trade-offs are
• what solutions actually look like
• how quickly change needs to happen, and
• who carries responsibility
Without that deeper understanding, something predictable happens: People hesitate. They default to caution. They vote no when uncertain. And in a democracy, uncertainty favours the status quo.
. . .
A glimpse of what is possible: the Danish experience
There is, however, an example that points in a different direction. In Denmark, over the past five to six years, public broadcasters have played a significant role in educating the population about climate change and the green transition.
Not through alarmism, but through consistent, accessible, and sustained explanation of the science. Explaining systems. Exploring solutions. Making complexity understandable.
As a result, in the Danish parliament today, there is broad agreement across the political spectrum that the green transition is necessary, inevitable, and must be pursued. The core debate is no longer whether to act, but how fast: Should decarbonisation happen within five years, ten years, or twenty?
That shift did not happen by accident. It reflects what becomes possible when a population develops a shared understanding of both the problem and the pathway forward.
. . .
Deliberation matters
There is a word for this process: deliberation. This is where the idea of deliberative democracy becomes important. Not just participation, but informed participation.
Citizens’ assemblies, community forums, structured conversations – these are attempts to address the missing layer in our current systems. Because a referendum asks a simple question: ‘Yes or no?’ But complex issues cannot be reduced to simple choices without first creating the conditions for collective understanding. Deliberation creates those conditions.
It allows people to engage with complexity, to hear different perspectives, to weigh trade-offs, and to arrive at positions that are more stable and more informed.
. . .
A missing step
If we step back, a pattern emerges. Most current approaches try to move directly from:
Concern → Demand → Policy change
But what is needed is something more like:
Deliberation → Collective understanding → Demand → Policy change
This is the step we keep skipping. Without that middle step, policies lack the social foundation required to support them. And without that foundation, even the best-designed proposals will struggle to pass.
Or it will pass at first, but then be revoked soon after.
. . .
From awareness to readiness
Until societies reach a point where a large proportion of people understand not just that change is needed, but what that change entails, and how it will benefit everyone, political systems will continue to produce cautious, incremental outcomes. Even when the stakes demand more.
It suggests that the path forward is not only through policy design or political pressure, but through something more fundamental: Creating the conditions for collective understanding.
This kind of work is slower. Less visible. Often undervalued. It happens in classrooms, in media, in community spaces, in conversations. It happens in places where people can engage, question, reflect, and make sense of complexity together.
It is not as dramatic as protests in the streets or as tangible as legislation. But without it, both of those will continue to fall short.
. . .
The question ahead
If Switzerland shows us anything, it is this: Democracy can only deliver what society is ready for. So perhaps the most important question is no longer: “What climate policy should we adopt?”
But: “What needs to be true in society for that particular policy to become possible?”
Until we can answer that, we will continue to circle the problem. But once we can, things will begin to move much faster.
. . .
What would it take?
If the real bottleneck is collective understanding, then the question becomes practical: How do we build that collective understanding in a country like Australia?
A single initiative, a campaign or a slogan would not be enough. It would have to happen through a combination of efforts that, over time, begin to reinforce each other.
There are already signs of what this could look like.
• Public broadcasters lifting their role from reporting to explaining
ABC and SBS are among the most trusted institutions in the country. But trust alone is not enough. What is needed is consistency and depth – a commitment to helping Australians understand how the transition actually works: energy systems, economics, trade-offs, timelines. Denmark did not get where it is through occasional coverage. It happened through years of sustained explanation.
• Deliberation becoming part of everyday democracy
Citizens’ assemblies, community panels, and structured local conversations can no longer remain experiments on the margins. They need to become part of how we make decisions. This is where initiatives like The Democracy Project point to something important – creating spaces where people are informed before they are asked to decide.
• Local conversations that make it real
Connection Cafés, town halls, school events, community gatherings. Places where the global becomes local – where energy, housing, transport and jobs are discussed in ways people can relate to. Understanding grows when people can see how change affects their own lives.
• Education systems that reflect the world students are entering
Collective climate understanding needs to go beyond awareness or scientific explanations. It needs to include systems thinking, economics, responsibility, and practical pathways. Young people are already engaged but they need tools to navigate complexity, not just urgency.
• Business voices speaking plainly about the transition
Not in abstract ESG language, but in real terms. What needs to change? What will it cost? What are the opportunities? When businesses communicate honestly, they help normalise what is coming.
• Cultural spaces carrying the ‘collective understanding’ story
Festivals, songs, storytelling, art. Not as ‘decoration’, but as ‘translation’ and ‘visualisation’. People do not only understand through facts. They understand through experience.
• Clear, concrete proposals people can grasp
Ideas like Robert Hinkley’s “Code” matter because they are simple enough to be understood and discussed. People rarely mobilise around vague goals. They respond to something they can see and evaluate.
• Consistency over time
This is not something that happens quickly. The development in Denmark shows that it takes years of repeated explanation and conversation before a shift becomes visible and goes deep.
Collective understanding is not created in a moment. But once it takes hold, it changes everything.
. . .
From scattered efforts to shared direction
None of this is new. Much of it already exists, in fragments, across Australia. What is missing is the sense that these efforts are connected, that they are part of the same task: to move a society from awareness to collective understanding. And then from understanding to readiness.
Stop asking why our governments are not acting. Governments rarely move ahead of the societies they represent. They move when the ground beneath them shifts. So the real work for us is this:
Not only to design better policies. Not only to demand action. But to help create a society that is ready for it. A society that has a collective understanding of both the problems and the solutions. Because only then does change stop being debated and start becoming inevitable.
Switzerland’s climate vote
The democracy-lesson from the Alps: Even a healthy democracy will not deliver adequate climate action unless the population is ready for it.
Since 1848, Switzerland has held over 650 national referendums. No other country in the world comes close.
On 8 March 2026, Switzerland voted on a climate fund initiative that would amend the constitution. It proposed that between 0.5 and 1 percent of Switzerland’s GDP be dedicated annually to a climate fund until 2050.
Supporters said this would drive renewable energy and protect the environment, while opponents argued it would strain the budget.
The result of the climate vote was:
No: about 70.7%
Yes: about 29.3%
Turnout: about 55.5% of voters
Polls suggested already on beforehand that it was unlikely to pass, with a majority of voters leaning against it. About 25 percent of respondents were in favour, while around 30 percent were against. Initiatives failing to gain majority support early on typically don’t succeed in the final vote.
On the day, the Swiss voters also voted on lowering the public broadcasting fee (rejected), changing how married couples are taxed so they can file individually (approved), and guaranteeing cash as a legal form of payment in the constitution (approved).
Each of these issues reflected key debates on taxation, media funding, digital payments, and climate policy in Switzerland. The climate proposal received the lowest support of all four issues on the ballot. However, in Switzerland’s major cities - places that generally have younger populations and higher education levels - the climate proposal received significantly more support than the national average.
The proposal would require Switzerland to invest large additional public funds every year into climate-related measures. These funds would be used to:
• expand renewable energy
• reduce greenhouse-gas emissions
• transform industry and infrastructure
• support climate-friendly technologies and jobs
• protect biodiversity and ecosystems
• ensure the transition is socially fair
The goal was to accelerate Switzerland’s path to climate neutrality by 2050.
However, the Federal Council and Parliament recommended rejecting the initiative. Their main arguments were:
• Switzerland already spends billions on climate policy
• The initiative would limit budget flexibility
• It could increase government debt or force spending cuts elsewhere
• The constitution should not mandate specific spending levels
They argued existing climate policies should be strengthened without creating a rigid constitutional fund.
Referendums trigger a specific voter psychology. Many voters think “If I’m unsure, I will vote no.”
Over the years, Swiss voters have been asked repeatedly to approve climate-related measures. What emerges is a clear trend: Moderate, practical policies tend to pass. Large, ambitious transformations often fail.
Switzerland shows something important: Direct democracy does not automatically produce more ambitious policy. Instead it produces legitimacy, public ownership of decisions, and slower but durable reforms.
This is why some climate thinkers now argue that citizens’ assemblies + referendums together might be the best model: Assemblies help citizens learn and deliberate, while referendums provide democratic legitimacy.
Where this leads
Switzerland shows:
Even with perfect democratic tools → insufficient action
Activism shows:
Urgency alone → insufficient mobilisation
Hinkley shows:
Clarity alone → insufficient mobilisation
Therefore:
The missing ingredient is structured public deliberation at scale. Collective understanding.
“Democracy only works if the people exercising it have the capacity to reason about what they’re choosing.”
~ Sokrates, 2,400 years ago
“You cannot have a functioning democracy without an educated citizenry. And by educated, I don’t mean credentialed. I mean people who can think, question, assess evidence, and recognise when they are being manipulated. Separate the two and you don’t get a weaker democracy. You get the machinery of democracy running in service of its opposite. Elections become preference-extraction exercises. Campaigns become emotional manipulation operations. Populism fills the epistemic vacuum that civic ignorance creates.
The lesson is not that ordinary people cannot be trusted. The lesson is that democracy is not self-sustaining. It requires active maintenance of the conditions that make it work. Educate the citizenry, protect the information environment, fund the institutions that build civic capacity, and ensure democracy functions. Defund them, corrupt them, or deliberately degrade them, and the machinery of democracy becomes available for whoever is willing to hijack it.
The Nordic countries chose maintenance. The American extraction class chose sabotage. The outcomes are not a mystery.”
~ Aldo Grech on Linkedin.com