Extreme weather is breaking news.

But the science behind it isn’t breaking through.

The accelerating climate crisis means every day we are confronted with its effects in our weather. Yet the message that urgent action is needed still isn’t getting through to the public.

This disengagement impedes UNDP’s ability to advise and influence governments on important policy changes.

The brief: break through to those filtering out climate news in order to counteract resistance. Educate the public on the accurate predictions of our future if we further delay taking climate action. Earn amplification, achieving positive tier-one press coverage in all target markets, with the aim of motivating adults to take a pledge that commits them to changing their habits for the benefit of children in their lives.

Kids share the forecast of their future.

The idea was to present scientific prediction data from the IPCC reports in a way that would resonate with people across the political spectrum, by changing the message – and messenger. 

Who delivers the facts is often more important than the facts themselves. Yet data shows meteorologists are among the most trusted messengers on climate change, and love for our children is the single greatest predictor of willingness to take climate action.

The Weather Kids combines the two: training kids as meteorologists to deliver the 2050 weather forecast – if we do not take climate action today – using data from the UN IPCC 2022 climate assessment report. 

However, to make the data more compelling we needed to translate it in simplest terms. Creating an emotional tie grounded in hard truth: tomorrow's weather isn't set, we still have time to change the forecast.

Data gathering and analysis began with the UNDP Human Climate Horizons, as well as the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The Human Climate Horizons is UNDPs platform for providing insights into the direction and magnitude of changes in the climate. It’s the result of joint work of the Climate Impact Lab and UNDP’s Human Development Report Office. The approach to estimating the effects of climate change on humans begins with collecting globally representative data and then feeding these into statistical models to compare a location’s response to daily weather over a long stretch of time in both hot years and cold years. Making it possible to understand both the ways in which people experience temperature extremes on a day-to-day basis. The projected impacts estimate how outcomes might evolve, given the amount of climate change projected in the future, compared to an alternate future with no climate change.

Climate Change through a Kid’s Logic

On March 21, 2024, UNDP disrupted global airwaves with a special weather forecast to mobilize urgent climate action. In over 80 countries through the collaboration with TV broadcasters, Meteorological Offices and UNDP offices, kids took over as weather forecasters. Disrupting the expected day’s forecast live on-air with one showing what life may look like in their lifetime if we continue on the current course of climate inaction.

The science was told through a kid’s logic for everyone to understand. What does it mean if heat waves are going to be 5.6 times more likely in 2050? It means we'll be stuck inside. We localized ‘Weather Kids’ across the globe, taking over the weather forecast of over 300 local networks in language and with kids representative of the local population, if not cast directly. Weatherkids is currently extending into cinemas, online gaming and out-of-home.

Early outputs measured according to the AMEC Integrated Measurement Framework:

Earned media rollout surpassed all KPIs, with positive earned coverage including Fox News, who have until now only reported negatively on climate change.

The Weather Kids appeared in 80+ countries, airing or mentioned on 300+ TV and radio stations including BBC, ITV, TVE, CCTV, RAI, NHK, CNBC, DW, SKY NEWS, AL ARABIYA.

Total reach of 4 billion impressions inclusive of takeover and media coverage. 328,000 people viewed the UNDP.org Weather Kids landing page.

Media coverage: 95% positive sentiment or factual coverage of the campaign, despite the politicization of the topic; 92% features messaging around climate urgency, 90% included the call to action.

Social media conversations resulted in 385m impressions; and 88% positive or neutral sentiment. 38% of earned media coverage mentioned UNDP and Search traffic for UNDP in launch month was 10-20% higher than average.