Climate change is making extreme weather disasters more frequent and intense, but there are barriers to preparing Canadian communities for this reality. As part of the Climate Ready Prairies project—a partnership with ClimateWest and SevGen Consulting Inc.—Re.Climate developed the PREPARE Framework, a roadmap for anyone working in adaptation that will help them create a sense of trust, agency and care in their communities, three essential components for moving concern to action. In October 2026, Re.Climate hosted a conversation about how the PREPARE Framework differs from other communications and engagement tools. Panellists Kristin Mountain, Elaine Fox, Natalie Thomas and Emma Bider shared examples of how to put the framework into practice.
After two years of conducting research and interviews and hearing from communicators and adaptation practitioners in the Prairies, Re.Climate still hadn’t found a tool that synthesized all the elements that make communicating and engaging on climate adaptation and preparedness successful. This research became the foundation for the PREPARE Framework: a simple visual that tells a clear story (based on evidence) about how to help people feel safe making the changes necessary to adapt to climate change.
This was not an easy undertaking. However, countless examples of excellent work happening in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, many of which are featured in the Climate Ready Prairies Guide, helped to make this framework possible.
Building relationships for climate preparedness
The PREPARE Framework places people at the centre of climate adaptation. As a result, it doesn’t focus on which messages will convince people to prepare for climate impacts, but on building relationships with your community as the starting point of action.
“One thing that we do at Rural Roots is we hire within our target audience so that there’s lived experience within our team,” said Kristin Mountain, director of communications, marketing and fund development at Rural Routes for Climate Solutions, a grassroots organization that helps agricultural producers and rural communities discover the benefits of climate solutions in Alberta.
Similarly, Elaine Fox, director of climate preparedness and communications with the Government of Manitoba, shared that normalizing climate adaptation within government requires regular conversations across departments.
“That way, [climate adaptation] isn’t seen as an unnecessary expense. It’s seen as part of our work, part of the way of building our economy, building safety and solid, vibrant communities.”
Helping people accept change
Though it may not be surprising, the research made clear that preparing for climate change is emotional and filled with uncertainty. Often strong negative emotions come into play when trust is broken, when people aren’t given agency to make their own choices or they feel what’s happening doesn’t actually serve them.
“Increasingly, I’ve felt that getting people to take action on climate adaptation is really a change management challenge,” said Emma Bider, Re.Climate’s resource and training coordinator.
“People have a hard time accepting change, and when they feel like change is being imposed upon them, that can stir up a lot of intense emotions.”
There are plenty of examples of this happening. In Manitoba, a proposed Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area (IPCA) was met with resistance because of fears that the federal government was planning a land grab.
Across the country, efforts to get people to follow FireSmart principles for their homes have been hampered because information is rarely tailored to local contexts.
In fact, there are enough examples that Re.Climate created the anti-framework, which lays out what communicators and adaptation practitioners should avoid and common sources of the public’s frustration.
As Natalie Thomas, psychotherapist and Canadian representative for the Climate Psychology Alliance of North America, said during the webinar, it comes down to communicators avoiding assumptions about what people are feeling or thinking.
“Instead of assuming, we need to ask questions and validate emotions. Invite people to share how they’re feeling by asking about their experiences and what they want for their future,” said Thomas.
“If we treat people according to our assumptions, and those turn out to be false, it can really break that trust with someone.”
Good work takes time
Understanding, connecting, opening and belonging—focus on these capacities in your work and watch trust, agency and a sense of care flourish. This is clear not only from academic research, but from real-world examples.
The Climate Ready Prairies Guide includes many such examples, but we found even more than we could fit in. These examples share an approach that gives people the structure and support they need to take adaptation actions that work for them. This stewardship approach lets communities set the pace of trust-building, values their knowledge and involves them in decision-making.
“We’ve been doing this for seven years and initially with producers, it was really a closed door,” said Kristin Mountain.
“But it’s like that drip of water on a stone. Eventually you’re going to wear it down. You need to just keep working on all the capacities, be open to challenging conversations, tell stories…it might take a while, but that’s got to be okay. Just remember it always takes time to build that trust, so don’t give up.”
You can find the Climate Ready Prairies Guide, case studies and our PREPARE Framework toolkit on our website.
Don’t miss answers to some of your questions below!
Watch the Webinar Recording
More questions answered
We always get so many great questions at our webinars, and we can never get to them all! Here are a few questions we asked project lead Emma Bider to answer.
Question: The first big challenge where I live—in Hope, B.C.—is actually engaging people in these kinds of meetings and conversations. How do you motivate people to come out and participate in these conversations?
E.B. This is a great question because we hear this all the time. People say they want to engage, but they don’t show up when a conversation is scheduled.
I would recommend flipping the script here. Ask first, “Where do people regularly show up?” Is it at the farmer’s market, a park or a weekly trivia night? If that’s where the people are, maybe there’s a way to meet them in those places.
The second question I’d ask is, am I scheduling these conversations at times that make sense for my intended audience? If it’s in the evening, is there childcare available? What about food? Is the location easy to get to? Small barriers like these can easily derail someone’s intention to attend an event.
Lastly, I’d ask myself: is this the first thing I’m asking people to do? Our panellist Natalie Thomas said something I found really helpful in our webinar: “Some people are really not comfortable talking about emotions. So you have to listen and find a different way in. It’s really important to meet people where they are at.”
All this to say, you might need to consider where people are at regarding climate change preparedness and meet them there. Most people are concerned. But you might need to find a side door into that concern to avoid triggering intense emotions.
Hope this helps!
Question: Climate adaptation and emergency preparedness overlap a lot. In our experience, people often don’t take action until an emergency or disaster directly impacts them. What approaches have you found effective in building a sense of agency and encouraging people to take action before something happens and they are impacted, while also keeping that proactive behaviour top of mind year-round to support individual and community resilience?
E.B. This question is tricky because many Canadians are feeling the cost-of-living squeeze and are very hesitant to take individual actions, especially if they involve upfront costs.
Unfortunately, we haven’t seen on-the-ground examples of this in Canada, but I’ll put forward a few suggestions.
There are two barriers here: A) people don’t want to think about future disasters because it is scary to think about. This is a psychological barrier. B) If folks are being asked primarily to do things in their homes, cost is a major barrier.
To address the first, I would share what communities are already doing to prepare for disasters. Share examples of good things that are happening locally and in other places with similar risk profiles (it doesn’t even need to be Canadian!) and why they make people safer. Share this year-round, and build in some climate literacy by showing the role seasonal patterns play in these disasters, so people can develop a better sense of what might be coming. From an engagement perspective, it might be important to convene gatherings for people previously impacted by an emergency or disaster, so they know they haven’t been forgotten. It’s up to you and your audience what this looks like, but as Kristin Mountain said in the webinar, sometimes people need to feel their feelings in a safe space before moving to action.
For the second barrier, advocating for grants or subsidies (ideally those with clear, simple requirements and not requiring long wait times for cost reimbursements) is one good step/ Another is to focus on community-level actions, in line with your risks and with helping the most vulnerable in your community. Layering in regular conversations about why adaptation matters (protecting people and the places they love) can also get people thinking about their personal emergency preparedness.
Don’t give up! There’s lots of stuff happening in the world right now, demanding people’s attention. Normalizing climate adaptation takes time.
Question: I have to ask about framing “the public” as an audience grouping. In my experience, thinking about audience this way is broad to the point of uselessness. I’m wondering if the panel could reflect on audience specificity in this framework.
E.B. A very good catch. At Re.Climate, we believe that you need to talk to a specific audience, not “the public.” The challenge for the PREPARE Framework, of course, is to meet the needs of a wide variety of communicators. This is why “know your audience” is one of our recommended practices, but as you caught, we don’t specify who the audience should be.
It’s a hard balancing act. That’s why the Climate Ready Prairies Guide has plenty of examples showcasing how communicators in the Prairies are applying this to their very specific audiences. I am really grateful that both Kristin Mountain and Elaine Fox were really explicit about their audiences during the webinar. Kristin doesn’t communicate with all Albertans, but with specific producers and members of the Blackfoot Confederacy. When Elaine mentioned her internal audiences, she was clear that these were specific folks in different departments—she’s not trying to talk adaptation with every single person in each department.
I would argue the framework is really designed so that people have to be specific and targeted about their audience. You cannot “engage early, often and openly”, for example, with one million people. Just based on the guidance alone, communicators really have to identify exactly who they want to reach.
Check out our Climate Ready Prairies resources on our website—including case studies, tools and a tip sheet so you can apply the PREPARE Framework in your own work.
