Innovating approaches and tools for advancing climate literacy in the Philippines: lessons from six city workshops in 2023 and 2024

Enhancing climate literacy is critical to building climate resilience, with participatory approaches gaining traction among both researchers and practitioners working on bridging the gap between science, planning and action. This paper contributes to the discourse and practice of enhancing climate literacy in the Philippines by highlighting the participatory and innovative methods implemented and reflecting on the processes and outcomes of the workshop, titled “Training on Understanding the Latest Climate Science and Local Projections for Adaptation Planning.” Organized by a team from the Manila Observatory under the USAID-funded Climate Resilient Cities Project, the workshop was carried out between 2023 and 2024 across six climate-vulnerable Philippine cities. The workshop aimed to enhance the capacity of local government and stakeholders to articulate their climate narratives and create an inclusive vision of their climate futures. To achieve this, the workshop incorporated innovative methods to enhance local climate literacy: localized climate change-modified hazard maps for science communication, climate storylines to navigate uncertainty, the solutions framework from the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) for an understanding of climate-resilient development, a modified business model canvas for simplifying resilience planning, automated weather station dashboard designs targeting different age groups, and participant grouping by generation inspired by the IPCC AR6 Report. This paper presents how these approaches were applied through workshop activities, as well as some of the outputs created by participants. Participant feedback revealed their appreciation of the personalized approaches, especially the climate story exercise, which reflected intergenerational views on climate change, and other hands-on activities. The workshop deepened participants' understanding of climate science and its changes while offering informative, interactive learning experiences that made complex subject matters accessible. The workshop demonstrated its replicability and potential for scaling up, while ensuring to use localized climate information and adjusting activities to respond to the needs of the city.