Climate Horizons: a graphic novel of key IPCC findings to reach a wider audience

For over 30 years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been synthesizing the state of scientific knowledge on global climate change and communicating it through a series of reports. These reports highlight both the responsibility of humans in triggering this rapid climate change and the direct threat it represents for living organisms including humans. However, despite being freely available to all, many still lack basic understanding of the climate system and the associated anthropogenic forcings. One explanation to this is that these reports are not made intelligible to people outside the academic world and the decision-making sphere. The graphic novel format offers the advantage to blend art and science, making it easier for non-scientific readers to access the information contained in the IPCC reports. Therefore, we proposed an alternative way of presenting the IPCC findings through the collaboration between a climate scientist and a cartoonist. We interviewed 9 authors of the three main IPCC working groups to present the content of these reports in an accessible and intelligent graphic novel named Climate Horizons. In the story, two main characters engage in a dialogue with these IPCC co-authors allowing them to discover the complexity of natural ecosystems, climate inaction and political power struggles. While explaining their field of study, each author shares a vision of what their role as geoscientists should be in the face of urgent climate and environmental issues. Over the course of the story, the main characters gradually change the way they see the world, and go through a range of emotions (shock, denial, anger, acceptance, etc.) as they become aware of the major problem of climate change. This approach by committed citizens and researchers responds to the need to be informed about possible solutions and encourages individual and collective reflection to imagine new possible horizons.