Transformative adult climate education: disorientation and dialogue, capability and community through Climate Fresk

This article investigates action for climate empowerment (ACE) in the context of adult learning. There is relatively little attention to adult climate education, despite their central roles in governance, workplaces, homes, communities and systems-level decision-making. In this article, we examine Climate Fresk, a discussion-based, tabletop game based on evidence from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report. Although over 2.3 million people have participated globally, empirical research on adults’ experiences remains scarce. Using a qualitative design, we analyse original empirical data from in-depth interviews with 23 UK-based facilitators who have facilitated workshops in sectors including aerospace, agri-food, construction, education, finance, government, technology and oil and gas. Findings suggest that facilitators experience Climate Fresk as providing legitimacy to speak about climate change, alongside knowledge to inform activism, professional and institutional recognition, and a supportive community. Challenges exist in relation to infrastructure and resilience of the facilitator ecosystem. Data suggest that the power of Climate Fresk lies less in direct behaviour change outcomes and more in its capacity to create dialogic spaces in which adults identify and work through disorienting dilemmas. Facilitators therefore tend to emphasise education as a transformative process of collective sense-making, mindset shifting and community building, rather than individualised action. We use empirical data to develop existing theoretical models of transformative climate education. We argue that by integrating cognitive, affective and praxis-oriented dimensions of learning (head-heart-hands), and by fostering collective voice and relational engagement (‘togetherness’), Climate Fresk may support forms of engagement aligned with ACE, as perceived by facilitators.