Against a global backdrop of accelerating climate impacts that disproportionately threaten small coastal and island nations like Belize, the Central American country has kicked off an ambitious nine-month nationwide public outreach campaign designed to demystify climate action and build widespread public understanding of climate change challenges and domestic response efforts.
Officially named the Belize Climate Ready Campaign, the initiative was formally launched on September 23 by the Climate Change Department under Belize’s Ministry of Sustainable Development, Climate Change and Solid Waste Management. The campaign is implemented in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Belize office, with core financial and strategic support provided by EUROCLIMA, a regional cooperation program focused on climate action in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Unlike many national climate campaigns that focus solely on emission reductions or disaster preparedness, this initiative is structured to fill a critical gap in public knowledge: it will break down three core areas of national climate work that are often obscured by technical complexity. These include Belize’s formal international climate commitments under global agreements, the specific mandate and ongoing work of the national Climate Change Department, and the full legal and institutional framework that guides the country’s whole-of-nation climate action.
Edalmi Pinelo, the Chief Climate Change Officer leading the department, emphasized that the campaign’s core mission is to make climate policy accessible to ordinary communities across the country. Many government climate bodies rely on dense technical language, industry jargon, and specialized acronyms that can alienate non-experts, and Pinelo’s team is intentionally working to strip away that unnecessary complexity.
“It is a very technical department, so we take the opportunity through this campaign to reduce the jargon, the acronyms, the terminologies that are very technical in order for the communities to understand,” Pinelo explained in remarks following the campaign launch.
To reach audiences across rural and urban areas of Belize, the campaign will leverage a multi-channel outreach strategy tailored to different community preferences. Educational content will be distributed through short educational videos, dedicated social media campaigns, televised features and radio segments, printed brochures, informational flyers, and visually accessible infographics. In addition to digital and print content, the nine-month timeline will include regular in-person community workshops and stakeholder engagement sessions to create space for questions, dialogue, and local input on national climate planning.