Translating Climate Activism with Sophia Kianni

Sophia Kianni is an American climate activist known for her focus on advocating for the translation of climate information into a more diverse range of languages. In doing so, Sophia hopes to equalize the spread of scientific knowledge and information in communities worldwide. She founded the nonprofit Climate Cardinals, an international youth-led organization working to make the climate movement more accessible to non-English speakers. She is also the youngest member of the United Nations Secretary-General's Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change. We sat down for an interview about her translation work and other tips for young activists looking to get more involved in the climate dialogue. 

What was the most surprising shift in your understanding of climate change and environmental work? (any ah-ha moment or time of self-reflection and realignment?)

I think that recognizing the intersectionality of the climate movement was a turning point. When I first learned about climate change in middle school, I learned about it in a very black and white and scientific manner, but then through joining grassroots movements and learning about how it intersects with racial justice, environmental racism, and gender equality. So, for example, understanding that 80% of climate refugees are women and that the climate crisis disproportionately impacts people of color—has affected how I have gone about my activism. I hope that the movement makes sure that those who are impacted worse by the climate crisis are the ones who are championing solutions and coming up with ways to integrate their communities into decision-making spaces.

What advice do you have for other younger climate activists who want to get their foot in the door but don't feel confident or qualified in the face of older, more experienced generations?

Starting is the biggest step—just taking that first step. When I first started this work, I began by cold-DMing people on Instagram and sending people emails. I would talk about my passion and interest in this space and how I felt I could add value to their work and volunteer my time to support any initiatives. I would say that starting and volunteering your services and reaching out to people you feel inspired by, especially on the local level, is one of the best ways to get involved before starting to scale your impact. Eventually, I scaled my impact by creating a nonprofit. 

How do you maintain confidence in your voice as the youngest person in many spaces? 

On the UN Youth Advisory Group, I'm the youngest member, and I think that, honestly, realizing that so much of the value I bring to the table is not often irrespective of my age. Still, I feel like my age bolsters my credibility in many senses. I'm a student, I'm not being paid for this work, and I'm doing it out of pure necessity because I feel like this is such an existential crisis that I've devoted so much time and energy. Knowing that I'm coming from the perspective that this is an issue that will impact my generation makes me realize that I'm so much more progressive and have a stance that's also informed by my lived experiences as a young person. Also, I bring many skillsets around using social media and influencers effectively to raise awareness about the climate crisis. These are all strengths unique to my age that I bring to the table. 

What is the most significant generational difference or disconnect you've observed in climate-related conversations? 

Younger people tend to be more progressive and hold much more climate justice-oriented values and talk about the importance of integrating indigenous voices into the space, etc. Unfortunately, many older, more institutional, corporate people I've spoken to tend to look at this more from an economic lens or only talk about carbon taxes. They rarely talk about climate justice. I think that's something that does need to change because we need an intersectional approach if we're going to approach the climate crisis in a meaningful, thoughtful manner.

What is the biggest challenge you face in translating scientific work?

It's often tough to source translators for indigenous and African languages, which is what many of our translations have been into and pay people equitably for their work. When you're working with people who are translating into indigenous and African languages, they're often from communities where it's essential to pay them fairly and equitably for the work that they are doing. It's so important to compensate for their labor. Fundraising and capacity building and ensuring the credibility of our translations through these professional translation networks is a significant barrier. 

One of the things with language and translating climate information is that we are constantly creating new words to describe and make sense of the climate crisis. Do you confront barriers that transcend translation, and are more problems related to the existence of words in your work? How do you overcome these?

Beyond just translating climate resources into languages other than English, I think another barrier is just that scientific information is often complicated to understand and indigestible, and I think that people also have very short attention spans. Part of what is great about some of the spaces I work in is that beyond just translating climate information, a lot of the work we do is talking about communication—how we can leverage social media and infographics and narrative storytelling. I gave a Ted Talk, which reached over a million and a half people, and that was a creative way to make people talk about climate change and learn about issues like language and translation. Often there's also this education barrier where we need to break down the science so that it's easily understandable. 

Once you've translated these texts, how do you ensure they are disseminated? Do you worry about populations previously excluded from the climate dialogue disengaging entirely, and how do you work to combat this?

We now do most of our partnerships and translation work with UN institutions like UNICEF and the UNEP. We put our translations on their websites, which already have a lot of organic traffic and millions of people who want to access those resources. It is essential to engage people that were previously excluded from climate dialogues in our work because it's easy for them to become disengaged if there isn't an active institutional effort to rope them in. I think that we have to target our message as precisely as possible. When I was talking to my relatives in Iran and first got the idea to translate climate information into Farsi, I actively talked about how temperatures in the Middle East. For example, temperatures in that area were rising more than twice the global average, and I spoke specifically about the impacts of climate change on Iran so that they were more incentivized to care about the issue. It was easier for them to understand because I was talking about something they could witness in their communities with their own eyes.  

To what extent is the barrier in cross-cultural climate communication a matter of language or other geopolitical or cultural differences? Did you notice any language-specificities that reflect broader engagements with climate change? 

Some statistics I came across were that 75% of the world doesn't speak English, but 80% of scientific literature is only available in English. Even looking at the UN, like the UN IPCC report and other huge reports on dealing with climate and more generally are only available in the 60 main languages, which accounts for less than half of the world's speaking population. So, specifically, when talking about places disproportionately impacted by the climate crisis, like Africa, it's essential to translate these resources into different native dialects so affected people understand what is happening. Further, with proper translations, they also understand what they can do about it and have platforms to talk about the issues they witness in their communities to help in the solution-making process. 

Can you describe your involvement with the United Nations Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change?

I advise Secretary-General António Guterres on his climate strategy. I meet with him every three months, and then we also work with the climate action team, and we meet with different country ambassadors and key officials within the UN. We also host global consultations. For example, I recently consulted with the UN foundation in the U.S. We co-chaired the Youth for Climate Conference held by the government of Italy last year and then presented our proposals to ministers from over 40 countries, including John Kerry. Those are some of the vital engagement mechanisms. We attended a co-op and met with a lot of critical decision-makers like Alok Sharma and his team and the executive director of the UNFCCC just talking about more opportunities and guidance for how to engage youth in UN processes and bring our voices in a solutions-oriented manner to the decision-making table. 

How do you classify and care for your mental health while immersed in climate change advocacy? 

I do think it's so critical to take care of my mental health while immersed in climate change advocacy. So often, people say you can't take care of the planet if you're not taking care of yourself. I continue always to find time for myself and go out with my friends, be an average 20-year-old and enjoy myself. Taking care of my mental health has been so critical to stay grounded and motivated to continue this work every single day and be inspired by the young people I work with without feeling like I'm succumbing to burnout. 

Written by Alik Shehadeh, EMA intern and blog contributor, pursuing bachelor's degree at UCLA