7 May 2026
Blog Global

If Cities Want Public Support for Clean Air, They Need to Change How They Talk About It

Cities around the world are taking action on air pollution, yet public understanding and support can still feel fragile. Bridging this gap requires a shift in how the issue is communicated, moving from technical language to the everyday experiences that shape how people understand, care about and act on clean air.

Authors:
Agnes Agyepong, CEO and Founder, Global Child & Maternal Health
Dr. Michelle Peter, Head of Research, Global Child & Maternal Health CIC | THIS Institute Research Fellow
Luisa Miranda Morel, Senior Manager, Inclusive Climate Action, Breathe Cities

 

Cities around the world are taking action on air pollution, yet public understanding and support can still feel fragile. The problem is not only gathering the evidence. More importantly, it is how the issue is communicated.

Most people experience air pollution through what it does to their lives:
Through a child’s cough.
Through pregnancy and maternal health.
Through fatigue or difficulty breathing.
Through the difficulty of exercising outdoors.
Through the concern for one’s parent or grandparent’s increased wheezing.

If cities want communities to understand and support clean air action, they must stop leading with technical language and start the conversation where people actually are, mentally and physically.

 

Make air quality personal, not technical.

Many city leaders face the same dilemma. From European capitals to rapidly growing urban areas in Africa, Asia and Latin America – the same communication challenge appears.

  • The science is robust. The health impacts are well documented.
  • The monitoring systems exist. The evidence on air pollution is strong – and getting stronger.
  • The policy case is clear. Across the globe, policies to reduce pollution are being introduced across transport, planning and energy systems. Each with the potential to deliver benefits across air quality, health, livelihoods, resilience and quality of life.

Yet these policies can still face resistance, confusion or indifference from residents.

Highlights

Although the science is robust and the policy case is clear, clean air policies can still face resistance when the connection to people’s daily lives is not clearly communicated.
People begin to care about air pollution when they make a personal connection to how it affects their health, their families and the things they value.
When clean air becomes a shared public issue rooted in everyday life, communities do not just accept policies, they become active supporters and help drive them forward.

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From Brussels to New York City, policymakers hoping to manage congestion and improve traffic flows have received important lessons from weaponising and false narratives, reactionary public perception and pushback that force them back to the drawing board.

This is rarely because the evidence is weak. More often, it is because the language used to communicate air pollution often remains disconnected from everyday personal experience. The connection between policy decisions and people’s daily lives has not been clearly communicated, understood – or properly informed policy design and delivery

When the connection is clear, air pollution stops feeling abstract.

It becomes personal.

 

Most people are not actively thinking about air quality: air pollution is not great for small talk!

Assuming that if information is made available, people will find it, understand it and respond accordingly – is a mistake.

People begin to care when they make a connection. That “aha!” moment where they realise pollution is quietly undermining the things they value.

People often enter the clean air conversation through unexpected entry points. 

As a result, the most effective clean air communication often does not begin with air pollution at all.

Parents don’t wake up thinking about “PM2.5,” but they do care if their child can breathe at school or if their skin looks healthy.

Most people won’t join a “Clean Air” group, but they will engage with running clubs, yoga in the park, or expecting parent groups.

These everyday concerns are not distractions from the clean air conversation.

They are the most powerful entry points into it.

London’s Clean Air Wins communication campaign did this very effectively, catching everyday passersby with a surprising, very straightforward question: You wouldn’t drink it, so why breathe it? Leveraging visuals of everyday beverages tailored to London’s residents, such as coffee, baby milk and beer.

A real challenge for cities is translation

Large parts of the public remain unaware of the air pollution issue, unsure of why it needs to be addressed urgently, and why this matters to them.

The issue is not the absence of information, rather the absence of translation.

While experts speak in technicalities—particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, and regulatory thresholds—parents, grandparents, workers, adults and young people are speaking the language of daily life. People aren’t looking for data or environmental briefings; they are busy living.

They are raising children.
Staying healthy and radiant.
Getting to work.
Managing stress, energy and mental health.
Putting food on the table. 

And building stable and happy lives in the places they live, ensuring quality and pleasurable experiences of simply being in the neighbourhoods they call home.

Clean air communication becomes far more effective when it connects environmental policy to those everyday goals.

When clean air communication begins from that place, something important happens.

The issue stops belonging only to scientists, policymakers and environmental specialists.

It becomes what it has always been: a public issue, with public meaning, requiring public support.

 

Why this matters

When clean air is a personal ambition, people talk about it

When air pollution feels abstract, the solutions feel like a nuisance—confusing, inconvenient, irrelevant and disconnected. But when communities understand and can connect clean air to what they already care about – the conversation shifts.

Clean air stops being a technical environmental agenda.

It becomes a public health and quality-of-life issue. 

Even complex and inconvenient changes in transport and energy begin to make sense. 

And people start bringing the topic into their everyday conversations. 

People don’t just accept the policy; they become its loudest allies and message multipliers.

When clean air is a personal ambition, people want to be part of the solution

Without public trust, even the best policies fail. To move faster and go further, engagement can’t be an afterthought; it must be the foundation.

Dialogue isn’t a secondary task—it’s a core component.

Residents hold critical knowledge and mobilising power to multiply efforts and catalyse impact.

Policies delivered in collaboration with communities go farther, faster and are more impactful. 

When clean air is a personal ambition, people support leaders who are delivering it

When residents see ambitious policies working, the momentum shifts.

Communities talk, and public support surges. 

Cities become trendsetters, inspiring global action. 

Mayors gain the mandate to scale up and sustain long-term success. 

What you can do

Four practical shifts can make clean air resonate.

Lead with life, not pollutants
Begin with health, children, wellbeing and everyday life. Science and data should act as the supporting evidence, not the opening line.

Stop expecting residents to become air quality experts
City leaders and institutions can translate complex evidence into meaningful human-scale insights.

Meet communities where their priorities already sit
From exercise and wellness to parenting, neighbourhood safety and daily travel, clean air intersects with the routines and aspirations that shape everyday urban life.

Don’t reinvent the wheel, open up & find your allies. There are community networks already trailblazing new ways to connect with residents on air pollution. Find them. Follow them. Support them. And learn from them.

A good place to start. Breathe Cities and Global Child and Maternal Health are already bridging the gap between clean air communication and people’s everyday lives. Search. Connect. Let’s take action together! 

These are not simplifications of the issue.

They are ways of making the issue legible. 

They are a starting point.

Johannesburg’s Youth@SAIIA Air Aware conference and campaign, London’s LIVE+BREATHE collaborative and Air is Kin project, Breathe London communities and other communities across Accra, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Sofia, Jakarta and Bangkok are demonstrating how they are approaching clean air communication and public engagement as the Voices of Breathe Cities.

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