Climate Cultura was created to address a growing challenge in climate communications: many Latino communities care deeply about climate change and clean energy, yet much of the public conversation remains inaccessible, overly technical, or disconnected from lived experience.
Research shows U.S. Latinos are among the groups most concerned about climate change, while also representing a rapidly growing constituency critical to the future of clean energy adoption and civic engagement. Latino creatives across the country are eager to use their talents for action in ways that feel authentic, hopeful, and locally grounded. Climate Cultura invests directly in these storytellers, creating opportunities to counter misinformation, popularize clean energy solutions, and strengthen community participation through culture-first storytelling.
Generation180 partnered with Climate Power En Acción to launch 2 programs in Phoenix and Philadelphia, equipping Latino comedians, filmmakers, content creators, writers, and artists to become trusted messengers on clean energy and climate solutions.
Climate Cultura aims to:
Rather than asking institutions to speak to Latino audiences, Climate Cultura invests directly in Latino storytellers and supports them in telling their own stories about climate, energy, and community resilience. By centering culture, humor, identity, and lived experience, the program makes climate conversations more relatable, hopeful, and actionable.
Climate Cultura is built around a simple insight: people are more likely to trust information when it comes from people they already know, follow, and identify with. It is a first-of-its-kind storytelling program designed to activate Latino creatives as trusted messengers on clean energy and inspire local action. Led by Generation180 in partnership with Climate Power En Acción, the program brings together Latino creators, including comedians, content creators, filmmakers, writers, and artists, for immersive, paid, in-person trainings that translate complex climate and energy issues into culturally relevant, community-driven narratives.
Rather than relying on institutional messaging or policy-heavy communications, Climate Cultura focuses on identity, humor, lived experience, and trusted messengers. The result is climate storytelling that feels accessible, entertaining, and deeply personal.
Goals and objectives for the program included expanding awareness of clean energy benefits within Latino communities, equipping Latino creatives with knowledge, tools, and networks to create compelling climate content, shifting climate narratives from abstract policy debates to everyday community impact, driving measurable engagement and action through peer-to-peer influence, and building a scalable model for community-led climate storytelling nationwide.
Each cohort participated in in-person workshops featuring:
A defining feature of Climate Cultura is its in-person experience. Participants spend multiple days together building relationships, brainstorming ideas, filming content, and developing narratives rooted in their own lived experiences and communities. The workshops are designed to be joyful, collaborative, and creatively energizing, often led by comedians and creators who help participants approach climate topics with humor and authenticity.
The program is intentionally place-based, with cohorts in politically influential states, including Georgia, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. This ensures that stories reflect local priorities, regional energy challenges, language, culture, and the everyday realities facing Latino communities in each region.
Rather than speaking to Latino communities, Climate Cultura is led by and created with people from those communities.
To maximize impact, Climate Cultura paired creator-generated content with paid promotion and amplification through partner networks. Collaborating organizations – including GreenLatinos, Chispa, PoderLatinx, Mi Familia Vota, Vote Solar, and Mente – helped extend the reach of creator stories and connect them with broader audiences.
Unlike traditional advocacy campaigns that begin with institutional messaging, Climate Cultura starts with creators' voices and lived experiences. This creator-first model allows climate content to feel authentic, entertaining, and culturally relevant while still communicating accurate information about clean energy solutions.
The result is a replicable model for community-driven climate storytelling that can be expanded to cities nationwide.
Latino communities are disproportionately impacted by climate change while representing a critical audience for clean energy adoption, civic participation, and future climate leadership. Climate Cultura ensures these communities are included, and actively shaping and leading them.
The program reflects a broader shift in advocacy and communications strategy, moving away from top-down information dissemination and toward community-driven narrative change powered by trusted messengers. Climate Cultura demonstrates that effective climate communication is about belonging, storytelling, relationships, and creating narratives that people can see themselves in.
Since launch, the program has:
Participants created original content spanning comedy, documentary storytelling, educational videos, and social-first content. Examples include The Funky Latina's video about solar savings, Erik Medina's "Sol Series," and Lisandra Vazquez's "Stay Toxic.”
Beyond performance metrics, Climate Cultura successfully built a growing network of Latino creators who now view climate and clean energy as subjects they can address through their own unique creative lenses. The program piloted a new model for climate engagement rooted in trust, culture, and authentic storytelling.
At a time of increasing misinformation and declining trust in institutions, Climate Cultura shows that community-centered narratives delivered by trusted messengers can reach audiences and that when people see themselves reflected in climate narratives, they are far more likely to engage, participate, and take action.