There is a significant 'action gap' between what scientists argue is necessary to prevent potentially dangerous climate change and what the government, industry and public are doing. This paper argues that a coherent strategic narrative is key to making meaningful progress. It does this by first analysing a number of narratives which have been used to try and create audience buy-in on the need for action on climate change, and those that argue that no action needs to be taken. A framework is then proposed for how compelling and unifying strategic narratives on climate change might be constructed. It is suggested that the unifying strategic narrative could address the complex range of actors who need to be engaged, provide a coherent explanation for government strategy, and harness the drivers of behavioural change needed to meet the challenge. Research into climate change strategic narratives is nascent, but the authors believe that there is much to be gained from pursuing and intensifying this research.Key Words: Narratives; Climate Change; Behaviour Change; Communication. 3 IntroductionIn 2013, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated that: "It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century." 1 In December 2015, the Paris Agreement was signed by 197 countries. It includes Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), engagements which each country has agreed to undertake to mitigate their impact on climate change.In spite of these major international scientific and political achievements, there remains a significant gap between the globally accepted targets for limiting global temperature rise to "safe" levels (2°C target, 1.5°C ambition) 2 and the sum of the contributions by individual countries. The NDCs are likely to realise temperature rises of 2.7 to 3.7°C 3 . There is a further gap between these declared contributions and the policy measures that are currently in place 4 (see Figure 1). This so-called 'action gap' presents a serious challenge to policymakers and to humanity In democracies, creating "buy in" (in other words, the acceptance of an idea by the public as worthwhile) is fundamental in providing the appropriate policy space for more ambitious climate measures to be introduced, and later for the development of greater policy traction on climate initiatives. There has been significant progress in climate communication. The field has beco me more refined, moving away from a tendency for techno-centric solutions towards seeking to understand in a This action gap should not be confused with the "value-action gap", or more formally the "attitude-behaviour inconsistency", which describes the difference between an individual's stated concerns about climate change or other environmental issues and their behavioural response to the problem 107,108 .4 depth how publics perceive the problem 7 . However, there has been little exploration of the role of an overarching mechanism -one which brings together and uti...

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