Clean Energy's Message Problem Has a Simple Fix

GoodPower's Leah Qusba says the climate-vs-economy messaging debate is a distraction. Talk about bills, jobs, and gas prices instead.

By The energy-climate Desk

Leah Qusba, CEO of GoodPower, has a blunt diagnosis for why clean energy advocates keep losing the messaging war: they're arguing with each other about climate framing while almost 70% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck [1].

That story, not a carbon budget graph, is what moves people.

Her nonprofit's message-testing work finds that economic security, energy security, and grid reliability are what works for audiences in rural conservative places where most of the utility-scale renewables are being built [1].

Platform suppression adds a practical wrinkle: on TikTok, there's evidence that content is suppressed when you say 'climate' [1].

The cleaner argument isn't about which values win — it's about which words reach which rooms. Audience segmentation isn't a compromise; it's the craft.

Qusba's framework: match the message to the audience, lead with the kitchen table, and stop treating the climate-framing debate as the crisis itself [1].