Jun 22, 2026 | written by: Tommaso Ciuffoletti
There was a moment when sustainability stopped being a topic for specialists and became a global cultural, political, and media phenomenon. It didn’t happen overnight, but through a sequence of developments that, in hindsight, appear remarkably coherent.
The first turning point was institutional. In 1997, the Kyoto Protocol introduced binding emission reduction targets for industrialized countries, entering into force in 2005. Yet the story of global environmentalism had already seen a landmark success: the fight against the ozone hole.
Between the 1980s and 1990s, the international community mobilized against chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), responsible for depleting the ozone layer. The 1987 Montreal Protocol marked a coordinated and effective response: within a few decades, emissions were drastically reduced and the ozone layer began to recover. It remains one of the rare cases where science, policy, and industry aligned around a shared objective and delivered measurable results.
That experience still stands as a powerful precedent: it shows that, when consensus and cooperation are in place, it is possible to address complex global challenges.
In the years that followed, environmental issues gradually moved beyond technical circles. In 2006, An Inconvenient Truth helped bring climate change into the global public debate. In 2015, Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato si’ introduced the concept of “integral ecology,” explicitly linking environmental and social crises.
That same year, at COP21 in Paris, 196 countries signed the first global climate agreement, committing to keep temperature rise well below 2°C, aiming for 1.5°C. It was widely described as a “historic moment.” For a few years, that definition seemed justified.
Between 2018 and 2019, the issue gained unprecedented social momentum. The Fridays for Future movement emerged, and in September 2019 more than four million people took to the streets across over 150 countries during the Global Climate Strike. Climate became a generational issue, a direct demand addressed to politics.
In 2021, at COP26 in Glasgow, leaders spoke openly of the “last decisive decade.” More than 120 countries announced net-zero targets. The language was clear: “historic agreement,” “turning point.” For a time, sustainability seemed not only central, but inevitable.
That phase, however, was short-lived.
From 2020 onwards, the global context shifted rapidly. The Covid-19 pandemic brought health and economic emergencies to the forefront. In the following years, the energy crisis and the war in Ukraine further shifted priorities towards security, supply, and inflation. Climate did not disappear, but it lost centrality.
This explanation, however, is not enough.
In the same years, the ecological transition entered the political arena more explicitly. In the United States, during the Trump presidency, the withdrawal from international agreements and organizations marked a clear change of direction. In Europe, environmental issues increasingly became associated with economic costs, regulatory constraints, and social impacts, turning into a field of political opposition.
In many contexts, sustainability ceased to be common ground and became a marker of identity. No longer a shared direction, but a position to defend or oppose. When an issue enters into conflict, it inevitably loses its sense of inevitability.
This shift is also confirmed by data. According to the Media and Climate Change Observatory (MeCCO), global media coverage of climate change in 2025 declined by 14% compared to 2024 and by 38% compared to its 2021 peak. 2025 ranks only tenth among the past twenty-two years in terms of media attention.
As the researchers note, “the quantity of media coverage struggles to keep pace with the pace of a changing climate.”
And yet, during the same period, the climate crisis has not slowed down. Recent years have been the hottest on record, extreme weather events are increasing, and atmospheric CO₂ concentrations continue to rise. In other words, the problem is accelerating while attention is slowing down.
We are facing a clear paradox. Climate has not disappeared from public debate. It has simply stopped dominating it. It now competes with other pressing issues, but above all, it operates in a more fragmented and conflict-driven space. This fundamentally changes how it can be communicated.
For years, the question was how to bring sustainability to the center of attention. Today, the question is different: how do we continue to talk about it when it is no longer naturally at the center?
This concerns politics and media, but also those who work on these issues every day. Companies, organizations, and projects that built their commitment long before sustainability became a widespread language.
Perhaps this is what makes the current phase more interesting than the previous one. When sustainability stops being a trend, it loses visibility but gains meaning. It is no longer supported by context: it has to be chosen.
And that choice, by definition, is not measured in moments of peak visibility, but in continuity. In the daily work, often less visible, that continues even when attention shifts elsewhere.
It is in that continuity that the real difference is made today.
