Community radio is well recognised as a powerful vehicle for advocacy and social change in Africa, but its use in the field of climate change has remained very limited, and then largely for top-down transmission of information to communities. This article discusses lessons learned to date from the Climate Airwaves project, an initiative aimed at developing new approaches for supporting community radio broadcasters to investigate, communicate, and engage in broader debates on the impacts of climate change on vulnerable communities in Ghana. It also discusses in depth the central role that action research aimed at effecting social change plays in this particular initiative, and in climate justice initiatives more broadly. Lessons learned to date have highlighted:

 the challenges of addressing complexity and uncertainty of climate change appropriately
 the importance of framing climate change in the context of rights and responsibilities
 the role of sustainable partnership models, and how this work can contribute to broadcasters’ and communities’ longer-term visions of change.