Abstract The potential of place-based, historically-informed approaches to drive climate action has not yet been adequately interrogated. Recent scholarly work has focussed on climate communication and the role of arts and humanities-led storytelling in engaging people in climate narratives. Far less has been said about mobilising arts and creativity to build anticipatory climate action. Nor have archival material and pre-twentieth century histories of living with water and flood been widely utilised in this endeavour. This paper reflects on our experiences delivering the UKRI-funded Risky Cities programme and specifically, of developing and utilising a learning histories approach that folds together past, present and future in productive ways so as to learn from the past and the present to rethink the future. Risky Cities uses this approach to develop engagement tools at different scales, evaluating their impact throughout. We find consistently that using learning histories as the foundation of arts-led and creative community engagement makes big narratives about global climate change locally meaningful and relevant. Crucially, this drives anticipatory action and behavioural change in relation to flood risk and resilience. The projects described here underline the effectiveness of place-based, historically-informed creative community engagement for driving cognitive shifts and behavioural change for both participants and audiences. Our learning histories approach can thus be understood as a valuable participatory research method and an effective tool for building climate action, empowerment and resilience.