Training journalists on climate change
I found this story on Cameroon journalists being trained in covering climate change stories uplifting. I used to follow Allafrica.com during my time at Oneworld, as we worked with them as a media partner. I have a–soft spot?–a wry eye for African journalism, which often speaks of a bare truth without, perhaps, meaning to; take this for example, of journalist’s ‘dishing out’ the news. The programme is in response to:
the need for the journalists to be trained so that they can dish out right and accurate information to raise awareness on the issue of climate change.
Tough words on journalists aside, climate change reporting is a big issue…
The communications group Futerra released a report back in 2005 (which I’ll link to when their new website is launched-oh, hold on, I’ve got the doc, now attached, Futerra report on climage change coverage) that looked at the representation, or at least coverage, of climate change in the media.
Know who came out top? The Financial Times, strangely enough, both in terms of number of stories and in terms of the positive approach to the issue (ways to mitigate or overcome, rather than apocalyptic doom). Which is why I sat up and took notice of this story on Exchanges betting on carbon markets. I stopped and took a breath. I thought, without too much surprise, that finally the money markets had condoned spread betting on the carbon credit market. It isn’t that story. Yet. But even if the markets don’t allow this further recklessness, the arbitrary trading of carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol is a huge UN-sponsored error and contributes to the evisceration of our planet, making trading up your country’s carbon output as legal as driving your car.
Carbon credit trading is just another way of working out how capitalism can make money from the environment. The Kyoto Protocol is a useful mechanism to study for its evasions and manipulations that make it, through its status as international law, an environmentally-damaging piece of legislation. I covered this in my Masters disseration, which you can download from here: A New World Contract: The Kyoto Protocol and the novels of David Mitchell.
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