Climate talks end without… any coverage
The UN Climate Talks which ran from 2-13 June in Bonn, Germany, to pave the way for a new agreement on how to tackle climate change, have ended with no national or regional UK press coverage.
The opening and close of the climate debate was covered by the wires (Reuters, AFP), by the Chinese news agency Xinhua, and by WWF the wildlife charity. Reuters reported from the middle of the debate on the “lack of leadership from Western countries” (surely a story worth reporting?), as did the WWF. In the UK, the talks were announced by just one newspaper. Fiona McCloud, writing in the Scotsman on June 1, opened her news piece (500 words, page 6) with:
CRUCIAL climate-change talks get underway today to discuss the next steps the international community needs to take to tackle global warming. Some 2,000 delegates from 162 countries and dozens of specialist agencies will gather… to get into the nuts and bolts of a new global-warming agreement meant to take effect after 2012.
Note that word: Crucial. Fiona got it right–what is decided in this conference and those to follow is one of the, if not the, most significant piece of lawmaking of our future societies. But as Reuters, AFP and Xinhua all reported, the outlook is not good:
Another round of talks on the road towards a new global deal on climate change was wrapping up here Friday, battered by criticism that progress had been negligible. Officials said some ground had been cleared but admitted to worries about what lay ahead… “But with a little more than a year to go to Copenhagen, the challenge to come to that agreement remains daunting,” said UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer. (AFP, Reuters)
These talks are the building blocks of what kind of framework and future we have for dealing with climate change. We may not need to know individually about the nuts and bolts of negotiation, but our politicians need to know we are aware and informed. I don’t believe that this type of critical debate can go on without some level of public awareness and public pressure on our leaders to, well, lead.
But it’s a conference, talks… How could they cover it and keep readers?
It’s all about the angle. And the marketing. And the editorial prioritisation–e.g. WWF prioritised this, as did Reuters, so why not [insert your paper's title here]? News agencies and papers have lost their foreign correspondents and budgets: this is probably much of the case. But they still have journalists. If the press chose to focus in on such a conference and find angles, find the interest, the inside story, then I could imagine a solid, two-week campaign to draw out not a series of stories about a conference, but a drama about the greatest debate of our lifetime:
- how do we move to a clean energy economy?
- how do we save people’s livelihoods and incomes?
- how do we halt the loss of our national wildlife?
- how do we provide EU and global leadership?
On that last bullet, there’s a good piece in today’s Guardian by Parag Khanna and Alpo Rusi on the role the EU can play, if the individual citizens of that territory can visualise it. One bone to pick, though, with this article. It opens:
This past week saw not only the Irish rejection of the Lisbon treaty… but also the annual EU-American summit in Slovenia, aiming to forge a common transatlantic agenda on Middle East peace, climate change and trade.
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE BONN TALKS? Blimey… This was happening across all papers while the talks ran. Take these two examples.
1. Alok Jha writing in the Guardian about the UK’s “incoherent” climate change plans. This story seems to be crying out for reference to the Bonn talks where 162 countries are trying to provide coherence to a future roadmap. This story needed strengthing. As it was, it was picked up and slayed by some deniers.
2. Paul Eccleston, writing in the Telegraph, following the EU’s Environment Commissioner Stavros Dinas on his tour of the UK. Headline: World can reach Climate Change Agreement, says EU Commissioner. So, story is all about a global agreement on climate change… and not even a mention of the UN talks?
Crowded out?
It was a busy news fortnight, granted. 42 Days, Lisbon Treaty, David Davies, Switerland going out of Euro2008… Point being here, however, that to cover this well and properly, plans would have been in place way before, accommodation booked, press passes accredited, story ideas pitched and developed, and the pieces would have been less prey to the vagaries of the news day. But…
Too risky to go into such depth. People are not interested?
Yep, sadly. As I blogged about a few days ago, coverage of climate change in the national press is down about 40% on this time last year. The politicians are not talking about it, the people are not worried about it. Credit crunch and jobs are more important. But I still think… I was looking for a parallel risk in coverage, and I was reminded of when Channel 4 introduced the Hajj in Feb 2003 to the great majority of non-Muslim Britons, and, as I remember it, was a huge success as TV programming. It must have been a risk to do so, as, although spectacular, it was no certainty to keep rapt attention. But it did. Planned and productive news feature coverage. [On that point, I haven't been able to assess TV or Radio coverage; nil point, I expect, as Terry Wogan might say].
Last word
Bonn Bonn Bonn… what happened in the climate talks, what road have we to the Copenhagen meet (via Accra in August)? Will come back to this. The Knight Science Tracker at MIT in the US provides some much-needed oversight and collation of media coverage, for example this on the Climate Security Act coverage. The UK needs a similar agency or academic institution to go for funding and provide the same service.
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