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The beginning of this week saw the press respond (or not) to Lord Adair Turner’s new report on reducing our UK carbon emissions as part of his role as chair of the government’s Committee on Climate Change. Taking a snapshot (or synchronic, to use the technical term) analysis of the coverage of the report in the papers on Monday, Tuesday, provides a useful bellwether in understanding exactly how our national press are thinking (or not) about climate change.

In a piece of research conducted over the summer, this author looked at the different frames employed in the coverage of UK and international policy processes, such as the UK Climate Change Bill and the IPCC 4th Assessment Report. The full findings of that research are to be published in a book later next year. As a brief overview, the research found was that nearly all reporting of issues, such as Lord Turner’s report, used one of three organising ‘frames’ to emphasize the angle or treatment of the issue. These were:

1. Accepted-positive: That the text or policy was a welcome political development and/or tool to help combat anthropogenic GHG emissions;
2. Rejected-negative: That the text or policy was a negative political development and/or unhelpful tool to help combat anthropogenic GHG emissions;
3. Ambiguous-Use: That the text or policy was of ambiguous and/or uncertain political/GHG emissions control benefit.

This was a useful way of looking at the articles that were published this week. Although only a brief analysis of the press coverage of UK climate policy processes and texts, this post argues that this week’s patterns are indicative of the larger picture of the way in which press partisanship and ideological positions are implicated in the decisions made when covering climate change. This is both the left-wing / right-wing divide, but also along socio-economic and conservative (with a small c) lines. When combined with news values such as the need for drama and entertainment and brevity, this contributes to a complex but important aspect of how climate is covered.

Accepted-positive

The only clear cut acceptance of the report was from Michael McCarthy, writing in the Independent, and from Juliette Jowit and David Adam in the Guardian. McCarthy writes knowingly and wryly, emphasising the harsh but positive realities that “there is more chance of  meeting those targets than there was six months ago”. In the Guardian, Jowit and Adam present a double page spread (next to an ad for Halfords promoting winter driving…) that delivers a harsh and fairly focused report. Adam’s report ends with the caveat that political achievements have not always met their rhetorical positioning. “We must hope,” he ends, “that this time, it does.”

Ambiguous-use

This frame delivers an ambiguous message: is the text/policy/initiative useful or positive, or not? It is often along the lines of “not enough” or “too late” but also “is it politically-motivated?” or “they’re not telling you the whole truth… wait a bit” - which leads to either fatalism or inaction, or both. Writing in the Independent, Emily Beamant has a long piece (online at least) in which the “woeful inadequacy” of the report and government action is flagged up a number of times by her sources, such as Tim Jackson, economics commissioner at the Sustainable Development Commission, who:

warned that the Goverment’s commitment to building a low-carbon Britain was woefully inadequate. “The only appropriate response to both the current economic crisis and the impending crisis of climate change is a comprehensive programme of investment in low-carbon technologies and upgrading Britain’s buildings,” he said.”What we need is a wholehearted political and economic commitment to achieving a sustainable Britain.”

Shadow energy and climate change secretary Greg Clark welcomed the “stretching” targets in the report, but said the Government had a long way to go to meet them.

George Monbiot, with technical detail and an urgency not found in most writers, notes in the Guardian that “Turner’s report - polite, measured and impressive as it is - proposes is more procrastination.” Monbiot consistently contributes his own solutions to the problem, which, when read in the light of say evidence given to the Environmental Audit Committee by people such as Tim Helweg-Larsen of the PIRC, seem perfectly acceptable actions. But if Monbiot’s tone has already framed the report from Turner as “futile”, will readers turn off after this? Possibly. But then not all commentators think Monbiot’s solutions are right either, particularly Tim Worstall criticizing Monbiot for getting his economics muddled up.

The strangest headline was from the Times, over Lewis Smtih’s article: Electric cars with bells to steer 2020 emissions targets. This headline framing of what is actually a very positive, clear and responsible article is a strange decision. I very much like and admire Lewis, personally as well as professionally in the minimal dealings I’ve had with him, but this type of headline framing is not uncommon from the Times. It hints at a trivialising of the issue that is not apparent in the article itself. It is not the web headline, either: ‘Government set tough new target for cutting carbon emissions by 2020′.

Critical-Rejected

And then there are the stories that put a headline focus on the cost to homes and families by surging energy bills, and which quote known sceptics rather than the raft of scientists, campaign groups, politicians and (dare we suggest it) normal people who are witnessing climate change, to respond to the report.

In the Daily Mail, environment correspondent David Derbyshire focuses on the ‘£500 per home to fight climate change’ tapping into what Brian McNair calls the ‘middle-England (as opposed to middle-Britain’ target audience for the Mail (McNair, 2000). Derbyshire goes on to quote Bjorn Lomborg, author of the Skeptical Environmentalist (for analysis of this book, look at Spiked-Online and Grist) who is quoted as saying:

‘The price tag by the committee’s own estimate could reach £14billion annually but the effect would be minuscule. Climate models show that the impact up to 2030 would mean the UK would help reduce the global temperature increase by about one three thousandth of a degree Celsius by the end of the century.

‘An economic analysis would indicate that the UK, for every pound spent, would only do about 4p worth of good for the climate. By any standard, this appears to be a gigantic waste.’

Of course, some critics think the Mail should go further, and tell the ‘truth’ that there “is no man made climage change!” However, Derbyshre and the Mail are not alone in their framing of the article in this way–on the cost now to individuals, rather than to all costs, to all societies–as this is also the headline and frame found in Fiona Harvey’s report in the FT (Fiona was just commended as 2nd prize for environmental journalist of the year by the Press Gazette) and by Louise Gray in the Telegraph.

And the absent…

As academic Anabela Carvalho argues, what is absent says as much of the ideological practices of newspapers as what is present (Carvalho, 2005:12). The story was not covered on Monday or Tuesday (as far as I can tell) in the largest circulation newspaper, The Sun, nor in the other red-top The Star, nor in the black-top Express.

So what does it mean?

It means that readers of two of the top five newspapers, by circulation (Sun, Express) knew nothing about the report or its consequences from reading their paper. They could get the news from elsewhere, but not from their daily press. This is very much in line with Futerra’s 2006 report, Climate of Hope, which showed that:

Most newspaper readers are seeing very few stories about climate change. The vast majority (76%) of UK national newspaper readers purchase tabloids and middle market newspapers, and see only 16% of the stories concerning climate change.

Here’s some more from Futerra on media coverage of climate change policy.

It also means that readers of the 2nd and 4th most popular papers were reading negative messages about the impact of the government report–it will only lead to increased energy bills. Neither the Daily Mail nor the Telegraph gave enough emphasis to the urgency or necessity of these proposals in light of the latest scientific understanding of climate change and the need to act. This ‘framing’ of every goverment policy development as negative for ‘the public’ is an unsatisfying method for approaching responsible media reporting on the climate.

It also means that reporting is very complex, often contradictory within the same newspaper (the Independent has a particular track record in this), and that reporting is generally organised along ideological and partisan lines: the left-learning papers provide most coverage; the right-leaning papers do provide coverage, but often cannot disconnect necessary policy changes from their need to attack the government that will be implementing them. Would it be the other way round if the Conservatives were in power?

In detail

These were the headlines of articles published on Monday/Tuesday this week:

The Guardian (circulation 354,272)

• Long, detailed, impressive - but futile in the face of runaway climate change
• Don’t wait for the planet to go up in smoke
• UK climate watchdog urges dramatic emission cuts
• Editorial: End of the Party
• The scary reality buried in Adair Turner’s report

The Independent (circulation 201,019)

• 12 years to halve UK CO2
• Comment: The first test for the other Miliband
• UK emissions must be cut by a third

The Telegraph (circulation 843,196)

• We need 80% cuts’ (published a few days earlier)
• UK climate change targets will push up fuel bills, warns Government advisor
• Motorists must go green to meet climate targets

Financial Times (circulation 451,676)

• Climate taskforce urges tough targets
• Climate pledges to hit UK energy bills

The Times (circulation 629,561)

• Electric cars with bells to steer 2020 emissions targets (headline different online)

Daily Mail (circulation 2,261,423)

• £500 per home to fight climate change

Daily Mirror (circulation 1,425,287)

• Fuel bill rise to go green (headline different and article longer online)

The Sun (circ. 3,140,928), The Express (circ. 723,958) and The Star (circ. 688,582) no coverage. Which is a shame, because the report, all 467 pages of it, can be downloaded here: ‘Building a Low Carbon Economy - the UK’s contribution to tackling climate change’

References
Carvalho, A., 2005. Representing the Politics of the Greenhouse Effect: Discursive strategies in the British Media. Critical Discourse Studies, 2(1), pp.1-29.
McNair, B. 2000. Journalism and Democracy. London: Routledge.

(x-posted at The Current Climate)