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: More »
