The Sun - Britain's most widely-read daily newspaper.
How many stories did they run on the Durban climate summit?
Click to find out.
How does this compare with COP15 in Copenhagen and COP16 in Cancun?
"To the extent that policy actors and negotiators think of mass media attention to climate change as a proxy for public attention to climate change (and pressure for action), a diminished amount of coverage might be seen as detrimental to putting forward substantive agreements." - Boykoff (2009: 438)
The best environmental coverage in UK press
What kind of narrative emerged?
You get the idea.
They did include a few dissenting viewpoints:
However the overall impression is of a successful summit.
The Guardian's coverage is a great example of what Carl Death (2011) calls "summit theatre" and illustrates a narrative which is common to all summits:
"The progression from initial hope, through conflict, moving to the brink of despair as negotiations inevitably falter, followed by eventual redemption." (2011: 9)
Death argues, "the eventual success of world leaders in hammering out a negotiated agreement in both Johannesburg and Copenhagen was presented as a dramatic affirmation of representative democracy and state-centric politics." (2011: 9)
The Telegraph often gives a platform to climate sceptics and the run-up to the Durban summit was no exception:
However the majority of the coverage was done by Geoffrey Lean, a veteran environmental journalist:
Lean speaks to farmers from Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe and India and calls for a stronger global treaty.
Nevertheless the presence of sceptical voices serves to "manufacture uncertainty" even if they are in the minority.
“When the process of framing – whereby meanings are constructed and reinforced – confuses rather than clarifies scientific understanding of anthropogenic climate change via the media, this can create spaces for policy actors to defray responsibility and delay action regarding climate change.” - Boykoff (2009: 443)
The Daily Mail took a more explicitly denialist stance:
It also mainly framed its reporting in terms of the cost of the agreement to the UK taxpayer:
"The costs of particular policy actions are highlighted, while the beneļ¬ts underreported; conversely the costs of inaction are largely omitted." - Boykoff (2009: 439)
