Australian Media Coverage of COP 16

What? The Copenhagen climate change talks are on again? In Mexico? Huh?

You can blame my ignorance on Julian Assange and his interminable WikiLeaks!

While COP 15 had blanket coverage with special newspaper sections, the world’s news has been dominated by WikiLeaks. I’m pretty certain it’s because international espionage and whistle blowing is sexier than CBDR and GHG and UNFCCC and any other acronym you can think of.

Ironically, last year it was the East Anglia email leaks that distracted the world from the real debate. I am sorry to say that the first nine days of COP 16 have been largely ignored.

Let’s examine a few articles:

Simon Mann’s reports in The Age have been accurate and constructive. His latest article ‘Global plans still not enough to save the world‘ seems pessimistic at first, but Mann recognises the reality of the COP negotiations.

The statistic, issued by the UN Environment Program, underscores the monumental task facing the world and negotiators racing to reconcile the disparate needs of 192 nations meeting in Cancun, where world-renowned coral reefs have been endangered by the effects of pollution and warmer water.

The reporting in The Australian has improved with Brad Norington discussing the divide between rich and poor countries, particularly the stubbornness of the US.

The Australian‘s Environment Editor Graham Lloyd has also done an admirable job reporting on the negotiations and not the sideshows. He has summed up Australia’s diplomatic position well, and treats the experts with the respect they deserve.

Lloyd has even reported on developments in scientific research and computer modelling that supports the theory of AGW.

These findings strengthen the claim that a warming climate will trigger a vicious circle of rising emissions from the thawing and drying of landscapes.

The Australian has bordered on denialism, publishing a Times article that questioned the ‘certainty of global warming’.

Errors by UN bodies in climate change documents always seem to exaggerate, rather than understate, the problem.

I’m not sure if he’s done a study into this or if it’s just pure conjecture (I suspect the latter). It is fair to be skeptical of the risks and certainties of climate science, but these articles are usually short on the mathematical reality of the risks. I’m sure the author Ben Webster wouldn’t get into a car that was ‘very likely’ to crash rather than just ‘unequivocally’ likely to crash.

The Australian published a piece by Mike Rann and Jean Charest, who co-chair the Climate Group’s States and Regions Alliance. This group will help in tackling global emissions because it bypasses the multilateral talks and simply encourages cities and regions to cut emissions unilaterally.

While a global deal may not be achieved in Cancun this week, states, regions and cities all across the globe are already driving a clean industrial revolution.

This is perhaps the most encouraging article. Whilst it may be a secondary development it shows the public that there are people in power already changing their energy use, which is bound to make people at least feel optimistic.

Here is the latest report in The Age by Simon Mann.

Oh, and after scouring the Herald Sun website for about half an hour, there was nothing about climate change or the negotiations that wasn’t lifted from other news sources. The only thing I found was an article critical of even going to the negotiations in the first place. This is disappointing.

–

Lachlan McKenzie gives an overview of how COP16 is being presented in the Australian media.