Telling the climate change story

Climate change is no longer a “scientific myth” as it was a couple of decades ago. Almost every government, civil society organisations, and all well-informed individuals agree that the planet is sitting on a time bomb hence a need for strategic interventions. This has seen numerous campaigns, strategies, and interventions aimed at saving the world from the predicted environmental calamities.

Considering the relevance and urgency of the matter, the media has equally joined the bandwagon of putting across the information about climate change and its effects. With only a few weeks to this year’s climate change 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17), the media, both print and electronic as well online has considerably allocated resources to reporting the issue.

However, considering the nature of the matter, the media has an informative and educative role to play in as far as climate change is concerned. Although climate change itself is newsworthy, what is more newsworthy now compared to a couple of decades ago when the phenomenon just sprung out is its impact.

What threats is climate change posing to people? Will climate change affect males, females, developed and developing nations equally? If not, who will suffer the most? Are authorities paying more attention to those that will be disproportionally affected? These plus many more are among many questions that the media need to address in their reporting.

With climate change effects manifesting themselves across the globe, the media ought to do away from merely reporting on climate change events or scientific aspect of it, but it should focus on reporting the impacts of climate change on people.

Informing and educating the uninformed rural masses on mitigation and adaption processes to global warming is another important area the media should focus-on.

Considering numerous research findings about climate change effects in developing nations, Southern Africa in particular, the media ought to emphasise on reporting issues rather than mere events and complex scientific explanations about climate change.

Magnitude or impact is one important news value for the media. Research has revealed that females will suffer the most of climate change than their male counterparts. However, gender issues on climate change remain an untold story in as far as a snapshot of South African print media monitored by Gender Links is concerned. This might also apply to most media channels across the region.

In a 2008 UN Emerging Issues report, Eco-Watch Africa’s Rachel Nampinga noted that women constitute the majority (70%) of the 1.3 billion people in the developing world and are therefore more dependent on natural resources. Women are disproportionately vulnerable to the effects of climate change but they are grossly underrepresented in debates, discussions, and other decision-making structures around issues of climate change. The media is no exception.

Media coverage on gender and climate change will give women a voice and influence policy formulation aimed at addressing climate change effects.