An environmental protester stands on top of the Wall Street Bull on October 17, 2019 in NYC. Erik McGregor / LightRocket / Getty Images
By Bill McKibben
Nineteen-seventy was a simpler time. (February was a simpler time too, but for a moment let's think outside the pandemic bubble.)
Simpler because our environmental troubles could be easily seen. The air above our cities was filthy, and the water in our lakes and streams was gross. There was nothing subtle about it. In New York City, the environmental lawyer Albert Butzel described a permanently yellow horizon: "I not only saw the pollution, I wiped it off my windowsills."
<p><br/></p>
<p>Or consider the testimony of a city medical examiner: "The person who spent his life in the Adirondacks has nice pink lungs. The city dweller's are black as coal." You've likely heard of Cleveland's Cuyahoga River <a href="https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/63" target="_blank">catching fire</a>, but here's how New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/28/nyregion/new-york-city-smog.html" target="_blank">described</a> the Hudson south of Albany: "one great septic tank that has been rendered nearly useless for water supply, for swimming, or to support the rich fish life that once abounded there." Everything that people say about the air and water in China and India right now was said of America's cities then.</p><p>It's no wonder that people mobilized: 20 million Americans took to the streets for the <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-first-earth-day" target="_blank">first Earth Day</a> in 1970—10 percent of America's population at the time, perhaps the single greatest day of political protest in the country's history. And it worked. Worked politically because Congress quickly passed the <a href="https://archive.epa.gov/epa/aboutepa/epa-history-clean-air-act-1970.html" target="_blank">Clean Air Act</a> and the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-clean-water-act" target="_blank">Clean Water Act</a> and scientifically because those laws had the desired effect. In essence, they stuck enough filters on smokestacks, car exhausts, and factory effluent pipes that, before long, the air and water were unmistakably cleaner. The nascent Environmental Protection Agency commissioned a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-us-cities-looked-like-before-epa-regulated-pollution-2019-8#barges-filled-with-new-yorks-waste-are-pulled-down-the-east-river-to-staten-island-landfill-in-the-1970s-new-york-produced-26000-tons-of-solid-waste-every-day-22" target="_blank">series of photos</a> that showed just how filthy things were. Even for those of us who were alive then, it's hard to imagine that we tolerated this.</p><p>But we should believe it, because now we face even greater challenges that we're doing next to nothing about. And one reason is you can't see them.</p>
<p>The carbon dioxide molecule is invisible; at today's levels you can't see it or smell it, and it doesn't do anything to you. Carbon with one oxygen molecule? That's what kills you in a closed garage if you leave the car running. But two oxygen molecules? All that does is trap heat in the atmosphere. Melt ice caps. Raise seas. Change weather patterns. But slowly enough that most of the time, we don't quite see it.</p><p>And it's a more complex moment for another reason. You can filter carbon monoxide easily. It's a trace gas, a tiny percentage of what comes from a power plant. But carbon dioxide is the exact opposite. It's most of what comes pouring out when you burn coal or gas or oil. There's no catalytic converter for CO2, which means you have to take down the fossil fuel industry.</p><p>That in turn means you have to take on not just the oil companies but also the banks, asset managers, and insurance companies that invest in them (and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-banks-energy-assets-exclusive/exclusive-us-banks-prepare-to-seize-energy-assets-as-shale-boom-goes-bust-idUSKCN21R3JI" target="_blank">may even own them</a>, in the wake of the current economic crash). You have to take on, that is, the heart of global capital.</p>
<p>And so we are. <a href="https://stopthemoneypipeline.com/" target="_blank">Stop the Money Pipeline</a>, a coalition of environmental and climate justice groups running from the small and specialized to the Sierra Club and Greenpeace, formed last fall to try to tackle the biggest money on earth. Banks like Chase—the planet's largest by market capitalization—which has funneled a <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2020/03/new-report-reveals-global-banks-funneled-27-trillion-fossil-fuels-paris" target="_blank">quarter-trillion dollars</a> to the fossil fuel industry since the Paris Agreement of 2015. Insurers like <a href="https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/us/news/environmental/liberty-mutual-facing-mounting-pressure-to-exit-fossil-fuels-219312.aspx" target="_blank">Liberty Mutual</a>, still insuring tar sands projects even as pipeline builders endanger Native communities by trying to build the Keystone XL <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/keystone-xl-pipeline-construction-2645607020.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1" target="_self">during a pandemic</a>.</p><p>This campaign sounds quixotic, but it seemed to be getting traction until the coronavirus pandemic hit. In January, BlackRock <a href="https://www.blackrock.com/corporate/investor-relations/larry-fink-ceo-letter" target="_blank">announced</a> that it was going to put climate at the heart of its investment analyses. Liberty Mutual, under similar pressure from activists, began to <a href="https://www.ran.org/press-releases/liberty-mutual-adopts-coal-policy-in-response-to-public-pressure/" target="_blank">edge away</a> from coal. And Chase—well, Earth Day would have seen activists engaging in civil disobedience in several thousand bank lobbies across America, sort of like the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3MKcYUUHxw" target="_blank">protest in January</a> that helped launch the campaign (and sent me, among others, off in handcuffs). But we called that off; there's no way we were going to risk carrying the microbe into jails, where the people already locked inside have little chance of social distancing.</p><p>Still, the pandemic may be causing as much trouble for the fossil fuel industry as our campaign hoped to. With the demand for oil cratering, it's clear that these companies have no future. The divestment campaign that, over a decade, has enlisted $14 trillion in endowments and portfolios in the climate fight has a new head of steam.</p>
<p>Our job—a more complex one than faced our Earth Day predecessors 50 years ago—is to force the spring. We need to speed the transition to the solar panels and wind turbines that engineers have worked so mightily to improve and are now the cheapest way to generate power. The only thing standing in the way is the political power of the fossil fuel companies, on clear display as <a href="https://psmag.com/news/trump-seeks-to-speed-up-oil-and-gas-projects" target="_blank">President Trump</a> does everything in his power to preserve their dominance. That's hard to overcome. Hard but simple. Just as in 1970, it demands unrelenting pressure from citizens. That pressure is coming. Indigenous nations, frontline communities, faith groups, climate scientists, and savvy investors are joining together, and their voices are getting louder. Seven million of us were in the streets <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/global-climate-strikes-week-2640790405.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1" target="_self">last September</a>. That's not 20 million, but it's on the way.</p><p>We can't be on the streets right now. So we'll do what we can on the boulevards of the Internet. Join us for <a href="https://www.earthdaylive2020.org/" target="_blank">Earth Day Live</a>, three days of digital activism beginning April 22. We're in a race, and we're gaining fast.</p>
<p><em>Bill McKibben is the founder of climate change campaign <a href="https://350.org/" target="_blank">350.org</a>, a scholar in residence at Middlebury College, and the author of the new book <em>Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?.</em></em></p><p><em>This story originally appeared in</em><em> <a href="https://www.thenation.com/" target="_blank">The Nation</a></em><em>,</em> <em>and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
- U.S. Bank Becomes First Major Bank to Stop Financing Pipeline ... ›
- Greenpeace Activists Urge Barclays to 'Stop Funding the Climate ... ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
A television crew reports on Hurricane Dorian while waves crash against the Banana River sea wall. Paul Hennessy / SOPA Images / LightRocket / Getty Images
By Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope
Some good news, for a change, about climate change: When hundreds of newsrooms focus their attention on the climate crisis, all at the same time, the public conversation about the problem gets better: more prominent, more informative, more urgent.
<p>In September, 323 news outlets from across the U.S. and around the world collaborated to provide a week of high-profile coverage of the climate story, in the most extensive such project on record. The collaboration was organized by <a href="https://www.thenation.com/content/covering-climate-now" target="_blank">Covering Climate Now</a>, a project co-founded by Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation. Participants included The Guardian, the project's lead media partner, and some of the biggest newspapers, television, and radio stations, and online news sites in the world: Bloomberg, CBS News, Agence France Presse, The Times of India, El País, Asahi Shimbun, Nature, WNYC, WHYY, HuffPost, National Observer, Univision, Al Jazeera, Harvard Business Review, and Scientific American. Joining them was an array of smaller, often nonprofit outlets hailing from Alabama to Alaska and Turkey to Togo. Representing 47 countries and much of the United States, these 323 outlets reached a combined audience of well over 1 billion people.<br></p><p>Over the course of the week surrounding the United Nations Climate Action Summit on Sept. 23, Covering Climate Now outlets published or broadcast at least 3,640 stories about climate change. Social media sharing of Covering Climate Now stories was widespread, with 69,623 individual tweets and 1.93 billion total impressions.</p><p>The reach is likely much higher when factoring in stories distributed by news agencies around the world. One, Agence France Presse, distributed 1,200 text stories (in the six languages in which AFP publishes) to its thousands of newsroom clients around the world; it also made available 2,000 photos, 391 videos, and 170 graphics. The magnitude of AFP's climate coverage cannot be calculated without knowing how many clients picked up each of these items, "but the audience is clearly potentially in the billions, and we are increasingly seeing climate content being among the most used by [our] clients" says Phil Chetwynd, AFP's global news director.</p><p>The median number of stories per outlet was seven, reflecting the fact that some smaller partners have only one or two staffers. Larger outlets, however, more than compensated. "We ended up doing more than two dozen stories that wouldn't have run except for this initiative," said a senior editor at Bloomberg. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us/" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> published more than 150 climate-related articles in its U.S., UK, Australian, and International editions.</p><p>All of which helped drive a much-needed increase in overall media coverage of the climate crisis. In September, "media attention to climate change and global warming was at its highest level globally in nearly a decade," <a href="https://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/icecaps/research/media_coverage/summaries/issue33.html/" target="_blank">reported</a> the Media and Climate Change Observatory program at the University of Colorado Boulder. The watchdog group Media Matters for America <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/diversity-discrimination/climate-issues-were-highlighted-during-covering-climate-now-initiative-and/" target="_blank">commented</a> about Covering Climate Now, "This initiative was unique in the depth and scope of its coverage, and many of the participating outlets touched upon climate change issues that have been either underreported or ignored in the media altogether." <em>The </em>Philadelphia Inquirer, for example, <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/science/climate/delaware-schuylkill-river-combined-sewer-stormwater-sewage-climate-change-20190913.html/" target="_blank">exposed</a> what it called "the secret scourge of climate change" in the form of more sewage in the city's waterways as bigger storms overwhelmed drainage capacity. Rolling Stone <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/big-agriculture-preventing-farmers-combating-climate-crisis-886538/" target="_blank">revealed</a> how agribusiness is blocking climate action by family farmers. <em>El País</em>, Spain's leading newspaper, <a href="https://elpais.com/especiales/2019/la-batalla-por-el-planeta/" target="_blank">devoted</a> an entire issue of its weekly magazine to "La Battala Por El Planeta" (The Battle for the Planet). Asahi Shimbun, one of Japan's largest newspapers, <a href="http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201909200049.html" target="_blank">reported</a> that record heat may make it very difficult to hold the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo as planned.</p><p>At least 185 of our outlets made their climate stories available at no cost for other partners to republish. The Guardian led the way, and more than 40 partners picked up its stories. This content sharing meant that readers, viewers, and listeners got access to more and higher quality climate coverage than any single outlet could provide on its own. The <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/un-climate-secretary-general/" target="_blank">on-camera interview</a> UN Secretary General António Guterres gave the partnership, which was shot by CBS News and made available in both <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/un-climate-secretary-general/" target="_blank">English</a> and <a href="https://www.climatica.lamarea.com/antonio-guterres-el-cambio-climatico-no-es-un-problema-de-fin-de-siglo-sino-de-hoy/" target="_blank">Spanish</a> versions, is one such example.</p><p>Now, in addition to facilitating other joint coverage collaborations, Covering Climate Now aims to encourage better news coverage of the climate story by writing about that coverage and convening conferences where journalists can discuss and share best practices. Our own reporting and commentary will appear on the websites of Covering Climate Now and Columbia Journalism Review and also be offered for free to any Covering Climate Now outlet that wishes to republish them.<br></p><p>The goal is to make the climate story a routine part of daily news coverage, rather than a subject addressed only on special occasions. KQED, the biggest public radio station in the San Francisco Bay Area, has long been committed to strong climate coverage, but that coverage, KQED science editor Kat Snow told us, had been siloed at the science desk. So KQED's science reporters and editors will soon begin one-on-one meetings with their counterparts elsewhere in the newsroom to explain how to include the climate angle in their coverage. "We want to help our colleagues see that climate change is part of the story for every beat," said Snow. "We'll give them background information and story ideas to incorporate the climate angle in their coverage of housing or education or whatever beat they work."</p><p>Finally, we will encourage our colleagues to grapple with the hard truths of climate science. Too often, news coverage has given political opinions precedence over scientific fact, blunting the public's response. One welcome contrast is the approach taken by The Guardian and The Washington Post: When 11,258 scientists released a public letter in early November endorsing a peer-reviewed study warning that the planet "clearly and unequivocally faces a climate emergency," both newspapers <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2019/11/05/more-than-scientists-around-world-declare-climate-emergency/" target="_blank">reported</a> the story prominently on their homepages, with the words "crisis" and "emergency" in the headlines.<br></p><p>While much work still needs to be done, climate coverage does seem to have turned a corner. The climate silence that had long pervaded so much of the media has been broken. Now, the challenge is to improve the coverage. What do you wish your favorite news outlets would do to cover the climate story better? Send us your suggestions at <a href="about:blank" target="_blank">coveringclimatenow@cjr.org</a>.</p><p><em><span></span>This story originally appeared in <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/climate-crisis-covering-climate-now/" target="_blank">The Nation</a>. It is republished here as part of EcoWatch's partnership with Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 350 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story.</em></p>
From Your Site Articles
- A New Beginning for Climate Reporting - EcoWatch ›
- UN Climate Action Summit Falls 'Woefully Short' of Expectations ... ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
UN Sec-Gen António Guterres arrives for a press briefing to mark the opening of the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly at the UN Sept. 18 in New York. TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP / Getty Images
By António Guterres
On the eve of the September UN Climate Action Summit, young women and men around the world mobilized by the millions and told global leaders: "You are failing us."
They are right.
<p>Global emissions are increasing. Temperatures are rising. The consequences for oceans, forests, weather patterns, biodiversity, food production, water, jobs and, ultimately, lives, are already dire — and set to get much worse. </p>
<p>The science is undeniable. But in many places, people don't need a chart or graph to understand the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis" rel="noopener noreferrer">climate crisis</a>. They can simply look out the window.</p>
<p>Climate chaos is playing out in real time from California to the Caribbean, and from Africa to the Arctic and beyond. Those who contributed least to the problem are suffering the most.</p>
<p>I have seen it with my own eyes from cyclone-battered Mozambique to the hurricane-devastated Bahamas to the rising seas of the South Pacific. </p>
<p>I called the Climate Action Summit to serve as a springboard to set us on the right path ahead of crucial 2020 deadlines established by the Paris agreement on climate change. And many leaders — from many countries and sectors — stepped up.</p>
<p>A broad coalition — not just governments and youth, but businesses, cities, investors and civil society — came together to move in the direction our world so desperately needs to avert climate catastrophe. </p>
<p>More than seventy countries committed to net zero carbon emissions by 2050, even if major emitters have not yet done so. More than 100 cities did the same, including several of the world's largest.</p>
<p>At least seventy countries announced their intention to boost their national plans under the Paris agreement by 2020.</p>
<p>Small Island States together committed to achieve carbon neutrality and to move to 100 percent renewable energy by 2030.</p>
<p>Countries from Pakistan to Guatemala, Colombia to Nigeria, New Zealand to Barbados vowed to plant more than 11 billion trees.</p>
<p>More than 100 leaders in the private sector committed to accelerating their move into the green economy.</p>
<p>A group of the world's largest asset-owners — responsible for directing more than $2 trillion — pledged to move to carbon-neutral investment portfolios by 2050.</p>
<p>This is in addition to a recent call by asset managers representing nearly half the world's invested capital — some $34 trillion — for global leaders to put a meaningful price on carbon and phase out fossil fuel subsidies and thermal coal power worldwide.</p>
<p>The International Development Finance Club pledged to mobilize $1 trillion in clean energy funding by 2025 in 20 least developed countries. </p>
<p>One-third of the global banking sector signed up to align their businesses with the Paris agreement objectives and Sustainable Development Goals.</p>
<p>The Summit also showcased ways in which cities and global industries like shipping can achieve major reductions in emissions. Initiatives to protect forests and safeguard water supplies were also highlighted. </p>
<p>These steps are all important — but they are not sufficient.</p>
<p>From the beginning, the Summit was designed to jolt the world and accelerate action on a wider scale. It also served as a global stage for hard truths and to shine a light on those who are leading and those who are not. Deniers or major emitters have nowhere to hide. </p>
<p>I will continue to encourage them to do much more at home and drive green economic solutions around the world. </p>
<p>Our planet needs action on a truly planetary scale. That cannot be achieved overnight, and it cannot happen without the full engagement of those contributing most to the crisis. </p>
<p>If our world is to avoid the climate cliff, far more is needed to heed the call of science and cut greenhouse emissions by 45 percent by 2030; reach carbon neutrality by 2050; and limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees by the end of the century. That's how we can secure the future of our world. </p>
<p>Too many countries still seem to be addicted to coal — even though cheaper, greener options are available already. We need much more progress on carbon pricing, ensuring no new coal plants by 2020, and ending trillions of dollars in giveaways of hard-earned taxpayers' money to a dying fossil fuel industry to boost hurricanes, spread tropical diseases, and heighten conflict.</p>
<p>At the same time, developed countries must fulfill their commitment to provide $100 billion a year from public and private sources by 2020 for mitigation and adaptation in developing countries. </p>
<p>And I will make sure that the commitments that countries, the private sector and local authorities have made are accounted for — starting in December at the UN Climate conference in Santiago, Chile. The UN is united in support of realizing these initiatives. </p>
<p>Climate change is the defining issue of our time. </p>
<p>Science tells us that on our current path, we face at least 3 degrees Celsius of global heating by the end of the century. I will not be there, but my granddaughters will.</p>
<p>I refuse to be an accomplice in the destruction of their one and only home.</p>
<p>Young people, the UN — and a growing number of leaders from business, finance, government, and civil society — in short, many of us — are mobilizing and acting. </p><p>But we need many others to take climate action if we are to succeed. </p>
<p>We have a long way to go. But the movement has begun.</p>
<p><em><br/>António Guterres is Secretary-General of the United Nations.</em></p><p><em><em>This article appears</em><em> as part of EcoWatch's</em><em> partnership with Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 300 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story.</em></em></p>From Your Site Articles
- UN Climate Action Summit Falls 'Woefully Short' of Expectations ... ›
- 'You Are Failing Us': Greta Thunberg Rips Into World Leaders for ... ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
Covering Climate Now / YouTube screenshot
By Mark Hertsgaard
The United Nations Secretary General says that he is counting on public pressure to compel governments to take much stronger action against what he calls the climate change "emergency."
<p><span style="background-color: initial;">"Governments always follow public opinion, everywhere in the world, sooner or later," Antonio Guterres said Tuesday in an interview with Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets. Guterres, a former prime minister of Portugal, added, "We need to keep telling the truth to people and be confident that the political system, especially democratic political systems, will in the end deliver."</span><br></p><p>Guterres refused to comment on U.S. president Donald <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/">Trump</a> and the Trump administration's hostility to climate action, but a CBS News poll released on September 15 found that 69 percent of Americans want the next president to take action, while 53 percent say such action is needed "right now." Guterres said that "it would be much better" if the U.S. was "strongly committed to climate action," just as it would be better if Asian countries [notably, China and Japan] stopped exporting coal plants. Until then, he said, "what I want is to have the whole society putting pressure on governments to understand they need to run faster. Because we are losing the race."</p><p>With six days remaining before the UN Climate Action Summit on September 23, the Secretary General cited the "fantastic leadership" of young activists as a leading example of how civil society can pressure governments to honor the 2015 <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/paris-agreement" rel="noopener noreferrer">Paris Agreement</a> to limit temperature rise to "well below" 2 degrees Celsius and preferably to 1.5˚C. Recent election results across Europe—in which green parties gained significant public backing—also left Guterres optimistic that at next Monday's summit the European Union will announce that it promises to be "carbon neutral" by 2050, as the Paris Agreement mandates.</p><p>"Nature is angry," said Guterres, who recently returned from a visit to the Bahamas, where Hurricane Dorian unleashed what he called "total destruction." He further cited ferocious drought in Africa, melting glaciers, bleaching coral reefs, the hottest month in recorded history last July, and potential future sea level rise of 10 to 20 meters (33 to 66 feet) as evidence that, "You cannot play games with nature. Nature strikes back."</p>
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fFnDIIvWmL4?start=1" width="625" height="351" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"><span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span></iframe>
<p>"Don't bring a speech—bring a plan," Guterres famously told heads of state and government in the months leading up to this summit, and it appears that only leaders who followed his instructions will be allowed to speak at the plenary session. To gain a slot, a country had to commit to doing one of three things, said UN officials: be carbon neutral by 2050; "significantly" increase how much it will cut emissions (or, in UN jargon, significantly strengthen its Nationally Determined Contribution); or make a "meaningful" pledge to the Green Climate Fund, a pool of money provided by wealthy countries to help developing countries leave fossil fuels behind and increase their resilience against climate disruption. UN officials expect that 60 to 70 countries will have made sufficiently solid commitments by next Monday that their leaders will be invited to outline their country's plans from the dais, with each leader granted a mere three minutes to speak.</p><p>While emphasizing that he had no desire to intervene in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Guterres spoke positively about a proposal by a leading Democratic candidate, Senator Bernie Sanders, for a Green New Deal that would be global. Most of the leading Democratic presidential candidates endorse one form or another of the Green New Deal, a program in which the U.S. government would create millions of jobs by investing in solar power, energy efficiency, and other measures to reduce heat-trapping emissions. But a new <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/green-new-deal-sanders/" target="_blank">report by The Nation</a> pointed out that only Sanders's Green New Deal meets the scientific imperative of cutting global emissions by 45 percent by 2030 on the way to carbon neutrality by 2050. Sanders's Green New Deal does this by pledging not only to slash emissions in the U.S. but to help developing countries cut their emissions as well.</p><p>"The Paris Agreement was very clear," said Guterres. "There was a commitment by the developed countries to mobilize $100 billion per year, from private and public sources, to support the developing world both in mitigation [i.e., reducing emissions] and adaptation [preparing against impacts]. Obviously, it is essential that all countries, including the United States, play a role in relation to this."</p><p>Rich and poor countries have wrestled with the question of whether and how much financial assistance the rich should give the poor ever since governments first began debating the climate problem at the UN "Earth Summit" in 1992. The poorer countries argue that the rich countries' emissions are the foremost cause of global warming and climate disruption, while poor countries are the ones that suffer most from that disruption. Rich countries generally do not dispute those facts and have paid lip service to providing assistance, but actual contributions have been modest. The U.S., for example, has <a href="https://www.wri.org/blog/2019/04/how-much-should-countries-contribute-green-climate-funds-replenishment/" target="_blank">contributed only</a> $1 billion, and the Trump administration blocked any additional contributions.</p><p>Guterres said in the interview Tuesday that "of course" he was aware of the global dimensions of Sanders' Green New Deal, and he added that, "Any attitude from a country like United States to increase… finance to the developing world would be of course welcome." As required by UN protocol, the Secretary General was careful to add, "That doesn't mean that we want to interfere in the American election."</p><p>As a former elected official himself, Guterres also emphasized the need for governments to show the public that climate protection need not mean economic hardship. The Secretary General advocates in particular for climate-smart tax reform: reducing taxes on people's incomes while increasing taxes on heat-trapping emissions. "If I [as a politician] take money from you with an increased carbon tax but I give you nothing in return, people will be against [it]," said Guterres. Although rarely described this way, corporate subsidies for production of fossil fuels are also a form of tax. "Let's be clear: Subsidies are paid with taxpayers' money," he said, adding with a smile, "I really do not like to see my money as a taxpayer going to bleach corals and melt glaciers."</p><p>Guterres disputed a common criticism of a Green New Deal—that it will cost too much—by turning the question around. "What is the cost of the consequences of taking no action?" he asked. Depending on what governments do at the Climate Action Summit next Monday, and are pressured to do by civil society in the weeks and years to come, the world may learn the answer to that question soon enough.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Climate Disasters Now Happening Weekly, UN Official Warns <a href="https://t.co/iXG0yCT0El">https://t.co/iXG0yCT0El</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ClimateCrisis?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ClimateCrisis</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ActOnClimate?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ActOnClimate</a></p>— Enviro Voter Project (@Enviro_Voter) <a href="https://twitter.com/Enviro_Voter/status/1148240422659121152?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 8, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p><em>This story originally appeared in </em><a href="https://www.thenation.com" target="_blank"><em>The Nation</em></a><em>. It is republished here as part of EcoWatch</em><em>'s partnership with Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story.</em></p>
Read More
Show Less
The 16-year-old Swede Greta Thunberg speaks during her protest action for more climate protection with a reporter. Steffen Trumpf / picture alliance / Getty Images
By Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope
It's been 30 years since Bill McKibben rang the warning bells about the threat of man-made climate change — first in a piece in The New Yorker, and then in his book, The End of Nature.
<p>For most of that time, the response from most quarters of the media, especially in the U.S., has been either silence or, worse, getting the story wrong. Reporters and their news organizations sidelined climate stories as too technical or too political or too depressing. Spun by the fossil fuel industry and vexed by their own business problems, media outlets often leaned on a false balance between the views of genuine scientists and those of paid corporate mouthpieces. The media's minimization of the looming disaster is one of our great journalistic failures.</p>
<p>It is heartening, then, to report that the press may at last be waking up to the defining story of our time. At the end of April, Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation launched Covering Climate Now, a project aimed at encouraging news organizations, here and abroad, to raise their game when it comes to climate coverage. We weren't going to tell people what to write or broadcast; we just wanted them to do more coverage, and to do it better. Close the gap, we urged them, between the size of the story and the ambition of your efforts. Try it for a week, then report back on what you learned.</p><p>We had a hunch that there was a critical mass of reporters and news outlets that wanted to do more climate coverage, and hoped that by highlighting that critical mass, we could also help to grow it. That's exactly what has happened. Our initiative has been embraced by more than 250 news outlets from across the U.S. and around the world — big outlets and small, print and digital, TV and radio — with a combined audience of well over 1 billion people. Their response has been amazing, and gratifying.</p><p>We believe that Covering Climate Now is the biggest effort ever undertaken to organize the world's press around a single topic. (You'll find a list of partners <a href="https://www.coveringclimatenow.org/partners" target="_blank">here</a>, and you can follow all of us on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23CoveringClimateNow&src=typed_query" target="_blank">#CoveringClimateNow</a>.)</p><p>Our week of focused climate coverage began Sunday and will continue through next Monday, Sept. 23, the day of the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York. And there's more to come after this week is over; the climate story is not going away, so neither are we. We'll be talking to our newsroom partners about what they learned this week, what they need to continue the momentum, what they can learn from one another, and where we go from here.</p><p>We are thrilled that Covering Climate Now has flourished. Yet what has also become clear in the five months since we began this effort is the enormous amount of work that remains to be done in order for the media to get this story right. In talking with dozens of reporters, producers and editors, we've learned a lot about the ambitions that newsrooms have for improving their climate coverage, but we've also seen where roadblocks remain.</p><p>As the scientists have been telling us with increasing urgency, humanity's window to transform our world is shrinking fast. Transforming the news media is fundamental to achieving that goal.</p><p>What misconceptions remain? What's keeping newsrooms from doing more? Here are some roadblocks that stood out in our conversations.</p>
We don't know where to start.
<p>One of our most sobering conversations came during a meeting inside one of the world's biggest news organizations, with a group of people asked by their boss to improve their climate coverage. These people were eager to embrace our project and had the resources to do it. But they had no idea how to begin: </p><p>Where do we come up with story ideas? Who should our sources be? Can you help us think this through? Their response stunned us, given the size of the newsroom around us, but it reminded us early on in this process that in many cases, we're starting from scratch. <a href="https://www.cjr.org/special_report/climate-change-media.php" target="_blank">We've written before</a>, critically, about why this should not be the case, about how the media's avoidance of the climate story has been an epic fail. Going forward, our focus will be on helping this newsroom, and others like it, get better.</p>Our viewers will think we're activists.
<p>Many journalists and news executives continue to see climate coverage as political and worry that more coverage will be seen as activism. </p><p>We heard it from numerous newsrooms, and not just in those places where climate-denying politicians still hold sway. We think this concern distorts what newsgathering is about. Journalism has always been about righting wrongs, holding the powerful to account, calling out lies. It is in our best traditions to shine a light on our most vexing problems, in order to help fix them.</p>It's too late; the problem is too big for us to make any difference.
<p>Good journalism often makes things happen, though not always on the timeline we'd like — if at all. The public doesn't respond; readers feel powerless; entrenched players outmaneuver reporters. That is part of how it works, too. But few reporters would still do the work if they believed it made no difference. It's our journalistic responsibility to convey what is happening and why, as well as who is trying to fix it, and how. That's our job as storytellers.</p>Readers will find this depressing and tune out.
<p>News organizations that have embraced climate coverage find that audiences — particularly younger viewers, listeners, and readers — are, in fact, enormously engaged in the coverage. They may get angry or energized or organized by climate stories, but they don't tune them out. It is a strange time when journalism's leaders argue against covering a subject that's undeniably important simply because they're worried their audience may find it challenging. Is this really where you want your newsroom to be?</p>We're already pulling our weight.
<p>There are a number of media outlets — not enough, but a number — that already are producing excellent climate coverage. (Our lead media partner, The Guardian, is at the top of that list.) But others declined to join this effort because they didn't see how it would help them; they already know the climate story, and believe they are covering it aggressively. We found those responses disappointing. </p><p>This is a chance for big media organizations to lead, and to help others along. The climate story stretches across all journalistic beats; it demands that we dismantle the usual silos. Covering it well may require a bit of cooperation and collaboration that is antithetical to how we usually work. Take this on as a problem that is bigger than your own newsroom.</p><p>All of these challenges are surmountable. Throughout this week, you'll hear from hundreds of newsrooms that have overcome them. Two hundred and fifty media organizations, more than 1 billion people. Those are big numbers. And they are just the beginning.</p><p><em>Mark Hertsgaard, The Nation's environment correspondent, has covered climate change since 1989. </em></p><p><em>Kyle Pope is the editor in chief and publisher of the <em>Columbia Journalism Review</em>. </em></p><p><em>This story originally appeared in <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/climate-change-journalism/" target="_blank">The Nation</a></em>. <em>It is republished here as part of</em> <em>EcoWatch's partnership with Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story.</em></p>Related Articles Around the Web
- Covering climate change, now - Columbia Journalism Review ›
- Guardian joins major global news collaboration Covering Climate Now ›
- Covering Climate Now – The Conversation signs up for a special ... ›
- What if Reporters Covered the Climate Crisis Like Edward R ... ›
- Why I'm climate striking against Fox News on Friday - Columbia ... ›
- A New Commitment to Covering the Climate Story | The Nation ›
Read More
Show Less