In July 2023, according to data from the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction, the Earth’s average temperature reached 17.23 degrees Celsius, setting the highest temperature in at least the past 100,000 years on record. The Paris Agreement, concluded in 2015, set a goal of limiting the rise in the global average temperature to within 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, but it is said there is a 66% probability that in at least 1 year out of the 5 years from 2023 to 2027, the global average temperature will be more than 1.5 degrees higher than the pre-industrial level, making the achievement of this goal increasingly difficult.
Amid this situation, reporting that conveys the reality of climate change issues, their causes, and countermeasures is expected to play an important role in changing the awareness and behavior of society as a whole, including individuals, companies, and governments. But how much is the media actually communicating about climate change? GNV has previously pointed out many problems, but what about recent years? In this article, GNV expands on the long-term media analysis in its article published in 2021 about reporting on climate change, and tracks the latest trends in climate reporting.
A view of a power plant (Photo: Jorge Royan / Wikimedia Commons [CC BY-SA 3.0])
目次
The current state and impacts of climate change
First, let’s look at the climate change issues occurring around the world and their impacts. The primary driver of climate change phenomena such as rising temperatures, more frequent and intense extreme weather, and sea-level rise is global warming. Emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), a major greenhouse gas that causes global warming, have increased significantly due to human activities and show no sign of decreasing. For example, global energy-related CO2 emissions exceeded 36.8 billion tons in 2022, the highest on record.
The consequences of climate change are becoming evident around the world. In 2023, a heatwave—of which climate change was one contributing factor—hit South Asia and was described as the “worst in Asia’s history,” according to reports. In Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, temperatures reached their highest in 58 years; the record heat exceeding 40 degrees Celsius even softened the asphalt surface of roads. In India, many children complained of headaches and other health issues due to the heat, leading to school closures in many states. In western Thailand, a temperature of 44.6 degrees Celsius was recorded, the highest ever observed in the country.
Such heatwaves caused by global warming energized the South Asian monsoon, bringing heavy rains and large-scale flooding. One such disaster was the flooding in Pakistan in 2022. Nearly 1/3 of the country’s territory was submerged, and approximately 1,700 lives were lost. Waterborne infectious diseases resulting from the floodwaters also triggered a healthcare crisis. In East Africa in 2022, rainfall decreased and the region experienced its worst drought in 40 years. In the 3 hardest-hit countries—Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia—more than 20 million people faced severe food insecurity as of July 2022.
Flooding in Pakistan in 2022 (Photo: Kafeel Ahmed / Pexels)
As global warming progresses, not only air temperatures but also ocean temperatures are rising. According to a 2022 report by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), global sea surface temperatures hit a record high that year. Ocean warming brings various adverse effects to human life. Changes in weather patterns over the seas can generate more powerful storms, hurricanes, and typhoons. Moreover, as seawater temperatures rise, oxygen levels in the ocean decrease, causing many marine organisms to die and dealing a major blow to regions dependent on fisheries and their economies.
Rising ocean temperatures also lead to the melting of sea ice. The melting of sea ice, along with the melting of terrestrial ice due to rising air temperatures, contributes to sea-level rise, and NOAA reported in 2022 that sea level had continued to set record highs for 11 consecutive years.
In late February 2023, Antarctic sea ice extent fell to 1.79 million square kilometers, the lowest since observations began in the 1970s. This was 130,000 square kilometers less than the observations in February 2022, meaning the sea ice shrank over one year by an area roughly the size of Greece. Such rapid loss of sea ice has devastating effects on Antarctic life. If sea ice continues to decline, up to 65% of Antarctic plants and animals could go extinct, and penguins are said to be the most affected species at present, according to reports. In fact, in the latter half of 2022, it is estimated that thousands of emperor penguin chicks were killed, drowning when seawater flooded their nests as the sea ice melted.
Climate change not only pushes wild plants and animals toward extinction, it also affects our health. The first issue is heat-related illness. A recent study of 43 countries estimated that 37% of deaths from heat-related conditions such as heatstroke are attributable to global warming and climate change. The 2022 Lancet Countdown report on health and climate change showed that heat-related mortality among people aged 65 and older increased by 68% over the past 20 years. Many chronic diseases are heat-sensitive and can be triggered or exacerbated by heat exposure. Health impacts such as myocardial infarction, stroke, asthma, and kidney failure are linked to heat. Those most affected are people living in poverty without air conditioning and outdoor workers.
There is also the spread of waterborne infectious diseases. Floods caused by climate change and rising sea surface temperatures lead to wastewater contaminated with bacteria and viruses. Such water becomes a source for dangerous waterborne diseases like typhoid and cholera. In addition, as mosquitoes that breed near water increase in number due to climate change, malaria and dengue, which are transmitted by parasite- or virus-carrying mosquitoes, spread. Rising air and water temperatures can also increase pathogens in agricultural products and seafood, and the distribution of unsafe foods raises the incidence of foodborne illness.
Global responses to climate change
Halting the progression of climate change is a global challenge requiring action at multiple levels. Fundamentally, the most important thing is to eliminate the causes of climate change, and businesses and individuals must work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, emission reductions without binding regulations have limits, so large-scale policy measures to cut emissions are necessary. Measures to strengthen resilience—such as infrastructure capable of withstanding ongoing climate change impacts like flooding, sea-level rise, and high temperatures—and the capacity for recovery in affected regions must also be enhanced as well. High-income countries, which have emitted particularly large amounts of CO2, bear an especially great responsibility and role in solving these challenges.
A leading example of international efforts is the UN’s Conference of the Parties (COP). COP is the annual conference of parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), adopted at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Brazil. It is held once a year, where participating countries report on their progress against climate change, set goals and policies, and reach agreements to solve the problem.
Opening ceremony of COP27 in 2022 (Photo: UK Government / Flickr [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0])
One development that has drawn particular global attention in recent years is the agreement at COP27 in 2022 to establish a “loss and damage” fund for climate change. “Loss and damage” refers to the devastating harms to lives, livelihoods, and economies caused by climate change—such as the aforementioned floods in Pakistan and drought in East Africa. Historically, high-income countries ( ※1 ) have emitted the greenhouse gases that drive climate change, yet the countries most severely affected by “loss and damage” are low-income countries that lack sufficient funding and infrastructure to withstand climate impacts.
In this way, despite emitting relatively little greenhouse gas, low-income countries are forced to bear an unequal burden of suffering severe climate change impacts due to the actions of high-income countries. This situation—where economically powerful countries face relatively fewer climate impacts while low-income countries, lacking resources, bear the brunt—is sometimes called “climate apartheid.”
Given this background, many low-income countries had sought compensation from high-income countries for climate-related losses for over 30 years. However, the United States, the European Union (EU), Japan, and others were reluctant to create such a fund, repeatedly rejecting moves by climate-vulnerable countries to include provisions on loss and damage in the 2015 Paris Agreement, and proposals at COP26 in 2021 to establish a new funding facility or fund for loss and damage. The loss and damage fund agreed at COP27 represents the first time that high-income countries formally recognized such demands from low-income countries, and they pledged to provide more than a total of 2 hundred and 3,000 ten-thousand U.S. dollars (i.e., over US$230 million) to affected countries.
Drought-stricken Ethiopia (Photo: Water Alternatives Photos / Flickr [CC BY-NC 2.0])
Although a fund has been established to compensate for “loss and damage” caused by climate change, there are issues that must be resolved for it to function effectively. First, specifics such as “who will compensate which countries, and from what funding sources” remain undecided. It has been indicated that more than US$30 billion per year will be needed by 2030 to compensate countries affected by climate change. Securing new sources of finance is essential for a fund of such magnitude to operate.
Even where commitments exist, we must also watch closely to see whether payments are made at levels sufficient for recovery in affected countries. In the past, at COP15 in 2009, high-income countries set a goal of providing low-income countries affected by climate change with US$10 billion per year by 2020, but that goal was not met in 2020, nor has it been achieved as of 2023. We must ensure that the new loss and damage fund does not end up like the unmet US$10 billion pledge.
Moreover, this fund is just one form of compensation for countries suffering losses due to climate change; without addressing the root causes of climate change, the problem will not be solved. Unless greenhouse gas emissions are reduced and global warming is halted, the number of countries facing devastating climate impacts will only continue to grow. We must tackle the causes of climate change so that the need for such a fund diminishes in the future.
Long-term analysis of reporting that references climate coverage since the 1980s
We have reviewed the current state of climate change and responses around the world; how much have such issues been covered in Japanese media? Following the methodology ( ※2 ) in GNV’s article published in 2021 that conducted a long-term analysis of climate reporting, we totaled the number of articles referencing climate change—whether domestic or international—published in the three major newspapers (Asahi Shimbun, Mainichi Shimbun, Yomiuri Shimbun) from 1986 to 2022.
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As the graph above shows, there are three major spikes in climate change coverage by each newspaper since 1986. The first and second increases are analyzed in detail in the previous article, so we will summarize them briefly here. The first major increase occurred in 1997, when the 3rd Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP3) was held and the Kyoto Protocol was adopted. The fact that COP3 was held in Japan likely contributed to media attention. The next surge in coverage was around 2007, likely driven by intensified debates on whether to extend the Kyoto Protocol after its initial commitment period and, if not extended, what new initiatives would follow. However, coverage fell sharply starting with the failure to reach an agreement at COP15 in 2009.
The third notable increase was in 2021. Coverage dipped somewhat in 2020 as attention focused on the COVID-19 pandemic, but in 2021 the volume of reporting rose sharply to levels comparable to 1997. This increase is likely due to the postponement of COP26 in 2020 to 2021 because of the pandemic—making it the first COP in two years—and to the policies of the newly inaugurated Biden administration in the United States. Indeed, of Yomiuri Shimbun’s climate-related articles in 2021, 28.3%, or 374 articles, referenced actions by the Biden administration on climate change.
In stark contrast to former President Donald Trump, who formally withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement in 2019, the Biden administration took action on climate change immediately after taking office in January 2021. On his first day as president, he signed the documents to rejoin the Paris Agreement from which his predecessor had withdrawn. In April, he hosted a Leaders Summit on Climate. The summit emphasized both the urgency of climate action and its economic benefits, and was attended by 17 countries accounting for roughly 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions and GDP. As climate-related activity in the U.S. accelerated with President Biden’s inauguration, it appears that Japanese media attention to climate change also increased.
Another factor was the increased prominence of climate policy in Germany’s federal parliamentary election. In July 2021, extreme weather linked to climate change caused major flooding across Western Europe, killing 220 people in Germany. Spurred by this disaster, interest in climate change rose sharply across Europe, including in Germany, and climate activists held rallies calling on parties to take adequate climate action ahead of the federal election. Influenced by these developments, the new government formed in November signaled a focus on climate measures, with Olaf Scholz becoming the new chancellor. The Scholz administration made climate action one of its top priorities, listing policies such as accelerating the transition to renewable energy and phasing out coal by 2030 as part of its platform. Japanese media paid attention to these developments in Germany; about 7% of Yomiuri Shimbun’s climate-related articles in 2021—95 articles—mentioned the German floods or the election.
A climate action protest held in Germany (Photo: Stefan Müller / Wikimedia Commons [CC BY 2.0])
From the above, it can be inferred that in 2021 Japanese climate change reporting increased at a time when interest in environmental issues was rising in Europe and the U.S., indicating that Japanese coverage is heavily influenced by developments there. However, in 2022, attention shifted to the Russia–Ukraine war; while there was coverage of the COP in November, the volume of climate-related reporting declined significantly in other months.
The bright spots and blind spots in climate reporting
From here, we analyze whether and how Japanese media have covered climate change issues and countermeasures since 2021.
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First, a characteristic of Japanese climate change coverage is the intense focus on the COP meetings. As the graph above shows, the number of articles on climate change in the 3 major newspapers in 2021 and 2022 (※3) surged in November, when the COP is held. Specifically, over the two years from 2021 to 2022, the proportion of climate-related articles that primarily covered the COP was very high: 45.5% in Yomiuri Shimbun, 37.8% in Mainichi Shimbun, and 26.7% in Asahi Shimbun.
Next, we look at reporting on the topic of loss and damage, which was central at COP27 in 2022, and on the fund for loss and damage. Analysis of 2022 coverage shows that the number of articles mentioning “loss and damage” was 23 each in Asahi Shimbun and Yomiuri Shimbun, and 20 in Mainichi Shimbun, but very few—only 2 to 3 articles per newspaper—made it a main theme. All of those articles related to the fund discussed and established at COP27.
By contrast, there were not many articles describing concrete “loss and damage” cases and the actual harms occurring. We examined the number of articles that mentioned the two loss and damage examples discussed in this article: the floods in Pakistan and the drought in East Africa. In 2022, articles that mentioned the Pakistan floods numbered 17 in Asahi Shimbun, 10 in Yomiuri Shimbun, and 19 in Mainichi Shimbun. Regarding the East Africa drought, there were 13 in Asahi Shimbun, 19 in Yomiuri Shimbun, and 17 in Mainichi Shimbun. Reporting on these two major disasters amounted to only about 10–20% of the number of articles that mentioned the floods in Germany discussed above, revealing that events in high-income countries are more likely to become news than those in low-income countries.
A typhoon seen from space (Photo: NASA Johnson / Flickr [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED])
Conclusion
Our analysis of climate change reporting shows that Japanese media concentrate coverage on the COP and on developments and impacts in high-income countries, while articles on the damage suffered by low-income countries and on compensation for that damage are very few. This imbalance suggests a tendency in Japanese reporting to privilege the actions of elites such as governments in high-income countries and to neglect low-income countries. Moreover, over the two years from 2021 to 2022, there were only 2 articles in Yomiuri Shimbun that focused on the record increases in CO2 emissions, indicating very little attention to the current state of greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change and to efforts to improve it.
What about climate reporting in 2023? As of August 2023, Yomiuri Shimbun had published 530 climate-related articles. That’s fewer than the 769 articles from January to August 2021, but slightly more than the 451 from January to August 2022. However, despite the worsening climate crisis, current coverage is lower than it was 15 years ago. As noted above, disparities in coverage between high- and low-income countries and the lack of attention to the causes of climate change remain challenges in Japanese climate reporting.
One role of the media is to convey the realities of climate change, raise public awareness, and encourage improvements in the attitudes and actions of individuals, companies, and governments. Yet at present, rather than proactively raising issues, coverage is centered on relaying the actions of governments and global elites who have failed to halt the progression of climate change. We will be watching to see how reporting changes going forward.
※1 Of global greenhouse gas emissions—the cause of climate change—68.2% is accounted for by the top 10 emitting countries, including high-income countries such as Japan, the U.S., and the EU. While that top 10 also includes low-income countries such as China, India, and Brazil, there is a large gap in per capita emissions compared with high-income countries.
※2 For this research, we used Asahi Shimbun’s online database “Asahi Shimbun Cross-Search,” Mainichi Shimbun’s online database “Maisaku,” and Yomiuri Shimbun’s online database “Yomidas Rekishikan.” We counted all articles published in the morning and evening editions (all pages) of Mainichi/Asahi/Yomiuri Shimbun from January 1986 to December 2022 whose headlines or body text included the terms “COP,” “climate change,” or “global warming.”
※3 For this research, we used Asahi Shimbun’s online database “Asahi Shimbun Cross-Search,” Mainichi Shimbun’s online database “Maisaku,” and Yomiuri Shimbun’s online database “Yomidas Rekishikan.” We counted all articles published in the morning and evening editions of Asahi Shimbun, Mainichi Shimbun, and Yomiuri Shimbun from January 2021 to December 2022 whose headlines included the terms “COP,” “climate change,” or “global warming.”
Writer: Mayu Nakata
Graphics: Mayu Nakata
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