Less Than 10% Of Articles Surveyed Re. Copenhagen Conference Dealt With Climate Science

Oslo - Less than 10 percent of the articles written about last year's Copenhagen climate summit dealt primarily with the science of climate change, a study showed on Monday. Based on analysis of 400 articles written about the December 2009 summit, the authors of the report for Oxford University's Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) called for a re-think of reporting on future such conferences.

Author James Painter concluded that “science was under-reported” as the essential backdrop to the drama when about 120 world leaders met in Copenhagen but failed to agree a binding treaty to slow climate change.

Much coverage from Copenhagen instead focused on hacked e-mails from a British university that some sceptics took as evidence of efforts by scientists to ignore dissenting views. The scientists involved have since been cleared of wrongdoing.

“We need more discussion between scientists, journalists and policy-makers on how to keep highly significant, slow-burn issues like climate change interesting and engaging to different audiences around the world,” Painter wrote. Of 12 countries studied, Brazil and India gave the summit the most space in print media, followed by Australia and Britain. At the other end of the scale, Nigeria, Russia and Egypt gave the least coverage.

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http://www.iol.co.za/news/science/climate-science-under-reported-1.810214