A snapshot 9 and 14 months after!

Politicians and the media seemed to lower their ambitions after Cop15 in Copenhagen;
so they said, in the Fall of 2010.
In February 2011, after the Cop16 UN conference in Mexico, we asked the media people again; here is what they told us about the (lack of) media coverage.

What are Cop15 – Cop16 – Cop17?

Cop15 and Cop16 are the latest in the United Nations series of Climate Change conferences. Their goal is to reach agreements to reduce global warming and find ways to deal with its many consequences.
Cop17 will be held in Durban, South Africa late 2011.
See the "About" section for background info.

Who we are:

GEJI is the Global Environmental Journalism Initiative - a joint effort between universities and journalism schools to develop the education in the field of environmental journalism.
Read more here.

Sponsors are the EU and the Australian government.

COP17: The Last Chance

COP will be held for the 3rd time in Africa where thousnds are starving due to climate change in the African Horn.

By Amir Elshenawy

Under the theme ‘ Working together, Saving tomorrow today,’Durban in South africa is going to host the 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate [...]

Climate conferences are not solving problems

Lithuanian representative in EU and Lithuanian professor in the USA agree that attitude towards climate problems has changed after conference in Copenhagen

Every year United Nations (UN) organize Climate Change Conferences in a different country of the world. This year the Conference of the Parties (COP17) will be held in Durban, South Africa. But the [...]

The Copenhagen summit fails to achieve goals

By Tanya Abu Ghazaly

The 2009 Copenhagen summit has not affected Lebanon while newspapers lack the funds to cover the conferences and show little interest in topic as NGOs are pushing for change.

The Copenhagen summit neglected by papers

Global warming and its rising threats have become an international [...]

Cancun coverage diminished due to COP15 failure

Cancun coverage diminished due to COP15 failure

The failure to reach an agreement in Copenhagen changed the focus of the coverage a year later at the climate conference in Cancun. The news stories focus were less on climate issues and more on whether talks would break down or not

By Mette Hagedorn

In 2009 anticipation [...]

Making COP16 a succes

Both media and environmental NGOs had their eye on Cancun, Mexico in 2010, where COP16 took place in 2010 – Also Danish media and the Danish department of Greenpeace covered COP16 By Rose Raes The global environmental organization, Greenpeace’s Danish department was one of the important players in the Danish coverage of the events during [...]

Too much Copenhagen, too little Cancun

Copenhagen facilitated a summit, COP15 that brought the World attention to climate change. A year later in Cancun, COP16 did not have the same impact.

By Nicole Cairns

Associate custom paper writer Philip Chubb, the Deputy Head of Journalism and Australian Studies at Monash University’s field of expertise is surrounding environmental studies.

The way the [...]

Fluctuating Climate Coverage Increases During COP15 and COP16

By Caroline McCarley

Climate change coverage is constantly fluctuating with the news agendas of the world. Information on climate change was at an all time high during the weeks before COP15. The coverage on climate was dramatically different during COP16.

Dr. Amber Roessner, a professor of Journalism and Electronic Media at the University of Tennessee, [...]

Cancun fails to outshine Copenhagen

By Damien Currie.

The Australian press never gave the COP16 summit in Cancun a chance to compete with the media frenzy that was COP15 in Copenhagen a year prior.

The front pages of Australian newspapers were filled with stories about the United Nations meeting in December of 2009, complete with pictures of protestors lining the [...]

„The news value of these conferences is not very high“

By Frauke Konzak

February 10, 2011

Düsseldorf/Germany. Especially for older people regional and local newspapers are often

Wolfgang Radau, deputy editor-in-chief of the WZ. (Copyright: Westdeutsche Zeitung)

the main source of information. They have a major part in the newspaper-market in Germany and the „Westdeutsche Zeitung“ (WZ) is one of them. Daily, there are [...]

Environmental Afterthought: Lebanon’s Disregard Towards Global Warming

Global warming and its rising threats have become an international concern. The United Nations Climate Change conference in Copenhagen was dubbed the “biggest global warming conference still Kyoto in 1997.” The conference was covered by publications worldwide to varying degrees. Fouad Badaoui, a journalist for “Al Akhbar”, said that the issue was not heavily covered [...]

Climate talks in Cancun loses its lustre for Australian media

By Biwa Kwan

Beset by a failure to get a legally binding global agreement at Copenhagen in 2009, the UN climate talks in the Mexican resort town of Cancun last December seemed doomed from the outset to be poorly attended. Not only did world leaders fail to show, but Australian journalists were thin [...]

Lithuanian Media Is Letting Daylight into Global Issues

There have been 17 United Nations Conferences of the Parties (COP) to access process in dealing with climate changes. Two years ago, regular Lithuanian would barely say what this is. Lithuanian media and politics were shut their eyes for climate changes, but the situation is getting better. [...]

Climate conferences through the eyes of Czech media: COP15 > COP16

by Jana Vrbková

With a president as famous and vocal about his controversial views on global warming and environmentalism, as the Czech head of state, Václav Klaus, one would expect Czech media to be filled with articles on climate issues. Especially with iDNES.cz – the internet version of the most popular Czech newspaper [...]

Hope for an environmental rescue faded in Copenhagen

The disappointing turnout at COP15 decreased public interest in working towards a greener planet

Louise Wernvik

In 2009, Copenhagen turned into “Hopenhagen”, when United Nations held their annual climate meeting in Denmark. The media watch increased as the world expected the rulers to enter into an agreement about slowing down global warming. But no binding [...]

The Trivial Environment

Zainab Al.Dabbagh

In Lebanon, the concern about the environment and climate change, no matter how evident it is in the day-to-day life, is a trivial matter. After interviewing journalists and asking people about their knowledge of the United Nations’ Climate Change Conference that was held consecutively in 2009 and 2010 it appeared that not many [...]

Was global warming more important in 2009 than in 2010?

As thousands of protesters and top leaders made their way to Copenhagen in 2009, the world’s media tuned in. A year later the climate conference in Cancun nearly passed us by. Why did we loose interest in global warming?

By: Åsa Secher

While almost every Swedish publishing house had one or [...]

“No reason to cover COP16”

When climate issues were on everyone’s lips during Cop15, it also had the full attention of the newspaper Ekstra Bladet’s political desk. Although the newspaper continued covering the issue, it had no reporters in Mexico when COP16 took place.

By Tatiana Tilly

Each day there were not less than ten to fifteen people from [...]

In Denying Egyptian Riots, State-owned Media Expose Their Own Lies, Propaganda

Government-owned media spins protest into support for Egypt’s current regime, but independent news agencies reveal wide gap between fact and myth.

By: Effat Mostafa

Cairo: On January 25th, when CNN, BBC and other international networks began coverage of the people’s protest in Tahrir Square, Egypt’s state-owned Nile TV opted [...]

No climate deal leads to decline in media attention post-COP15

The hype surrounding Denmark for COP15 was let down when no climate deal was negotiated—ensuring the Mexican government did not make the same mistake a year later.

By: Emily Dickinson

Excessive media buildup, followed by the inability of world leaders to negotiate a climate deal at COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009, is what Canadian journalist [...]

Danish Engineer newsmagazine: COP16 did not focus enough on technology

As the focus on technology declined from COP15 to COP16, the media coverage from the Danish newsmagazine ‘Ingeniøren’ also disappeared. By Maria Hesselvig Lange In December 2009 during COP15 in Copenhagen, the Danish newsmagazine ‘Ingeniøren’ made an entire webpage solely with articles concerning COP15 and the technologies they discussed during the event. More than 700 [...]

Writing about the COPs

by Anna Baranowska

After COP15 we could see the changes. The media was full of information not only about the course of the conference, but also about it`s anticipated effects. Have a similar situation occurred in the case of COP16?

Climate Change Conference is an unprecedented event for the World. Therefore the media [...]

Low expectations led to less coverage of COP16

Few results from the big climate summit in Copenhagen in 2009 caused lower expectations for the summit in Mexico last year. As a result the media coverage in Denmark was very limited compared to the previous year.

By Anders Maass Fallesen

Presidents and prime ministers from all over the world were gathered in Copenhagen in [...]

Vides Fakti: Latvian opportunity to learn more about the latest environmental trends

Vides Fakti (Environmental Facts) is the only media (TV show) from Latvia, that pays so much attention to Climate change, but “The viewer in Latvia is more interested in local issues or global issues shown in a local perspective”

By Laura Zaharova

As the climate change issues are very important in whole world, Latvian medium [...]

Global news for local views

Global news for local views By: Anne-Cathrine Jensen

When world leaders gathered in Copenhagen in 2009 the expectations was high, and the covering of the event even higher for the Danish newspapers. But why was the 2010 meeting in Calcun not as exciting? Was it a matter of distance or a matter of faith?

When [...]

Temperature cools on climate change

By Ciaran Twomey

2010 saw a marked decrease in coverage of climate change in Irish media. Why? Tony Loews of Friends of The Irish Environment, a non-Governmental organisation which concerns itself with environmental campaigning talks about how his organisation and the Irish national media are responding to changing attitudes towards climate change.

The COP15 [...]

COP 15 ruined climatetalks

Søren Tang

COP 15 was one of the most disappointing global events in 2009. The politicians failed the people, and COP 16 was just a cleanup, to try and collect the pieces of the shattered mirror. So says Lars From, reporter from Jyllands-posten

A lot changes in a year. That is also true when the [...]

Charities: Walk away from Cop15 disheartened

Students at City University, London

GEJI Report 29/10/10

Anna Hart (red)

Sophie Ryland (blue)

Charities walk away from Cop15 disheartened

After years of talks and agreements, from the Kyoto protocol to the ‘Bali Action plan’, many hoped that from Cop15 would at last emerge concrete progress.

COP 15 is a climate change agreement drawn up [...]

The Labour Party: Environment out staged

Students at City University, London

Environment out staged at Labour Conference

The Labour Party has a long record of being ambitious when it comes to tackling climate change and environment issues. But at the annual conference in Manchester there was not a single major session held on the environment. [...]

British media: Will Climate Change stay on the front page?

Students at City University, London

Maddy French, Ellie Pryor GEJI 29/10/10 For coming generations the issue that poses the most threat is that of climate change. It is a topic that has consistently been hotly debated across the world’s media for some time, from reportage of scientific advancements to critiques of governments’ reposes to [...]

China: Is the world’s Middle Kingdom being treated with double standards?

Students at City University, London

Is the world’s Middle Kingdom being treated with double standards? In the wake of allegations surrounding China’s controversial role in last year’s COP15 talks, John Seymour and Christopher Dodd investigate claims that her burgeoning economy is being treated with unfair scrutiny. China, with her population now exceeding one billion [...]