![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2018\/06\/mecco_issue17.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Media and Climate Change Observatory<\/a> (MeCCO)<\/em> Newspaper coverage in the Middle East and Oceania went down 35% and 23% respectively, while Asia dipped 10%, Europe diminished 6%, North America decreased 12% and African coverage was 18% lower than in April. Central\/South America dropped 8%, while coverage in Africa held relatively steady.<\/p>\n At the country level in May 2018, newspaper coverage went down compared to April in Australia (-13%), New Zealand (-37%), India (-7%), the United Kingdom (UK) (-8%), Germany (-11%), and the United States (-17%). It held steady in Canada. Meanwhile, US television coverage decreased 14% from the previous month, while the six world radio sources monitored diminished 37% from coverage in the previous month.<\/p>\n Global newspaper coverage was about 10% lower than counts a year ago (May 2017), when a great deal of global media attention was focused on the Trump Administration\u2019s impending (June 1, 2017) decision on whether or not to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement. This primarily political story pervaded cultural, economic and societal stories in May 2017 as well. For example, journalist Alexandra Zavis from the\u00a0Los<\/a><\/em>\u00a0Angeles Times<\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/em>covered President Trump\u2019s visit with Pope Francis. During that visit on May 23, 2017, Zavis wrote about how the Pope provided the President with a copy of his 2015 encyclical that called for global collective action to address climate change.<\/p>\n Figure 1 shows these ebbs and flows in media coverage at the global scale \u2013 organized into seven geographical regions around the world \u2013 from January 2004 through May 2018.<\/p>\n Moving to considerations of content of climate change or global warming coverage in May 2018, Figure 2 shows word frequency data in UK newspapers, juxtaposed with US television in May 2018. It is notable that the US-based media sources still continue to show signs of \u2018Trump Dump\u2019 (where media attention that would have focused on other climate-related events and issues instead was placed on Trump-related actions (leaving many other stories untold)). And as in previous months, content in media reporting outside the US context shows that this pattern of news reporting continues to be limited to the US. To illustrate, May 2018 news articles related to climate change or global warming in the US invoked \u2018Trump\u2019 2935 times in 78 news segments (approximately 38 mentions per segment on average) on\u00a0ABC<\/em>,\u00a0CBS<\/em>,\u00a0CNN<\/em>,\u00a0Fox News Network<\/em>,\u00a0MSNBC,\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0NBC<\/em>. In contrast, in the UK press, Trump was mentioned in the\u00a0Daily Mail & The Mail on Sunday<\/em>,\u00a0The Guardian & The Observer<\/em>,\u00a0The<\/em>\u00a0Sun<\/em>,\u00a0The Daily Telegraph & The Sunday Telegraph<\/em>, the\u00a0Daily Mirror & Sunday Mirror<\/em>,\u00a0The<\/em>\u00a0Scotsman & Scotland on Sunday<\/em>, and\u00a0The Times & The Sunday Times<\/em>632 times in 510 May articles (approximately 1.2 mentions per article on average). We have cautioned previously, however, that these current trends can quickly change, contingent on Trump Administration decisions that could rapidly influence media attention on climate change or global warming in the US and around the world.<\/p>\n Many media accounts in May focused on primarily\u00a0political<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 often tinged with\u00a0economic<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 content associated with climate change and global warming. For example, a report called the \u2018Global Electric Vehicles Outlook\u2019 from the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) at the end of May noted a record year for electric cars where \u201celectric and plug-in hybrid cars on the world\u2019s roads exceeded 3 million in 2017, a 54% increase compared with 2016\u201d while \u201cChina remained by far the largest electric car market in the world, accounting for half sold\u201d in 2017. The\u00a0report noted<\/a>, \u201cThe uptake of electric vehicles is still largely driven by the policy environment. The ten leading countries in electric vehicle adoption all have a range of policies in place to promote the uptake of electric cars\u201d.\u00a0NBC<\/a><\/em>\u00a0journalist Tom DiChristopher reported that the IEA \u201csees a pathway to 220 million electric vehicles by 2030, provided the world takes a more aggressive approach to fighting climate change and cutting emissions than currently planned\u201d.<\/p>\n As another example of\u00a0political economic\u00a0<\/em>content,\u00a0BBC\u00a0<\/a><\/em>journalist David Shukman reported on the landmark agreement made at the International Maritime Organization talks, to cut emissions of greenhouse gases in the global shipping industry. Shukman noted that \u201cshipping generates roughly the same quantity of greenhouse gas as Germany and, if it were accounted for as a nation, would rank as the world’s sixth biggest emitter. Like aviation, it had been excluded from climate negotiations because it is an international activity while both the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement involved national pledges to reduce greenhouse gases\u201d. Meanwhile in May, journalist Tom Embury-Dennis from\u00a0The Independent<\/a><\/em>\u00a0in the UK reported that Costa Rica\u2019s new president \u2013 Carlos Alvarado \u2013 has promised to begin a process to ban fossil fuels in the country, making it the first decarbonized nation on planet Earth. He said, \u201cDecarbonisation is the great task of our generation and Costa Rica must be one of the first countries in the world to accomplish it, if not the first\u201d. Read more …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Media and Climate Change Observatory (MeCCO) May 2018 Summary Newspaper coverage in the Middle East and Oceania went down 35% and 23% respectively, while Asia dipped 10%, Europe diminished 6%, North America decreased 12% and African coverage was 18% lower … Continue reading
\nMay 2018 Summary<\/a><\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/sciencepolicy.colorado.edu\/icecaps\/research\/media_coverage\/summaries\/images\/2018_17_figure1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/sciencepolicy.colorado.edu\/icecaps\/research\/media_coverage\/summaries\/images\/2018_17_figure2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n