Journalism: Protecting the Planet.

 

The planet is facing a triple environmental crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. Simultaneously, there is a worldwide erosion of press freedom and democratic backsliding, undermining the role of journalism in finding evidence-based solutions. This is magnified by algorithm-driven, anti-science disinformation on the internet. Even as public awareness about climate-induced disasters grows, denialism of climate change is evolving: outright rejection is giving way to a ‘new denial’, which accepts the basic facts of climate change but casts doubt on its seriousness and spreads misleading narratives and conspiracy theories. As a result, journalists and climate scientists are increasingly being silenced by trolling and threats. This session tracks these trends and argues for greater investment in investigative journalism and training in digital techniques. Coverage needs to go beyond soft-focus stories to seek the economic and political roots of climate breakdown. Journalism needs to be protected to protect the planet.

High on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau near Lhasa is the 7,191-meter peak of Noijin Kangsang. On its south side is a glacier that used to come right down to where 60-year-old herder Tashi Gyalpu spends summers in a black felt tent with his yaks grazing peacefully in the sloping pasture. As a boy, Tashi Gyalpu remembers the glacier being where his tent is now. It has receded nearly 500m up the cliff ending in an abrupt icefall. The warmer climate has melted the glacier, and this means more grass. So, Tashi has 100 yaks and mountain goats, whereas his father just had a dozen or so. I ask him if he has ever heard the term ‘climate change’. He shakes his head. But Tashi is a happy man. He is better off, and it is not as cold up here anymore. His only complaint is that it does not snow much in winter, and this means less new grass in spring. The Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau together with the Himalaya, Karakoram, Hindu Kush, and the Yunnan Mountains are collectively known as High Asia. Altogether, these constitute the third largest repository of fresh water stored as ice after the polar regions. That is why it is also known as ‘The Third Pole’ or ‘The Roof of the World’. These highlands emerged 55 million years ago after the collision of the Indian tectonic plate with Eurasia.As they rose, the mountains blocked atmospheric rivers, causing rain and snow. Himalayan rivers are the source of most of Asia’s main rivers. The Indus drains westwards to the Arabian Sea, the Ganga flows into India, the Yarlung Tsangpo traverses the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, the Mekong flows into Southeast Asia, and the Yangtse and Huanghe flow through China to empty into the Pacific Ocean. The rivers are older than the mountains, and as they flowed over millions of years, have cut stupendous gorges through the rocks. Today, they are a lifeline for about two billion people living downstream. It was along the banks of these rivers that Asia’s great religions and civilizations were born and flourished. Himalayan peaks are regarded as sacred because the ancients knew melting snow on the mountains kept the rivers flowing and food growing. During the Last Glacial Maximum, the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, North America, and Northern Europe were all under ice caps more than one kilometer thick. Most of this ice melted away rapidly about 15,000 years ago at the end of the Ice Age, raising sea levels around the world and submerging land bridges like the Bering and Torres Straits.

Climate change: A story that must be told

Since the Ice Age, global temperatures remained stable until the Industrial Revolution. Burning fossil fuels produced carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, raising average global temperatures. In 2024, some sources reported a rise of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The impact is seen worldwide in disrupted rainfall, more intense storms, and melting ice caps. On both sides of the Himalayan mountains, glaciers have created vast lakes that are growing as the snow line recedes. In 1985, the glacial lake Dig Tso in Nepal broke through its moraine dam, sweeping away most of Thame village, a hydropower plant, and trekking trails downstream. Namgye Chumbi remembers weeding his potato field along the Imja River when he heard the approaching roar. He barely managed to gather his family and climb up the slope as boulders and mud thundered past below their feet. Chumbi has rebuilt his home higher up the mountain. He has heard that there is an even larger glacial lake upstream, but says, ‘Where can I go?’ On 16 August 2024, two glacial lakes in the same valley burst, sending a devastating slurry downwards, once more destroying half the village of Thames Disasters like these are becoming more and more common as global warming melts ice caps on the Andes, Alps, Urals, the Himalaya, and other mountain ranges.

Disasters make news and change opinions 

Media attention helps spread awareness of the climate emergency. Profiling the human impact adds credibility to the coverage and spurs local action. The increase in the frequency and intensity of weather extremes appears to have convinced many about the existence of climate change. One study showed that even in an oil-producing area, the percentage of respondents accepting climate change rose from 60% in 2010 to 72% in 2023. A 2021 survey by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication showed that Mexico, Brazil, and Vietnam were the most aware, with nearly 60% of respondents on Facebook agreeing with the statement ‘Climate Change Will Harm Me a Great Deal’. Nearly 45% of respondents in India agreed, but in Australia, parts of Europe, the United States and Canada, the response was in the 12-24% range.

 Arguments evolve, but opposition continues

While ‘old denial’ (rejection of climate change itself) appears to be decreasing, new data shows a rise in ‘new denial’ – skepticism about the effectiveness of climate policies, the acceptance of climate change as benign, or doubts about the effectiveness of mitigation policies. Channels on online video platforms pushing conspiracy theories and ‘new denialism’ have a large following. A report, Deny, Deceive, Delay by the international advocacy group Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD), measured how content pushing old denial spiked in 2022-23 with the hashtag #ClimateScam outperforming #ClimateCrisis and #ClimateEmergency. CAAD tracked the small group of accounts that were pushing the hashtag.The report underscored the urgency of finding mitigation and adaptation solutions. The People’s Climate Vote, the world’s largest standalone survey on climate change, found in 2024 that despite the rise in ‘new denial’, 80% of people polled in 77 countries support government action on climate change.446 Public awareness, though, only goes part way to solving a problem. Many other factors have to be addressed before there can be behavior change or policy reforms. To protect our planet, we need to promote cheaper alternatives to fossil fuels, governments need to be proactive in providing subsidies for clean energy, and there has to be public pressure to make the shift.

The media and the environmental crisis

 The triple planetary crisis is the coming together of three emergencies: climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution – all three driven by human economic and industrial activity. At the same time, there is a crisis in journalism worldwide, as its agenda-setting role is increasingly undermined by economic and political threats. News outlets are closing down as a mass migration of eyeballs to the digital sphere further cuts revenue streams. Algorithms drive users towards entertainment, hate, or conspiracy theories and denialism. Meanwhile, the trend of public relations efforts influencing climate journalism and diverting attention away from scientists is becoming stronger.

Environmental journalists, newsrooms, and content creators face the challenge of conveying the crises in a way that avoids alarmism or inducing excessive fear, which could lead to public disengagement or apathy. An individual can only take so much bad news, and it becomes the responsibility of journalists and content creators to also highlight positive trends, like the global switch to battery-powered cars, conservation successes, the surge in solar and wind energy, and controls on plastic waste and air pollution. However, the power of the mainstream press has been eroded as the business model of mass media collapses. The crisis in media also coincides with the democratic backsliding detailed in part 1 ‘Journalism: Strengthening the Rule of Law.’ Threats to journalists reporting on the unsustainable use of natural resources and other environmental issues now come from the same sources that are also undermining democracy, pluralism, and freedom of expression. 

The perils of defending the environment 

Covering the environment should not be as dangerous as covering a war. UNESCO’s Observatory of Killed Journalists has documented the murders of at least 46 environmental journalists since 2010; only six of the perpetrators have been convicted. In January 2024, assassins gunned down a journalist, who had been reporting on deforestation for a local TV channel. Later in the year, in another country, a journalist was killed while covering illegal logging in a wildlife sanctuary. These cases underscore the extreme risks faced by those reporting on environmental issues, even far from conflict zones. A UNESCO report covering 2009 through 2023 concluded that attacks on environmental journalists are on the rise, with those in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, and the Pacific being most at risk. Protecting the environment can be dangerous not only for journalists, but also for environmental activists, who are often a key source of information for media coverage. For example, a student activist in 2020 was deliberately run over by a truck belonging to sand mining contractors. Reporters who went to investigate his murder were subsequently threatened, illustrating the wider climate of intimidation over environmental reporting. The nearer journalists get to powerful local figures engaged in natural resource extraction, poaching, or logging, the more dangerous it becomes. Beyond physical threats, environmental journalists face systemic pressures, including the misuse of legal mechanisms to intimidate and silence them. According to a 2024 UNESCO issue brief, journalists and media houses covering environmental issues were the targets of 210 legal attacks since 2009 with 94 resulting in criminal charges, including public order disruption, terrorism, hate speech, dissemination of fake news, and criminal defamation; 39 journalists were convicted and jailed. Civil defamation suits made up 63 of the cases. They often were used to target journalists critical of powerful actors, a trend identified by UNESCO in 2022. Regionally, Europe and North America saw the most litigation attacks (77), the majority of them civil defamation suits, while in Asia and the Pacific (59 cases), imprisonment was the most common legal sanction. Such legal pressures, combined with physical violence and harassment, online abuse, threats, and social intimidation, create an environment where reporting on environmental damage carries severe personal and professional risks.