A media support programme has allowed 35 journalists from 29 developing countries to cover this year’s Conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Cancun. Media watchers will be interested to see if this has any noticeable effect on international coverage of the issues.
The project - Climate Change Media Partnership – aimed to give journalists a new opportunity to engage with both leading scientists and policy-makers. Governments were in the spotlight after negotiations strongly disappointed climate change campaigners at last year’s summit in Copenhagen.
Rod Harbinson, Head of Climate Change at Panos London, said: “Accurate media coverage is essential to inform citizens worldwide about what climate change will mean for them.” He highlighted journalists’ role “in ensuring that governments take the actions needed to prevent dangerous levels of climate change”.
In 2007, only 11 per cent of the 1500 journalists accredited to the Bali climate change summit were from developing countries. The partnership has therefore decided to provide opportunities to report about climate change, aiming to support the perspective of the developing world on this issue. The number of applicants to the fellowship has risen from 185 in Bali to 600 in Copenhagen.
The chosen journalists were from regions that are particularly vulnerable to climate change: Africa, Middle East, Asia, the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean.
The programme provided them with training at the summit through editorial mentoring support and workshops. Journalists have also participated in field visits and interview sessions with climate change experts. Their media coverage has been published in the CCMP website.
The fellowships came at a time when experts are calling for greater support for journalists who report on climate change, along with a better partnership between media and scientists, as a recent study from the University of Oxford suggests.
Yet, getting to the UN conference was not an easy task for fellows who had to apply for a visa in another country as their own does not have a Mexican embassy. Many also needed to go through the complicated US and European transit visa bureaucracy to complete their journey to Central America. Such problems often make it impossible for many journalists from poor countries to attend the major meeting.
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Cancun deal 'exceeded expectations', the English House of Commons has heard. http://www.epolitix.com/latestnews/article-detail/newsarticle/cancun-deal-exceeded-expectations/
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