{"id":2531,"date":"2020-12-16T17:25:18","date_gmt":"2020-12-16T17:25:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=140077"},"modified":"2020-12-16T17:25:18","modified_gmt":"2020-12-16T17:25:18","slug":"as-2020-ends-its-time-for-news-outlets-to-declare-a-climate-emergency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/16\/as-2020-ends-its-time-for-news-outlets-to-declare-a-climate-emergency\/","title":{"rendered":"As 2020 Ends, It\u2019s Time for News Outlets to Declare a \u201cClimate Emergency\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u201cI call on all leaders worldwide to declare a State of Climate Emergency in their own countries until carbon neutrality is reached.\u201d So said United Nations Secretary General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres in his speech to the Climate Ambition Summit on December 12, the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement. Guterres\u2019s appeal seemed aimed at leaders of national governments; the Secretary General noted that \u201cthirty-eight countries have already\u201d made such declarations [among them, such big emitters as the United Kingdom, Japan and Canada]. But it\u2019s time for media leaders to declare a State of Climate Emergency as well.<\/p>\n
Journalists and news executives in charge of newspapers, TV and radio programs, and social media platforms seen and heard by billions of people around the world exercise a profound influence over how the public thinks and feels about the defining problem of our time \u2014 and what, if anything, governments, businesses, and other powerful actors end up doing about it. Shouldn\u2019t news organizations be telling the unvarnished truth about the climate problem and, not least, its solutions?<\/p>\n
Words can set the stage for deeds, both by clarifying what is at stake and by providing a standard for holding leaders to account.<\/span><\/p>\n Among major news organizations, only The Guardian thus far has made the kind of climate emergency declaration the UN Secretary General urges. On October 16, 2019, the newspaper issued a statement from Katharine Viner<\/a>, its editor in chief, promising \u201cto provide journalism that shows leadership, urgency, authority, and gives the climate emergency the sustained attention and prominence it deserves.\u201d A month later, the Oxford Dictionaries named \u201cclimate emergency\u201d its word of the year for 2019,<\/a> partly in recognition of the hundreds of cities, towns and countries that had declared such emergencies. Yet news organizations have held back.<\/p>\n Some of my media colleagues will, I know, feel uneasy about taking such a step, fearing that this would cross the line between journalism and advocacy. That is a serious, understandable concern. After all, activists from Greta Thunberg\u2019s Fridays For Future movement, Extinction Rebellion, and the Sunrise Movement have all repeatedly invoked the \u201cclimate emergency\u201d as a rallying cry to demand a rapid decarbonization of the world\u2019s economies.<\/p>\n