Dr.Tarek Kapiel: Media coverage of climate change and global warming issues in Egypt

Media coverage of climate change and global warming issues has an important impact on public opinion, as it conveys scientific opinion about climate change, as global temperature measurements have recorded higher values in recent decades, and the main reason for this rise is greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activities.

Almost all scientific bodies of national and international standing agree with this view, but some organizations have not taken a binding position.

Media attention has focused particularly on carbon-intensive countries that adhere to the terms of the Kyoto Agreement.

Media coverage of climate change in English-speaking countries has been studied extensively, especially in the United States, while less extensively in other countries.

A number of studies have shown that in the United States of America and in UK tabloids, the media has greatly underestimated the strength of the scientific consensus on climate change, which was articulated in the IPCC reports between 1995 and 2001.

The peak in media coverage occurred in early 2007, spurred by the Fourth Assessment Report of the International Committee on Climate Change and the documentary An Inconvenient Truth by US politician and environmental activist Al Gore.

The subsequent peak occurred in late 2009, and was 50% higher and it was driven by a December 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference.

The Media and Climate Change Observatory team at the University of Colorado Boulder found that 2017 “has seen an ebb and flow of media interest in climate change and global warming.” In June, the world saw the most media coverage on both topics.

This rise was largely attributed to the controversy surrounding the withdrawal of United States President Donald Trump from the 2015 UN Paris Climate Agreement, with continued media interest in emerging US isolationism following the G7 summit a few weeks later.

Some researchers and journalists believe that media coverage of political issues is adequate and fair, while others believe it is biased.

However, most studies of media coverage of the topic are not recent and are not concerned with coverage of environmental issues, and rarely specifically concerned with the issue of bias.

The media tends to seek out extreme viewpoints that portray the risks far beyond what scientists actually see. Journalists tend to exaggerate the extreme results from the range of possibilities presented in scientific articles.

A study that tracked press reports on an article on climate change in Nature found that: The results and conclusions of the study were widely distorted, particularly in the media, to make the results appear more catastrophic and chronological.

In a report issued by the Institute for Public Policy Research, Jill Erriot and Nat Signett suggest that informative language is frequently used in relation to environmental issues by popular newspapers and magazines and in campaign literature by government and environmental groups.

Informative means using language with an exaggerated tone and manner, including an urgent tone and images showing loss and catastrophe.

Some argue that applying it when talking about climate change can create a greater sense of urgency.

The term “catastrophe” can be used as a point of derogation by critics of mainstream climate science to describe those who favor it.

The use of sensationalism and informative techniques is controversial, often arouses denial and indifference rather than motivating individuals to action, and will not encourage people to get involved in the cause of climate change.

Promoting scientific culture among the masses of the Egyptian people

Given that Egypt faces serious environmental issues, Egypt needs to raise the level of …