Here's How The World Dropped Climate Change To Obsess Over Trump & Demonetisation

After ratification of the Paris climate treaty by 55 countries responsible for 55% of carbon emissions in 2015, COP 22 in Marrakesh was much awaited, as this was the first meeting to actually discuss concrete measures as a way forward.

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This year, almost 1500 journalists across the world gathered to cover this event, yet, COP failed to grab major media attention, as US Presidential election ruled the headlines globally.?

In India, the media attention was divided between the US elections and the Prime Minister’s move to demonetise currency and its impact; the latter gaining more footage. ?

Whatever little media attention that COP received was linked to Trump’s election as the President of United States, and the uncertainties of climate change initiatives revolving around his win.?

Less or no reporting

Financial Times’ headline states how US elections overshadowed COP in media- ‘Trump election casts shadow over COP 22 climate change talks’.

Leading Bangladeshi newspaper Dhaka Tribune’s headline states- ‘Climate change conference stumped after Trump’.

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News reports quoted how Trump’s election brought a halt to the excitement around COP 22, which was usually marked as a high point for global action on climate change.?

In South Asia, most media did not cover COP 22 from the perspective of their country’s contribution to mitigate climate change or the action forward.

In India, the immediate concern for the public at large was how demonetization would affect their daily life, and the media focus completely shifted to this issue.?

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Athar Parvaiz, an independent journalist from Jammu & Kashmir says, “I think it is because COP 22 had nothing significant to offer right in the beginning. Almost all the countries have already ratified the Paris agreement except Australia and few other countries which are expected to do so during the course of Marrakesh talks. No one should be surprised why media in India chose to ignore the start of COP 22.

"Trump's election victory is believed to be the major news of the decade (so far) replacing the Brexit referendum result in UK. It is believed to leave a huge impact on the global politics and diplomacy in the coming years. Demonisation in India, again, is something far more serious for the domestic audience as it raises immediate concern to the people rather than the climate change about which there are only projections as of now.”?

The scenario was similar in other South Asian countries. Pragati Shahi, a Nepali journalist, says, “E-kantipur, our sister publication, published a story about COP along the lines of Trump's win. It raised question about US pledge in climate deal and fate of the deal after Trump's win. It had nothing about country-specific agendas, and the story is same with international media.”?

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Further, Kathmandu Post did run a couple of stories from media outlets and news agencies like Reuters, AFP, Guardian, etc, but there were no local stories on Nepal. And this is not the first time COP's coverage is missing from Nepali media.

Shahi adds, “Few COPs like Copenhagen and Paris got some coverage (At Copenhagen, Nepal had a few of its own programmes like Sumitters' Summit and a march to draw attention towards the plight of the Himalayas), otherwise there is minimal or no coverage at all. The last story I did was about Nepal ratifying Paris deal.?

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Bhrikuti Rai, a Nepali journalist concurs, “I remember looking at some Nepali and English dailies and they did not really have any significant or even no coverage of COP. Neither was there any discussion about this in the Nepali Twittersphere.”

Pinaki Roy, a Bangladeshi journalist says, “Yes, US elections are important for us as the US government make policies that affect the whole world. But that does not mean that media will have to forget something like COP.”?

He added, “Editors of most of the media outlets are not climate-educated. Many of the editors do not understand the importance of the COP. Climate change is the most crucial issue of this century and all media should act accordingly.”?

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The meeting this year was expected to discuss Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). An article in The Hindu mentioned how ‘modalities, procedures, guidelines’ – MPG – will be evolved for countries to meet their NDC this year.?

Further, COP’s significance this year on mobilising finance, transfer of technology, and actual action would be significant to developing nations. Experts from World Resources Institute (WRI) said that since Marrakesh conference is ‘getting down to business’, the hardest work is ahead to turn the transformational promise of the Paris Agreement into reality.

The COP this year is also expected to address clashes between trade and climate change, which will be crucial for many developing countries including India.

And here is why. If an Indian company exports its product cheaper because it received subsidies for implementing a green technology, will that subsidy be WTO-compliant??

Questions like these, and much more is the core of the COP this year.

However, media discussions this year linking climate change to Trump’s win of presidential election stems from the fact that he does not believe in climate change, and his promise that he would cancel the agreement and payments of US tax dollars to UN global warming programmes.

Other countries, however, in their talks, said that despite the US election outcome, all the efforts that were taken by countries to ratify the deal must happen irrespective of what the US will do.