The purpose of this term paper is to investigate the extent and nature of global warming and climate change through environmental communications and to shed light on a few of the current delusions...

Environmental Reporting: Climate Change and Global Warming
APRIL 21, 2013
Prepared by:
Claude Javois
Environmental Reporting: Climate
Change and Global Warming
ENVM
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Table of Contents
1.0 Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... 3
2.0 Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 4
4.0 Communicating Climate Change ................................................................................................... 6
5.0 Challenges of Climate Change Communication ............................................................................ 7
6.0 Global Climate Change Communication ....................................................................................... 8
7.0 Public Communication and Perception of Climate Change ......................................................... 10
8.0 Climate Change and Politics ........................................................................................................ 12
9.0 Climate Change Education and Communication ......................................................................... 12
10.0 Central Communicators of Climate Change ................................................................................ 14
11.0 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 15
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1.0 Abstract
The purpose of this term paper is to investigate the extent and nature of global warming and climate
change through environmental communications and to shed light on a few of the current delusions
about climate change, the natural communication problems inherent to climatic change, to list some
challenges ahead, describe the barriers one encounters in communicating the crisis of climate change
and global warming and express a number of actions that can be taken to improve and more broadly
communicate them.
Although, the matter has an important scientific relevance and has gained a lot of attention, still there
are communication difficulties and misconceptions among the industries, media, government and the
public in general.
The findings of this report suggest that it is the world‟s priority to find feasible, cost effective and
realistic solutions to climate change and global warming concerns. It is precisely this that connects the
non-government and government organizations in a way never witnessed before. To bring about the
predictable outcomes, present initiatives should be supported by reasonable communication and
education methods.
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2.0 Introduction
The compelling scientific accord on the origins, sources and threat of climate change and global
warming is in strong contrast to the general contentment and confusion among the public (Sterman,
2008). Even though these concerns are not new to us, much has come to surface since the past twenty
years. First of all, the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was founded in 1988 which was a
joint venture of the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological
Organization. It is a world body that prints periodical reports about the climate and assesses the hazards
of climate change brought by mankind. It has, since its establishment, gained global approval and
recognition. Secondly, the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee established for negotiating this
purpose, affirmed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on May 9, 1992
which consists of more than 200 parties and observer nations (Filho, 2008).
At the start of June 1992, the UNFCCC was officially signed and was effective on the 21
st
of
March 1994. This agreement is one of the most high-ranking and prominent bilateral environmental
agreement which is globally supported (Filho, 2008).
Downing and Dow have pointed out the areas that they think need attention and action and the
several factors related to the worldwide debate on climate change which when impartially investigated,
this set of four natural causes have been seen interrelated to it: 1) volcanic activity, 2) solar radiation, 3)
earth‟s tilt and 4) continental drifts (Filho, 2008).
In the last decade, an increase in the rate of attention towards the issue of climate change and a
principal increase in the degree of emphasis on climate issues as a whole had been noticed. On
December 11, 1997, the Kyoto Protocol had presented an additional impulse to the intercontinental
discussions on climate change. This protocol had been adopted at the third Conference of the Parties to
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the UNFCCC (COP 3) in Kyoto, Japan and was effective since February 16, 2005 and more than 180
parties have approved the agreement till present. The December 2007 convention of the parties in
UNFCCC (COP 13) in Bali, Indonesia had more than 10,000 people present. It is evident from such
developments that climate change is now of global concern and significance. While the natural
unpredictability of the weather is consistently playing its role, the climatic transformation has changed
the odds and altered the natural weather boundaries and the weather around the world is now largely
influenced by global warming because it now builds up in a different atmosphere than before, creating
a particular kind of intense weather, more regular and extreme. These types and some other forms of
extreme climatic events that have been anticipated to occur frequently are indeed on the rise and have
become more intense in the past few decades as the Earth is warming up. In a large sway between
extremes, intense precipitation, drought, heat intensity has increased, heat waves are getting hotter and
their span increasing, moreover, heavy rains, flooding, etc, are all such events that are becoming
frequent. Drought too now has become more severe and prevalent. A clear example of the climate
warming and a signature of its influence on intense weather is that, 6 decades ago the figure of the new
record high temperatures observed around the continental USA was approximately equivalent to the
new recorded lows whereas, now, the ratio of record highs to record lows every year has been doubled
in degree. Same ratio difference in the record lows and record high temperatures has been recently
recorded in Australia. This shows that the problem extends outside the USA boundaries. Among those
countries who record the weather stats, not even one country observed a new all time record low while
19 countries recorded all-time high temperatures in 2010, and in the past 10 years, 75 nations recorded
all-time record highs whereas only 15 nations recorded low.
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4.0 Communicating Climate Change
Efficient communication regarding risks is hampered by an understanding of the mental models
of the public and policy writers. To comprehend the climate change in a better way, it is imperative to
have knowledge about how people in different areas of the planet view it (Filho, 2008), and what are
the fundamental mental models that form people‟s thoughts about the weather change. Studies
demonstrate an obvious disagreement. The mass population in the USA and other countries have heard
of global warming and said they are in the favor of the actions taken against it. Yet, this issue is
positioned way behind warfare and terrorism, combating terrorism, and economic concerns which are
the supreme matters of concern for the public and a greater majority are against the policy of increasing
the fossil fuel costs to cut the GHG emissions (Sterman, 2008). However, if the weather change begins
affecting the economy, mitigation policies can be employed.
A survey conducted in 2007 revealed that 54% of the people in USA had a “wait-and-see” or
“go slow” approach towards reducing the GHG emissions and a huge majority had the same view in
China, Russia and India. Vagueness about the risk of climatic change, for most of the public, means a
delay in the costly measures that have to be taken to the decrease the emissions. Nonetheless, long
deferrals in the climate‟s actions to anthropogenic forcing means such interpretations are incorrect
(Sterman, 2008).
A research done by Leal Filho (2000) consisted of the examination of wrong beliefs about what
the course of sustainable growth is and what sustainability signifies for an organization which has
assisted in understanding the common incorrect beliefs associated with them. It also showed that these
misconceptions are then transformed into negative assumptions about sustainable growth (Filho, 2008).
The foremost barrier to the communication regarding climate change is the general misconception
about it. A few of the most common misinterpretations of climate change are as follows:
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1) Climate change is a very broad subject matter.
2) There are no professional people to handle the climate change issue in an acceptable way.
3) It is too abstract an issue to discuss.
4) The quantity of supplies needed for the communication of climate change do not rationalize it.
5) It is much of a technical issue where computations and forecasts are required.
6) Climate change has an extensive...