Media and Climate Change Observatory Monthly Summary: No ‘silver lining’ - Issue 41, May 2020

May 2020 has been a pivotal month in human history. Amid accelerated learning and intense behavior change, media attention to climate change and global warming at the global level increased slightly (0.2%) from April 2020 coverage. Compared to a year earlier (May 2019), much like the precipitous drop detected April 2019-April 2020, the number of news articles and segments about climate change and global warming in May 2020 dropped dramatically as well. Coverage May 1-31, 2020 through our Media and Climate Change Observatory (MeCCO) monitoring of 120 media sources in 56 countries and ten languages all across the planet has found a 52% drop from May 1-31, 2019. Regionally, the ongoing stream of stories in this past May increased in the Middle East (up 8%), Latin America (up 28%) and Oceania (up 30%). In contrast, coverage was decreased in Asia (down nearly 1%), Africa (down 22%) and North America (down 21%) from the previous month. Also in May 2020, coverage from international wire services – The Associated Press, Agence France Presse, The Canadian Press, and United Press International – dropped 4% from the month before while contracting 63% from May 2019.