Media and Climate Change Observatory Monthly Summary: The latest in a string of alarm bells about our changing climate - Issue 60, December 2021

December media attention to climate change or global warming in newspapers around the globe dropped 49% from November 2021 but remained 8% higher than a year ago (December 2020). Meanwhile, December 2021 global radio coverage of climate change or global warming dropped 67% from November 2021, while coverage in international wire services decreased 46% from the previous month.

Compared to the previous two months of coverage (October and November 2021) where media coverage of climate change or global warming reached near-record levels globally, coverage decreased in all regions: Oceania (-40%), Asia (-42%), North America (-48%), the Middle East (-50%), Latin America (-52%), Africa (-52%), and Europe (-56%). Figure 1 shows trends in newspaper media coverage at the global scale – organized into seven geographical regions around the world – from January 2004 through December 2021.