Irish Public Service Broadcasting and the Climate Change Challenge - Research Report and Findings Mark Cullinane Clare Watson for the RTÉ Audience ...
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Irish Public Service
Broadcasting and the Climate
Change Challenge
Research Report and Findings
Mark Cullinane
Clare Watson
for the RTÉ Audience Council
February 2014
1Project Background
In November 2012, the RTÉ Audience Council ratified the following proposal by Council member,
Clare Watson:
That the Audience Council should review the coverage by RTÉ of climate change and energy
security. This work would be done by a sub-committee of the Council (and should not require
additional funding) and may involve discussions with key people in RTÉ, representatives of
environmental, developmental and other relevant agencies, and media commentators/analysts. The
aims of the project would be to establish current coverage of the issues, to identify barriers to and
opportunities for enhanced coverage, and to make recommendations, where necessary and
appropriate.
Fellow Council member Mark Cullinane joined Clare to work on this project. Together, we held a
series of meetings with a variety of Irish experts on climate change to hear their views on the
quality of climate change communication on RTÉ programming. This was followed by the
production of a piece of empirical research analysing a sample of RTÉ News and Current Affairs
programming, with the primary goal of establishing whether the global declines in coverage of
climate change are also evident in RTÉ output. This research was carried out by Mark Cullinane as
part of his doctoral thesis, and the data is being shared with this project. At a later Audience
Council meeting, it was agreed that the project would form part of a larger initiative focused on
identifying a series of significant public issues and bringing the public and other stakeholders into
dialogue with RTÉ on how public broadcasting engages with these issues.
This document represents the first phase of the climate change project. It contains the detailed
findings of the media analysis, as well as explanations of the methodologies used, and is being
distributed to a broad range of individuals and groups in Ireland with an interest in the issue.
For reasons of feasibility, the analysis that follows explores climate change coverage on only a
small number of strategically-chosen RTÉ News and Current Affairs programmes, as well as
online news output. It does not purport to examine how climate change is constructed as an issue
on a range of other RTÉ programmes, platforms and genres, including (but not limited to)
programmes such as the Mooney show, Eco Eye, About the House, Nationwide, Ear to the Ground or
Drivetime, which at different times and in different ways engage with climate related issues.
Neither does this research reflect the extent of RTÉ's historical and present corporate actions in
relation to climate change awareness and mitigation- from its cross-platform, cross-genre
commitment to environmental reportage over the years, to the organisation's corporate social
responsibility practices.
2An Invitation to Contribute
We are distributing this analysis for the express purpose of soliciting responses to the research
findings contained in this document which will then be submitted to RTÉ. We welcome reflections
on how climate change is communicated on all RTÉ platforms, and in particular, we are seeking
practical recommendations on how communication of the range of issues linked to climate change
may be improved. These comments and suggestions will be collated and submitted together with
the analysis document to the RTÉ Board and subsequently distributed to other key personnel
within RTÉ.
To submit your contribution, please complete the short online form at the following link:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1L1aHS6fYbsD-Ejf4oa-esywNrD7f2AacRhg2-v9S4hU/viewform
Please note that the form will be closed for new submissions from February 17th, 2014. As we are
seeking a broad distribution of this report, if you know of an individual or organisation who may
be interested in reading or contributing to this project, please feel free to forward it on.
About the authors:
Mark Cullinane lives in Cork City, where he is a PhD candidate in Social Science and an Irish
Research Council Government of Ireland Scholar. His doctoral research is focused on the role of
public service broadcasting in democratic life and, in particular, how Irish public service
broadcasting has coped- editorially and institutionally- with recent national and international
crises.
Clare Watson lives in Bantry, West Cork. She has spent many years working on environmental and
community issues. Her training as a social worker and interest in social and cultural psychology
led her, over the past few years, to explore the link between human behaviour and how we
respond to climate change. This has culminated in a series of 21 articles which are available on the
website www.chasinghubcaps.com .
The authors can be contacted at the dedicated email address for this project at rte.ac.climate@gmail.com
Information about the functions, remit and activities of the RTÉ Audience Council can be found on RTÉ's
website at http://www.rte.ie/about/en/how-rte-is-run/2012/0330/315626-audience-council/
3Climate change: scientific consensus, political inaction
In September 2013, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded in its
latest report1 that it is “extremely likely”- or at least 95% probable- that human activities, led by the
burning of fossil fuels, are the main cause of climate change since the mid 20 th century. The IPCC's
ongoing work is a central part of a broad global scientific consensus on anthropogenic (man-made)
climate change, a position now shared by 97% of climate scientists 2.
Yet, despite the ever-increasing scientific certainty in understanding the extent and origins of
climate change as well as modelling future changes, global progress on measures to combat
climate change has stalled. As has been illustrated by the limited outcomes of the annual UN
Climate Change conferences under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change, the international community's progress in agreeing and implementing remedial
action has been piecemeal and insufficient to meet either the goals of preventing global
temperature increases or mitigating the consequences of climate change on the ground.
It is clear that merely establishing a scientific consensus of unprecedented scope has not been
enough to result in swift action by national governments and international bodies, or to bring
about significant behaviour changes by individuals. Polling data, such as the Eurobarometer report
on climate change in 2011, demonstrated that most European publics, including Ireland's, accept
that global warming is a major threat.3 The same data suggests, however, that people are less
certain about who has responsibility to take action on the issue 4.
The psychological dimensions of how we grapple with climate change and make sense of our
individual and collective responsibilities towards our shared environment are complex and have
been explored by, for example, NESC (2012) 5 and joint author of this report, Clare Watson 6. In
particular, the intangibility and remoteness of climate change to our lives tends to diminish its
1 Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Summary for Policymakers (2013) UN Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, p.15
2 'Consensus: 97% of climate scientists agree'. Nasa: Global Climate Change. Available from:
http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus
3 Special Eurobarometer 372: Climate Change (2011) Available from:
http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_372_en.pdf
4 ibid, p.18
5 NESC Background Paper 03 (2012): Social and Behavioural Aspects of Climate Change. NESC (2012) Available from:
http://www.nesc.ie/en/publications/publications/nesc-secretariat-papers/irelands-climate-change-challenge-
background-papers/
6 Watson, C. (2012) Chasing Hubcaps. Available from www.chasinghubcaps.com
4significance. We are told that the dangers posed by our collective behaviours today are great in
magnitude, yet their consequences aren’t immediate or visible to us in the course of day to day life.
Meanwhile, the solutions required to alleviate the consequences of climate change appear to be so
far-reaching as to be beyond the capacities of individuals.
However, while access to information alone does not necessarily lead to change, the ways in which
climate change is (or isn’t) discussed in the public sphere can be assumed to have a significant
bearing on how people and governments engage with the issue. Given the apparent remoteness of
climate change to daily life, how the media constructs it as an issue has an enormous role in
shaping public opinion and public priorities. It is through the mass media that the various
dimensions of climate change- scientific, political, ethical- are communicated to the public.
The Media and Climate Change
Diminishing momentum for meaningful global action to contain and mitigate climate change,
particularly in the wake of the financial crisis which struck in 2008, has prompted renewed interest
in the role of the media in communicating the issue to the public.
Since the dawn of the new millennium, the prominence of climate change in media coverage has
gone through several clearly identifiable phases. As a broad scientific consensus on the extent and
anthropogenic origins of climate change became apparent by the early 2000s, the issue was
catapulted into the public imagination through events like the release of Al Gore’s film 'An
Inconvenient Truth', and onto the political agenda through reports like Nicholas Stern’s landmark
study on the likely economic impacts of climate change 7. Further 'mainstreaming' involved the
incorporation of climate change by civil society movements, humanitarian NGOs and
environmental groups into campaigns for global justice. By the 2009 COP15 Copenhagen Climate
Change Conference, the clamour for decisive, co-ordinated action on climate change had reached a
crescendo. The gradual rise of global newspaper references to climate change throughout the 2000s
and a spike in 2009 is recorded in the work of Boykoff and Schmidt 8 who maintain a running tally
of climate change coverage based on 50 newspapers across 20 countries and 6 continents.
The failure of the Copenhagen talks and subsequent UN climate conferences, combined with the
onset of the global financial crisis, has coincided with a sharp reduction in the volume of global
media coverage on the issue since 2009. Recent Irish research by Mullally et al 9 demonstrates a
similar collapse in broadsheet newspaper references to climate change since 2009. This is most
7 Stern Review Report: The Economics of Climate Change (2006) Available from:
http://mudancasclimaticas.cptec.inpe.br/~rmclima/pdfs/destaques/sternreview_report_complete.pdf
8 Boykoff, M. and Nacu-Schmidt, A. (2013) World Newspaper Coverage of Climate Change or Global Warming,
2004-2013. Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, Center for Science and Technology
Policy Research, University of Colorado, Web. Available from:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/media_coverage
5starkly visible in the Irish Times where, by the start of 2013, coverage had dropped from its 2009
peak by 80%.
Concern at the widening disparity between the increasingly urgent messages of scientists and
campaigners, and the dwindling political momentum and reduced media interest in climate
change, has helped inspire this project which is focused on exploring the roles and responsibilities
of public service broadcasting in communicating climate change issues to the public in Ireland.
We believe that the construction of the issue of climate change in the public sphere is an important
factor in determining the extent to which it figures in the public imagination. RTÉ, as Ireland's
public service broadcaster, plays a particularly critical role in the democratic process in Ireland,
and commands a significant agenda-setting power to direct the attention of Irish citizens to
particular issues.
We are of the view that climate change represents a particularly thorny topic for public
broadcasters for a variety of reasons. The science of climate change is complex and not necessarily
amenable to easy communication in what are often fast-paced news genres. As international media
scholarship has long argued, the demands of the 24-hour news cycle make it hard for media to
take a long-term view on slow-burn issues of which climate change is a prime example. The
politicisation of climate change prompted by the emergence of what has become known as 'climate
scepticism' has only added to the challenges for broadcasters, who, charged with responsibilities of
'balance', must preside over debates that can frequently become highly contentious and polarised.
While much of the journalistic debate has focused on the extent to which climate sceptics should be
given airtime in the face of an overwhelming scientific consensus contrary to their position (see, for
example, BBC Trust (2007)10, a more pertinent question today might be whether public service
broadcasting should take a more proactive role in climate change communication. We believe that
the findings of this report reflect the increasing urgency of this question.
9 Mullaly, G., Damery, C., Lenihan, J., Milner, R., O'Connor, P. (2013) 'Fear and Loading in the Anthropocene:
Narratives of Transition and Transformation'. Conference paper delivered at Sustainability in Society, UCC,
September 2013. Abstract and presentation available from:
http://www.ucc.ie/en/sustainabilityinsociety/about/papers/
10 From Seesaw to Wagon Wheel- Safeguarding impartiality in the 21 st century. BBC Trust (2007) p. 40. Available from:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/review_report_research/impartiality_21century/report.pdf
6Climate Change on RTÉ: Analysis of Coverage
The following research was carried out by Mark Cullinane as part of his doctoral research. It was
conducted with a view to making the findings available for this Audience Council project. The two
key goals of this piece of research were (a) to establish the extent of RTÉ News coverage of climate
change over time, and (b) to identify some basic trends in the content of coverage- the key themes
and terms within which climate change is typically discussed.
Methodology
For a project of this small scale, it was not possible to examine a wide variety of RTÉ programming
in order to document and analyse the extent to which climate change is discussed and the terms in
which it is discussed. In the interests of feasibility, brevity and timeliness, the methodology was
confined to a largely quantitative analysis of RTÉ's coverage of climate change on a small number
of RTÉ programmes and platforms and sampled across a limited and defined period of time.
Specifically, this analysis covers three areas: RTÉ's flagship television news programme, Six One
News on RTÉ One, the flagship television current affairs programme Primetime, and RTÉ Online
News. The duration of coverage incorporated into the study varied depending on the ease of
gathering content effectively.
Six One News
The analysis of the Six One News programme for references to climate change was undertaken by
manually searching and viewing programme segments using the calendar function at
http://www.rte.ie/news/player/six-one-news/. This calendar function enables access to the
programme archive. All programme segments are listed for each edition of Six One News, and
these lists were manually checked for stories which may contain references to climate change. T he
studied period encompassed a two year period from 1/10/2011 to 1/10/2013.
Stories which were adjudged to have reasonable potential to contain a reference to climate change
were noted, played back and checked. Stories which may be said to have 'reasonable potential'
include most stories primarily regarding weather, climate and environmental events, as well as
those on energy and natural resources. No story genres or topics were excluded in advance from
this manual process, with the exception of the Irish turf-cutting controversy, which is highly
politicised issue that appeared regularly through the sample period. Given the fractious and
localised nature of this controversy, it was deemed highly unlikely that turf-cutting stories might
have a climate change frame and in the interests of speeding up the process, these stories were
ignored.
7Incorporating a broader range of stories, for example, stories on economic performance, into the
list of those manually viewed would have increased the workload beyond a feasible level, so these
stories with much lower potential for climate change references were discarded.
In total, 285 stories over the 2 year period were identified as being candidates for including
references to climate change.
Methodological note: The Six One News programmes on 24 th June 2012 and 15th January 2013 were not
accessible from the RTÉ website at the time of conducting this research, so these days have been disregarded
from the analysis.
Primetime
Primetime programmes were analysed similarly to Six One News, using the programme archive
accessible at http://www.rte.ie/news/player/prime-time/. Segment titles were checked for either
references to climate change or other references which might conceivably hint at climate change
being an important concern. Due to the lesser frequency of Primetime programmes, it was possible
to check the programme archive over a greater period of time for climate change segments. Stories
identified as potential carriers of a climate change theme included those that spanned
environmental topics including weather events, climate, famine, natural resources issues and
developing world issues.
In total, a period of 3 years from from 1/10/2010 to 1/10/2013 inclusive was checked, which resulted
in a total of 31 stories being identified which could conceivably have had a climate change
dimension to them.
RTÉ News Online
In order to put the Six One News and Primetime coverage in a more long-term context, it was
thought useful to look at longer-term patterns of RTÉ News coverage of climate change. Using the
LexisNexis database, searches were run over a six year period (with years starting on Oct 1) from
2007 to 2013 for stories containing references to 'climate change' or 'global warming'. This is the
same Boolean string used by Boykoff et al (ibid) to track global climate change coverage volumes.
This database searches through all text articles on RTÉ's News Online website. Although online
text news coverage does not directly reflect amounts of coverage across RTÉ News programming,
such an analysis can nonetheless provide indications as to the prominence of climate change as a
news theme on RTÉ News platforms.
8Based on this data, a series of analyses were carried out to determine some quantitative and
qualitative characteristics of RTÉ coverage of climate change, as represented on these three RTÉ
outlets over their respective periods of time. All 6-1 News and Primetime stories identified as
possible carriers of a climate change theme- 285 and 31 respectively- were manually checked for
some kind of climate change thematisation. For the purposes of this process, stories were
positively recorded as containing a climate change thematisation using a lax standard. Any
mention of climate change in a story, however peripheral to the thrust of the story, was accepted.
Findings
Coverage volumes
Fig. 1: Volume of RTÉ News coverage of climate change over time. Units represented here are online news
text articles and Six One News and Primetime items.
The LexisNexis search of RTÉ News Online articles demonstrates that the volume of text news
stories referring to climate change or global warming has fallen precipitously since 2010. Although
coverage had held steady for three years until then, the average number of articles over the last
three years- from Oct 2010 to Oct 2013- is, at nearly 35, just over a third of those recorded over the
three preceding years.
9Of the 285 6-1 News stories identified as conceivably containing a climate change dimension, 30
were found to do so- just over 10% of the total identified. Of the 31 Primetime stories identified, 8
had some level of climate change thematisation- just under 25% of the total identified. Appendices
A and B at the end of this report contain details, including URLs, of all stories with a climate
change thematisation.
Given the limited period of Primetime and Six One News programmes studied, it is not possible to
examine long-term coverage volume changes, but it is clear that coverage volumes are very low
across both programmes. It is also evident that compared to 2011-2012, 2012-13 demonstrated a
rise in coverage across all three output areas examined, with 6-1 News coverage rising by a third to
18 references.
In sum, the post-2009 collapse in coverage exhibited in the data of Boykoff et al (ibid) and Mullally
et al (ibid) is in evidence here in the case of volumes of online text news. Tentative signs of a
bottoming-out of coverage volumes and, most recently, a modest rise noted in Boykoff et al's data
is also apparent from the RTÉ coverage examined.
The remainder of this analysis focuses exclusively on the Six One News and Primetime material.
Temporal and spatial distribution of coverage
Raw numbers of stories including a reference to climate change are useful but by digging a little
deeper into the data, other patterns can be discerned. Looking at the temporal distribution of
stories, their relative prominence in programmes, and also the spatial locus of the stories
themselves is another useful exercise.
Coverage clusters:
Examining the distribution of climate change coverage over time reveals some interesting patterns.
In the Six One News coverage, it is evident that much of the coverage is clustered into short periods
of time. In particular, three clusters stand out:
(1) 2012 Earth Summit coverage yielded 3 stories on consecutive days
(2) 2013 Mary Robinson/Irish Aid conference yielded 4 stories in 2 days
(3) 2013 UN IPCC Report publication yielded 4 stories in 1 day
Taken together, reports in these three clusters comprise more than a third of all Six One News
coverage on climate change over the period analysed. On all three occasions when such clusters
10take place, there are significant lulls of coverage immediately after, suggesting that 'set piece'
events, where coverage may be pre-planned, are of most appeal to news producers on this topic.
The three year sample of Primetime programmes reveals that the 8 stories with a climate change
thematisation are dispersed thinly throughout the sample period. Half the stories with a climate
change thematisation were broadcast in 2013, with none in 2010, and 2 apiece in 2011 and 2012.
Coverage prominence:
Until the latter part of the period studied in mid-2013, no story with a climate change theme
occupies a prominent position in the 6-1 bulletin. Most of the coverage occupies positions in the
latter half of bulletins. On two occasions in 2013, a climate change story led the bulletin- on the day
of the Mary Robinson Foundation for Climate Justice/Irish Aid conference and on the day of the
latest UN IPCC report publication.
Covering the COP:
The rapidly diminishing amount of coverage afforded the main global UN climate Conference of
Parties talks in recent years is notable. No Primetime coverage over the period contained any
reference to the UN conferences.
Analysis of prior coverage of the last three UN climate conferences demonstrate a clear pattern of
declining coverage on Six One News of the COP summits over the last three years – 3 full TV news
reports were broadcast in 2011, while 2012 brought just 2 brief reports lasting a combined total of
35 seconds. [Note: one of these two reports was broadcast on the Nine News but is included here
given the timing of the event's conclusion]. Although the 2013 summit in Warsaw fell just outside
the remit of this analysis, in the interests of completeness this period was analysed separately, and
it was found that no Six One News report accompanied the event in 2013, while the text news
report which emerged11 following the conclusion of the 2013 COP was based on wire copy from
Reuters12.
11 'Warsaw deal keeps hopes for climate change action alive', RTÉ News. Available from:
http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/1123/488686-warsaw-climate-talks/
12 'U.N. talks limp towards global 2015 climate deal', Reuters. Available from:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/11/23/uk-climate-talks-idUKBRE9AM04W20131123
11Spatial locus of coverage: how climate change is localised/internationalised
When climate change is referred to, is it discussed in the context of Ireland or in other countries?
The way in which climate change is localised or internationalised is worthy of analysis. One basic
way to provide an insight on this topic is by assigning each story either a national or international
locus. This judgement was made on each story, and the decisions to code a story as having a
national or international locus were made based not only on the spatial location of the reporter, or
the subject of the report, but on the thematic focus.
Of the 30 Six One News items with a climate change thematisation, less than a quarter (7 of 23) were
classified as having a primary national spatial locus (i.e, focused on Ireland) as compared with a
primary international spatial locus. This suggests that when climate change is referred to on this
programme, it is framed overwhelmingly as an international issue rather than a national one.
The 8 Primetime stories displayed a markedly different pattern. Of the 8 stories with a climate
change thematisation, 6 out of 8 were adjudged to have a primary national orientation. This
suggests that climate change, when it is thematised on Primetime, is done so within a national
frame of reference. The topics found in the Primetime coverage- the Shannon water diversion
scheme, floods in Cork, the fodder crisis and wind farm discussions, for example- skewed
coverage towards a decidedly local focus in comparison to the Six One News coverage.
Thematic categorisation of coverage
More details about the content of climate change-related coverage found in the Six One News and
Primetime samples can be discerned by identifying the dominant thematic category of each story.
This analysis was applied not only to the stories which were found to contain references to climate
change, but also to the broader list of programme segments which had been identified in the first
stage of analysis as potentially containing a climate change theme. This approach facilitates an
analysis not only of common themes that were present, but also absent themes.
Stories were assigned to one of 8 main categories with a smaller number of subcategories: weather
events (national and international); politics (national and international); environmental
disaster/pollution (not weather related); energy/resources; agriculture;
conservation/sustainability/animal; poverty/famine abroad, and miscellaneous items.
12Six One News themes
Fig. 2: Dominant themes of Six One News stories with no climate change thematisation [n=255]
13Fig. 3: Dominant themes of Six One News stories with a climate change thematisation [n=30]
Thematic categorisation of both the 255 Six One News items which had been identified as potential
carriers of a climate change theme but which were found not to contain one, as well as the 30 items
which did contain a climate change theme, reveals that:
• Despite being the thematic focus of 89 items, no story over the two year period dealing with
international weather events like floods, hurricanes, wildfires, snowstorms, mudslides, or
temperature fluctuations contained any reference to climate change. Two weather events,
Hurricane Sandy and a tornado in Oklahoma comprised 27 stories between them.
• Coverage of national (Irish) weather events is consistently not linked to climate change. Only
3 out of 62 Irish weather-related stories referred to climate change. Stories relating to
flooding comprised by far the biggest sub-category here, with at least 31 stories focused on
this topic.
• Climate change is very rarely linked in any way with energy/resources issues in the news.
Just 3 out of 45 stories on the topic of energy/resources were found to have a climate change
thematisation. This category included stories like price changes in consumer energy (gas,
electricity) and the introduction of water metering in Ireland. It also included stories on
14new energy sources, including a significant number of stories on fracking, wind energy and
new potential finds of oil. It is also notable that nearly all stories concerned energy and
resources through a national prism. In one particularly striking example of how energy and
resource topics are framed, Six One News ran 4 segments on March 15 and July 25 2012
where a major oil find was reported off the coast of Cork. In these four stories, which
comprised two reports and two in-studio interviews, oil and business interests comprised 7
out of the 8 people whose views were accessed, including oil company CEOs (two people
getting 5 separate quotes or full interviews), a stockbroker, and the Cork Chamber of
Commerce president. Not only was climate change not referred to directly or indirectly, no
environmental dimension was apparent in any of the segments. The focus was entirely on
the potential benefits that would accrue to the oil companies and to the state, and the
mechanics of oil extraction.
• With 23 stories, agriculture was also a significant category in the material analysed. The
main topic here was in relation to how weather patterns were impacting on farming,
including a fodder crisis in 2013. Notably, despite many stories containing interview clips
with farmers decrying what they felt were unprecedented poor conditions for farming
during this period due to high rainfall and flooding, there were no references made to
climate change at all in this category.
• Comprising a total of 14 items, stories looking at conservation, sustainability, and animals
contained only one with a reference to climate change.
• The poverty/famine abroad theme comprised 11 items, 5 of which clustered around a series of
on-the-ground reports in May 2012 to examine a food crisis in West Africa. This series,
about drought and food shortages in Western African nations was framed firmly as being
due to poor harvests and water shortages. No references to climate change were made here.
However, a shorter series of reports from Africa in the run up to the Mary Robinson
Foundation- Climate Justice and Irish Aid conference, including coverage of the event itself,
yielded 5 stories which did contain references to climate change under this category.
• Stories categorised under national and international politics demonstrated a number of
interesting patterns. International political stories outnumbered national political stories 12
to 1 in absolute numerical terms. In the case of the international political category, those 12
stories represented the majority of the 17 stories identified, whilst the national category
only comprised a total of 2 stories.
• The 12 international political items were clustered into stories that looked at the outcome of
the 2011 Durban COP summit, the 2012 Rio+20 summit, the 2012 Qatar COP summit, and
the 2013 IPCC report, leaving just two other stories on this theme dispersed through the
rest of the period analysed. This shows that climate change is typically only thematised as
15an international political issue during and after major conferences or reports, and is quickly
dropped until the next one. It also demonstrates that over the period studied, climate
change is almost never presented as a national political issue in Ireland.
Primetime themes
Fig. 4: Dominant themes of Primetime stories with no climate change thematisation [n=23]
16Fig. 5: Dominant themes of Primetime stories with a climate change thematisation [n=8]
Thematic categorisation of both the 23 Primetime items identified as potential carriers of a climate
change theme but which were found not to contain one, as well as the 8 items which did contain a
climate change theme, reveals that:
• Stories concerned primarily with energy/resources are the dominant category on Primetime,
despite being only a marginal category on Six One News. This category comprised the vast
majority of all stories- 25 in total, although climate change was only referred to in 5 of
these. The remaining 3 stories which referenced climate change were thematically
distributed over the topics national weather event, famine/poverty abroad and agriculture, with
one story apiece.
• The low volume of Primetime coverage identified is mirrored by a lack of thematic diversity.
There is a complete absence of climate change related stories on Primetime which are
thematically focused on either national or international politics, despite international
politics comprising the single largest category in the Six One News material. However, it is
apparent from the sample that many of the stories identified here are deeply political in a
broader sense. Of the 25 stories across the sample centrally concerned with resources, many
of these are framed as domestic disputes about resource-related issues. For example, the
17conflict frame is evident in the titles of no less than 7 stories: 'Rural concern over plans for
wind farms', 'Controversy over wind farm plans', 'Turf cutting controversy despite ban', 'No
resolution to Offaly power line dispute', 'Growing opposition to gas mining in the Lough Allen
basin', 'Row over plan to take water from Shannon', 'Documentary follows Corrib gas pipeline
dispute'. There is a marked dominance of national environmental issues in Primetime's
environmental coverage. Additionally, most of the segments identified contain one or more
references to climate change made in passing, rather than forming a key part of the report
or discussion at hand.
• International weather events did not feature at all on Primetime over the 3 year period.
Significant silences
In a further piece of analysis, all stories from Six One News, Primetime and RTÉ News Online text
articles with reference to climate change were collected over the 16 month period January 1 2012-
April 30 2013. An online search for climate change related news from other news outlets was
conducted over the same period, with the goal of comparing the extent of RTÉ coverage with the
range of news found elsewhere.
From this list, 30 major stories were identified that were entirely absent from Six One News,
Primetime and RTÉ News Online over the period examined.
The list, which is non-exhaustive and whose purpose is simply to demonstrate the breadth of
climate change related news covered by other outlets, involves stories that concern international
reports on climate, secret lobbying by business interests to prevent global action on climate change,
international political negotiations on climate change, national reports, and events in the national
(Irish) political sphere on climate change. The list, along with the original sources, is contained in
Appendix C at the end of this document. The absence of these 30 topics on the RTÉ programming
analysed constitutes a series of significant silences that reflect major gaps in coverage.
Methodological note: It is possible that in some cases RTÉ may have covered stories which are marked here as
not covered. The methodology used in this report only includes RTÉ content which refers to climate change
or global warming.
18Research Conclusions
• Overall, we consider climate change related coverage volumes on the RTÉ programmes and
platforms examined over the period analysed to be very low. Six One News and Primetime
coverage on the topic of climate change over the periods analysed was found to be
infrequent, sporadic and clustered around a small number of topical areas.
• A steep decline in RTÉ News Online coverage was noted in the year October 2010- October
2011 compared to the preceding 12 month period. It is worth noting that since December
2010, RTÉ has not had an Environment Correspondent. The sharp decline in online text
news articles with references to climate change may be linked to the lack of a dedicated
correspondent, but as the Six One News analysis covers a period following Paul
Cunningham's departure from this role, we cannot definitively draw this link with respect
to Six One News output other than to say that since Cunningham's departure, coverage
volumes have been very low.
• The prominence of climate change coverage is uneven. Some events were accorded
significant coverage while others, in particular national and international politically-
themed climate change issues such as global climate negotiations, were increasingly
marginalised on Six One News and entirely absent from Primetime. Additionally, many
significant stories relating to climate change, established above in the alternative timeline
from other media sources, were not covered in any form on RTÉ content analysed here.
• Coverage of many topical areas on Six One News are very rarely linked with climate
change. For example, the vast majority of examined coverage on weather, agriculture, and
energy/resources topics make no reference to climate change.
• While Six One News stories referencing climate change were almost always internationally
rather than Ireland-focused, Primetime's coverage was overwhelmingly nationally-bound.
Significant differences in the topical agendas of Six One News and Primetime were observed
which suggest that news and current affairs may play a much less complementary role in
the overall coverage of topics than is often assumed. Primetime's lack of thematic and
spatial diversity in climate change coverage meant that a variety of other topics already
marginalised on television news were not expanded upon here.
• Although this research did not involve an analysis of the identities of those who speak in
relation to climate change or their characteristic positions in relation to it, it was
nonetheless noted that in none of the examined Six One News or Primetime segments was an
openly sceptical position in relation to the present scientific consensus on climate change
expressed. A background assumption of all coverage analysed was that climate change is
occurring.
19Appendices
Appendix A: List of Six One News stories with some climate change thematisation
All Six One News stories with at least one reference to climate change
No. URL Date
1 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2011/1010/3076783-suns- October 10 2011
emissions-may-result-in-cold-weather/
2 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2011/1125/3123410- November 25 2011
moneypoint-plant-tops-european-list/
3 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2011/1128/3125537- November 28 2011
global-warming-causing-conflict-in-africa/
4 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2011/1210/3137631- December 10 2011
climate-change-talks-may-not-produce-treaty
5 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2011/1211/3138282- December 11 2011
climate-change-deal-reached/
6 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2011/1221/3148634- December 21 2011
emissions-ruling-set-to-increase-air-fares/
7 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2012/0530/3303097-met- May 30 2012
eireann-increases-average-climate-values/
8 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2012/0620/3323540- June 20 2012
farmers-in-kenya-struggling-with-effects-of-climate-
change/
9 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2012/0621/3324687- June 21 2012
kenyan-agriculture-facing-labour-shortage/
10 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2012/0622/3325810- June 22 2012
earth-summit-criticised-over-goal-failures/
11 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2012/0725/3352288- July 25 2012
concern-as-nasa-reveals-unprecedented-melting-of-
greenland-ice-sheet/
2012 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2012/0920/3397391- September 20 2012
greatest-melting-of-arctic-sea-ice-since-records-began/
13 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2012/1002/3406335- Oct 2 2012
great-barrier-reef-halves-in-size-in-three-decades/
14 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2012/1126/3442030-un- Nov 26 2012
climate-talks-in-qatar/
15 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2012/1208/3449387- Dec 8 2012
kyoto-protocol-extended-by-eight-years/
[Note: This is from 9 News, Not Six One News]
16 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2013/0215/3487621- Feb 15 2012
climate-change-conference-held-in-the-burren/
17 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2013/0415/3518658- April 15 2012
changing-climate-has-devastated-agricultural-
economy-in-malawi/
18 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2013/0415/3518675- April 15 2012
frank-rijsberman-discusses-conference-on-climate-
change-and-hunger/
19 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2013/0415/3518689-govt- April 15 2012
to-give-21m-to-world-food-programme/
20 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2013/0416/3519228- April 16 2012
former-us-vice-president-al-gore-addresses-conference-
on-climate-change/
21 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2013/0507/3529480- May 7 2013
ireland-playing-part-in-project-to-save-redwood-trees/
22 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2013/0604/3543258- June 4 2013
spring-weather-coldest-in-62-years/
23 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2013/0625/3553386-govt- June 25 2013
prepares-to-award-water-meter-contracts/
24 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2013/0812/20420403- August 12 2013
leading-british-scientist-calls-for-greater-research-into-
21nuclear-fusion/
25 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2013/0920/20441255- September 20 2013
russia-accuses-greenpeace-of-aggressive-and-
provocative-behaviour/
26 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2013/0926/20444397-the- September 26 2013
issues-surrounding-wind-turbines/
27 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2013/0927/20445127-95- September 27 2013
certainty-humans-to-blame-for-global-warming/
28 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2013/0927/20445128- September 27 2013
environmental-campaigners-want-govt-action-on-
global-warming/
29 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2013/0927/20445129- September 27 2013
steps-taken-to-minimise-errors-in-climate-report/
30 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2013/0927/20445136- September 27 2013
interview-ucds-ray-bates/
Appendix B: List of Primetime segments with some climate change thematisation
All Primetime segments with at least one reference to climate change
No. URL Date
1 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2011/0818/3029468-row- August 18 2011
over-plan-to-take-water-from-shannon/
2 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2011/0818/3029466- August 18 2011
project-to-add-to-dublin-supply-will-take-years/
3 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2012/0628/3331008- June 28 2012
heavy-floods-hit-cork-and-
4 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2012/0823/3374957- August 23 2012
irelands-overreliance-on-fossil-fuels/
225 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2013/0214/3487263- February 14 2013
irrational-fears-holding-back-nuclear-power-solutions/
6 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2013/0415/3518832- April 15 2013
developing-world-fights-effects-of-/
7 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2013/0527/3539613- May 27 2013
fodder-crisis-continues-as-wet-weather-persists/
8 http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2013/0923/20442164- September 23 2013
panel-and-audience-discussion-on-wind-farm-
proposals/
Note: Both segments from 2012 (Nos. 1 and 2) took place on the same programme on the same topic. They
are shown as separate segments because that is how they are displayed on the RTÉ programme website.
Appendix C: Significant silences: list of climate change related topics not covered on the RTÉ programmes
and platforms analysed
International politics
The low amounts of coverage afforded to the centrepiece of global political negotiations on climate
change action at the annual UN COP events has already been noted above. However, a variety of
other events went uncovered on the RTÉ outlets studied, including two rounds of significant talks
in Bonn in 2012 and 2013 and the failure to reform the EU emissions trading scheme.
May 2012
Source: The Guardian
Bonn talks, intended to develop a timetable for agreeing the news treaty and finalise details for
how the Kyoto extension will work, ends in discord and disappointment.
'Bonn climate talks end in discord and disappointment'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/25/bonn-climate-talks-end-disappointment
23April 2013
Source: The Guardian
'MEPs reject key reform of emissions trading scheme'
"The EU's flagship scheme for cutting carbon emissions suffered one of the most serious setbacks
in its chequered history on Tuesday, when MEPs voted against a proposal to shore up the price of
carbon in the emissions trading scheme."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/apr/16/meps-reject-reform-emissions-trading
April 2013
Source: eu2013.ie:
'Climate change and green economy focus of EU Environment Ministers meeting in Dublin'
"Next week, the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Phil Hogan
TD, will host an Informal Meeting of EU Environment Ministers at Dublin Castle. During the
meeting Ministers will discuss a range of important environmental and climate issues as part of
the Irish Presidency agenda."
Press release before: http://www.eu2013.ie/news/news-items/20130421preenviinformalpr/
Press release after: http://eu2013.ie/news/news-items/20130323post-enviinformalpr/
April 2013
Source: Irish Times: 'EU commissioner warns time running out on moves to halt climate change'
"The world will not be able to feed an extra 2 billion people by 2050 if it continues to “throw away
30 to 50 per cent of the food we produce”, EU environment commissioner Janez Potocnik warned
in Dublin yesterday."
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/eu-commissioner-warns-time-running-out-on-
moves-to-halt-climate-change-1.1369994 [requires subscription]
April 2013
Source: Greenpeace
MEPs vote on long-term targets to reduce carbon emissions from vehicles:
http://www.greenpeace.org/eu-unit/en/News/2013/MEPs-bend-but-do-not-break-under-car-lobby-
pressure/
24April 2013
Source: Guardian: 'UN climate talks kick off in Bonn'
"The latest round of international climate change talks commenced today with the now perennial
warning about the need for greater urgency from governments as they battle to curb global
greenhouse gas emissions."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/apr/29/un-climate-talks-bonn
National politics
The low level of climate change coverage that was thematised primarily as covering the national
political arena has been noted earlier in this analysis. This may be partially due to the low level of
parliamentary activity in relation to climate change response. However, the most significant piece
of parliamentary activity, the publication of the Climate Change Bill heads, was not covered:
February 2013
Source: Government of Ireland
Climate Change Bill heads brought to cabinet and published.
http://www.environ.ie/en/Environment/Atmosphere/ClimateChange/DraftHeadsofClimateActiona
ndLowCarbonDevelopmentBill/
International reports and scientific data
Many major international reports relating to climate change during this period also went
uncovered. Some of these offered evidence of increasing volatility in climate, while others focused
on the impacts of climate change on food production and broader economic impacts, and still
others marked the passing of critical milestones regarding carbon dioxide concentrations in the
atmosphere.
March 2012
Source: UN IPCC
The IPCC released its Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to
Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX) on 28 March. The report assesses the evidence that
climate change has led to changes in climate extremes and the extent to which policies to avoid
25prepare for, respond to and recover from the risks of disaster can reduce the impact of such events.
[Report's Summary for Policymakers had previously been released on 18 November 2011]
http://ipcc-wg2.gov/SREX/images/uploads/IPCC_Press_Release_SREX.pdf
June 2012
Source: UN Environment Programme
GEO-5 Assessment Report released (United Nations Environment Programme Global
Environmental Outlook 5)
http://www.unep.org/geo/
September 2012
Source: Guardian: 'Climate change is already damaging global economy, report finds'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/sep/26/climate-change-damaging-global-economy
September 2012
Source: Guardian: 'UN warns of rising food costs after year's extreme weather'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/10/un-rising-food-costs-weather
October 2012
Source: Guardian: 'Food scarcity: the timebomb setting nation against nation'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2012/oct/14/food-climate-change-population-
water
November 2012
Source: Irish Times: 'Climate change to cause more extreme weather events in Europe, say scientists'
http://icarus.nuim.ie/news-events/climate-change-cause-more-extreme-weather-events-europe-say-
scientists
Based on report: http://www.eea.europa.eu/pressroom/publications/climate-impacts-and-
vulnerability-2012/
December 2012
Source:Irish Times: 'Carbon emission worsening, says expert'
26"Global carbon dioxide emissions are set to rise again this year to a new record of 35.6 billion
tonnes – 2.6 per cent higher than in 2011, according to the University of East Anglia’s Tyndall
Centre for Climate Change Research."
http://icarus.nuim.ie/news-events/carbon-emission-worsening-says-expert
December 2012
Source: European Space Agency: 'Snow cover hits record lows'
"Snow cover in Europe and Asia last summer was the lowest since satellite observations began 45
years ago.”
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/Snow_cover_hits_record_lows
December 2012
Source: Nature
Scientists discovered that the Western Antarctic ice sheet was warming twice as fast as it was
expected to, placing West Antarctica among the fastest warming regions on Earth.
Original study: http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n2/full/ngeo1671.html
January 2013
Source: Guardian: Nicholas Stern acknowledges he vastly underestimated climate change threat in
his original 2006 report at Davos:
'Nicholas Stern: 'I got it wrong on climate change – it's far, far worse'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/27/nicholas-stern-climate-change-davos
February 2013
Source: UK Independent newspaper: 'Green fatigue sets in: the world cools on global warming'
"Public concern about environmental issues including climate change has slumped to a 20-year
low since the financial crisis, a global study reveals."
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/green-fatigue-sets-in-the-world-
March 2013
Source: Guardian: 'Large rise in CO2 emissions sounds climate change alarm'
"Hopes for 'safe' temperature increase within 2C fade as Hawaii station documents second-greatest
emissions increase"
27http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/08/hawaii-climate-change-second-greatest-
annual-rise-emissions
March 2013
Source: Guardian: 'Environmental threats could push billions into extreme poverty, warns UN'
"UN's 2013 human development report urges action on climate change, deforestation and
pollution before it is too late."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2013/mar/14/environmental-threats-extreme-
poverty-un
Based on report:
http://hdr.undp.org/en/mediacentre/humandevelopmentreportpresskits/2013report/
March 2013
Source: Guardian: 'Scientists link frozen spring to dramatic Arctic sea ice loss'
"Climate scientists have linked the massive snowstorms and bitter spring weather now being
experienced across Britain and large parts of Europe and North America to the dramatic loss of
Arctic sea ice."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/25/frozen-spring-arctic-sea-ice-loss
Based on data: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2012/05/daily-image/
April 2013
Source: HuffPost Green: 'Summer Ice Melt In Antarctica Is At The Highest Point In 1,000 Years,
Researchers Say'
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/15/antarctica-summer-ice-melt-antarctic_n_3082750.html?
ref=topbar
Based on study:
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/ngeo1787.html
April 2013
Source: Guardian: 'Carbon bubble will plunge the world into another financial crisis – report'
"The financial crisis has shown what happens when risks accumulate unnoticed," said Lord
(Nicholas) Stern, a professor at the London School of Economics. He said the risk was "very big
indeed" and that almost all investors and regulators were failing to address it."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/apr/19/carbon-bubble-financial-crash- crisis
28Based on report: http://carbontracker.live.kiln.it/Unburnable-Carbon-2-Web-Version.pdf
April 2013
Source: Guardian: 'Global carbon dioxide levels set to pass 400ppm milestone'
"The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached 399.72 parts per million (ppm)
and is likely to pass the symbolically important 400ppm level for the first time in the next few
days."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/apr/29/global-carbon-dioxide-levels
National reports and scientific data
A variety of national reports concerning climate change also went unreported.
June 2012
Source: Department of the Environment, Community and Local Governments
Government launch of Our Sustainable Future, A Framework for Sustainable Development for Ireland
http://www.environ.ie/en/Environment/News/MainBody,30456,en.htm
June 2012
Source: Irish Times: 'Irish people are in world’s top 10 of worst polluters'
"The report, Towards Climate Justice: a Strategy Guide for the Community Sector in Responding to
Climate Change, suggests poorer sections of society will bear the burden of the effects of climate
change."
http://icarus.nuim.ie/news-events/irish-people-are-world-s-top-10-worst-polluters
December 2012
NESC Report on Climate Change- Ireland and the Climate Change Challenge
Report:
http://www.environ.ie/en/PublicationsDocuments/FileDownLoad,32467,en.pdf
April 2013
Source: The Guardian: Projections show Ireland will not meet its EU 2020 Greenhouse Gas
emissions targets:
29http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/apr/25/ireland-miss-eu-carbon-target
Also: http://www.epa.ie/newsandevents/news/name,51811,en.html
Clouding climate science
A number of newspaper investigations in 2012 and 2013 revealed the extent of efforts by wealthy
individuals and groups to fund thinktanks charged with undermining public confidence in climate
science.
February 2012
Source: The Guardian: Heartland Institute relies on millions in funding from carbon industry:
'Leak exposes how Heartland Institute works to undermine climate science'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/15/leak-exposes-heartland-institute-climate
January/February 2013
Source: UK Independent/Guardian newspapers discovers how billionaires are secretly funding
attacks on climate science:
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/exclusive-billionaires-secretly-fund-
attacks-on-climate-science-8466312.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/top-climate-scientist-denounces-billionaires-over-
funding-for-climatesceptic-organisations-8467665.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/feb/14/donors-trust-funding-climate- denial-
networks?CMP=twt_gu
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