Defining climate change

Global warming has been brought to public attention since 1988 when NASA scientists found that 99 percent of global warming is caused by human activities (Jaspal and Nerlich 2014). The second assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in December 1995 affirmed anthropogenic climate change. Nevertheless, there was much criticism during the 1980s-90s which argued that a large amount of climate change is probably caused naturally (Carvalho 2007). Later, the scientific consensus of anthropogenic global warming was reached in 2007 when the IPCC announced the fourth report (Castree 2010). The IPCC defines climate change as:

a change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g. using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties, and this persists for an

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extended period, typically decades or longer. It refers to any change in climate overtime, whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2015)

Also, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) defined climate change as “a change of climate that is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and that is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.” (United Nation n.d.).

According to two definitions, climate change concerns consequences from human activities or natural phenomenon that induce long term effects in the patterns of global temperature.

The science of climate change indicates that climate change is a large-scale, long-term shift in the pattern of weather or average temperatures of the planet (Met Office n.d.). This shifting of climate, which is the cycle of tropical climates and ice ages over 4.5 billion years, has endangered many species. Therefore, climate change can be regarded as a natural state of the earth’s climate system. Nevertheless, the fact that the recent changing of average temperatures of the planet is stimulated by anthropogenic climate change has been confirmed by scientists.

Greenhouse gas, which has increased dramatically since 1750 when the Industrial Revolution started, is a major contributor to climate change (see IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007). Fossil fuels have been used to generate economic growth in western countries since steam engine technology was invented. While it is the backbone of global industry growth, fossil fuels emit their byproduct, CO2 gas. Emission causes a rise in temperatures which brings natural catastrophes all over the world, for example, endangering species, pandemics, floods and further dangers that are unable to be forecast.

Although the global community drives collaborative negotiation to anticipate climate change, it seems that reaching the international consensus of greenhouse gas mitigation is easier said than done. Since 2005, when the Kyoto protocol¹ was activated, until the success

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The Kyoto protocol was an international agreement that engaged 192 countries in ratifying the protocol. However,

two powerful countries, The United State of America and China, neglected to comply with the convention. The US

government claimed that to slow down the investment of the US, the world economy, which also depends on the US,

would be affected. Nevertheless, the Kyoto Protocol fundamentally contributes to global cooperation in climate

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of the Paris agreement in 2015, international efforts to reduce carbon emissions have been obstructed by disputes between developed countries and developing countries to justify emission rates. The Paris agreement, for example, is a recent international convention which engages nation members to join the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to reporting annual emission reduction. Although the convention is ratified, based on a consensus agreement of nation members, the mission to “keep the rising of global temperature this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius” (United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change 2015) is challenged. It seems that the withdrawal of the USA, which is ranked as the second CO2 global emitter, leads to uncertainty about global collaboration to anticipate climate change.

Regarding this context, the climate change issue is neither merely a scientific nor an environmental problem. On the contrary, scholars (Beck 1992; Strydom 2002; Giddens 2011) approach climate change as a political matter that combines a wide range of controversial issues in modern society, namely, fundamental investment, economic policy, human security, and morality. For example, the application of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which is an apparently significant scheme to reduce greenhouse gas globally, integrates environmental hazards and financial approaches. On the one hand, the mechanism has stimulated investments of 59 billion USD since it was first established but the investment would drop dramatically after the expiration of the Kyoto Protocol. On the other hand, CDM is the mechanism to allow developed countries to earn licenses to pollute rather than encourage their emission reduction (Giddens 2011). In this sense, climate change anticipation is a complicated matter beyond simple science literacy or environmental education.

In terms of public perceptions of climate change, findings illustrate that the climate

change remedy. One significant scheme that enacted international collaboration to mitigate climate change is the

Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The countries under the Kyoto Protocol (Annex B), which is committed to

emission-reduction or emission-limitation agreement, are allowed to earn the carbon credits by implementing the

emission-reduction project in developing countries. These carbon credits (CER - certified emission reduction) are

equivalent to one ton of CO2. The credit is utilised in the carbon emission target subsidy as the country complies

with the Kyoto Protocol (UNFCCC n.d.).

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change issue remains complex to understand by the public, although there is an increase in climate change education around the world. Research (Reynolds et al. 2010) shows that American people have a better understanding of a broad range of causes and effects of climate change, compared to a previous study in 1992 which showed that people tended to conflate climate change with stratospheric ozone depletion. However, the experiment (Egan and Mulin 2012) shows that for each three degrees that local temperatures rise above normal, Americans become one percentage point more likely to agree that there is solid evidence that the earth is getting warmer. The study (Albertson 2015) confirmed that knowledge about climate change is also a significant factor to increase the attitude of Americans to take action on climate change when they receive a particular persuasive message.

Accordingly, public perception to climate change is beyond simple scientific knowledge or education, and it is determined by factors that vary across the context.

Findings (Zia and Todd 2010; Reynolds et al. 2010) indicate the significance of ideology, social, and cultural combinations for increasing public understanding of climate change be-cause climate change is perceived differently in different societies and cultures. Therefore, the focal point of this study is to examine climate change representation in news media which operates in a distinct national culture, namely that of Thailand.