The timeframe under examination in this research is January 2007 to March 2016. This period is chosen because it allows for the interrogation of Irish climate change coverage from several perspectives over a considerable period of time. In terms of research into Irish media coverage of environmental issues, the timeframe of this study is slightly
shorter than the 2000-2013 timeframe studied by McNally (2015) and the 1997-2012 period examined by Wagner and Payne (2015). However, it is longer than comparable single-country studies such as Bosch’s (2012) study of a single year of South African coverage. This research covers a similar timescale to several other influential studies, such as Yang (2010) (China, 2000-2007), Grundman and Scott (2014) (France, Germany, US, UK, 2000-2010), and Brossard et al (2004) (France, US 1987-1997). The timeframe covered by this research is 10 years, a period which permits the discovery of patterns and influences that might not be evident in research studying shorter periods.
It has been established that media coverage of climate change peaks during international conferences, the release of climate reports and at times of extreme weather (Schäfer et al., 2014). The timeframe chosen for this research includes the release of the Fourth (2007) and Fifth (2014) Assessment Reports (abbreviated to AR4 and AR5) of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and nine Conferences of the Parties (COPs) to the UN Framework Convention of Climate Change. This research, building on and broadening the work of Wagner and Payne (2015), will establish whether international norms and patterns of coverage are replicated in Ireland.
The IPCC Assessment Reports are published at intervals. For instance, regarding AR4, the report of Working Group I (concerned with the physical sciences) was published in March 2007. The report of Working Group II (concerned with impacts, adaptation and vulnerability) was published in September 2007, while Working Group III’s report (concerning mitigation of climate change) was published on May 2007 (summary for policymakers) and September 2007 (full report released online). Each Assessment Report is summarised finally into a Synthesis Report, which is published separately. The AR4
Synthesis Report was published in November 2007. In the case of AR5, the corresponding dates were: WGI (physical sciences) September 2013; WGII (impacts, adaptation and vulnerability) March 2014; WGIII (mitigation) April 2014; Synthesis Report November 2014. It has been argued that the staggering of the publication of the reports of the various working groups has affected media attention, with high coverage for the WG1 report, and progressively less coverage for subsequent WG reports. This arrangement may also contribute to disaster framing in the media as reporters concentrate on the findings related to the physical sciences, while narratives related to adaptation and mitigation strategies are relatively neglected (O’Neill et al. 2015). This project also investigates whether the tendency to foreground apocalyptic framings of climate change, while neglecting frames that emphasise the social and economic opportunities offered by adaptation strategies, is manifest in Irish coverage. This investigation builds on other scholarship, which has found that the disaster frame dominates coverage of IPCC reports (Painter 2014; E Nisbet et al. 2013) and that coverage decreases with the publication of each WG report (O’Neill et al. 2015).
The timeframe also encompasses other climate-related events, including the so-called Climategate controversy in which emails stolen from the University of East Anglia’s (UEA) Climatic Research Unit in November 2009 were published online. The release of the emails – which it was claimed showed that climate scientists were manipulating their data to promote the theory of anthropogenic climate change – coincided with preparations for the December 2009 COP in Copenhagen. This conference was expected to produce a binding global agreement to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. In the event, a less ambitious agreement was adopted. Subsequently, three separate investigations cleared the UEA scientists of any wrongdoing. Nevertheless, the controversy was seized upon by
climate sceptics (Hoffman, 2011). The Climategate controversy may have been a factor, along with the much-anticipated COP 15 in Copenhagen, in producing a global peak in media coverage of climate change towards the end of 2009. In fact, levels of coverage have not generally attained 2009 levels in the interim (Schäfer et al., 2014; McAllister et al., 2017). Several reasons have been suggested for this decline: the post-Copenhagen frustration of those involved in the climate governance process, journalists and other actors (Lyytimäki, 2011), the global financial crisis (Djerf-Pierre, 2012a), the decline in the financial resources available to newsrooms (Boykoff and Yulsman, 2013) and the subsequent decline in the number of specialist environmental correspondents available to cover and advocate for climate change in newsrooms (Hansen, 2011). The “crowding out” effect identified by Monica Djerf-Pierre (2012), whereby news of wars and financial crises reduce media attention for environmental issues, seems the most powerful of these factors, with post-Copenhagen dejection and lack of newsroom resources contributory but secondary factors. In addition to investigating whether a post-2009 decline in coverage is evident in Ireland, this research aims to interrogate the nature of the Irish media’s coverage of climate change conferences and other climate-related events.
Initially, the proposed timeframe for this research was 2007-2014, with the beginning and end dates selected to coincide with the release of the fourth and fifth IPCC Assessment Reports. However, it was decided to extend the time period to include two other significant events: the publication in June 2015 of a Papal encyclical on climate change (Franscis, 2015) and the 21st Conference of the Parties in Paris in December 2015. The Paris COP produced the Paris Agreement, a global accord which committed all signatories to climate action (Obergassel et al., 2016) and led to increased media coverage, especially in Europe (McAllister et al., 2017). Previous research has shown
that the Papal encyclical was widely covered in the Irish media and that a moral or ethical frame dominated the coverage (Robbins, 2016). This research aims to examine both events in the context of longer-term media coverage of climate change in Ireland.
In addition to considering the influence of international events such as climate reports and conferences, this project analyses the media coverage of events and developments more locally focused. In particular, it focuses on the impact on media coverage of climate change of two events:
(i) the entry for the first time of the Green Party/Comhantas Glas into government following the general election of May 2007, and
(ii) the global financial crisis of 2008, which led to the imposition of a financial rescue package for Ireland implemented by the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund (known as “the troika”).
It has been argued that the presence of a Green party in government has a positive effect on a country’s progress towards achieving emissions-reduction targets (Jensen and Spoon, 2011), and indeed the Irish Green Party instituted several initiatives aimed at reducing emissions from the energy, transport and housing sectors (Pape et al., 2011). The Irish Greens have been accused of propounding an eco-modernist approach to combating climate change, “that is, by producing and reproducing the argument that that the best way to address climate change was through a combination of the use of market incentives and technological advances” (Wagner and Payne, 2015, p. 21). However, it has not been established whether the presence of the Green Party affected the extent or nature of media coverage of climate change. The methodology of this research, including interviews with the two Green Party ministers in government from 2007 to 2011, will
contribute to a deeper understanding of media coverage of climate change during this period.
In November, 2010 Ireland availed of a €67.5bn financial support programme. The funds were used primarily to support the country’s banks, which had become over-extended in the property market. The Irish media’s role in reporting both the property market boom and the subsequent bailout have been examined (Mercille, 2014a, 2014b); however, the effect of the “boom and bust” on media coverage of climate change in Ireland remains unexamined. There is considerable evidence to suggest that news of financial matters and armed conflict “crowd out” coverage of environmental issues (Djerf-Pierre, 2012a; Ungar, 2014). The timeframe chosen for this research allows for an investigation as to whether this “crowding out effect” occurred in Ireland also.