Welcome to the second Climate Edition of the OneOcean briefing and the last briefing of 2020. This briefing analyses the narratives, themes and trends around both the climate and the ocean as topics in English language international media, and the intersection between the two. The briefing also includes social media analysis of the UNFCCC Ocean and Climate Dialogue.
The full OneOcean Response Room weekly briefing and supporting analysis is available to Flotilla members. If your organisation is interested in receiving this briefing, is not a member and interested in joining, please email travis@oceanprotect.org
Summary of findings
Overall, the high volume of articles on climate issues in the past two weeks, and the breadth of coverage and voices on the matter, continue to demonstrate climate’s position as cross-cutting in multiple areas of public discourse.
At a geopolitical level, there was widespread coverage of national policies on climate action and a particular focus on John Kerry’s nomination as climate czar in the USA. At sectoral level, there was analysis of corporations and financial institutions and their efforts to mitigate or reduce the impacts of climate breakdown.
A spectrum of other voices contributed to general climate crisis coverage, including firefighters, musicians, Indigenous communities and youth. Coverage shows the impacts of climate breakdown to be far-reaching, but also the breadth and diversity of people speaking out in favour of planetary protection to be far-reaching too.
At ocean level, coverage continues to be low in volume and more fragmented in topic. While climate breakdown is positioned as a key pillar facing the world today, the ocean continues to appear to be a side-lined issue. Coverage on plastics remained the strongest thread, and there was a positive level of coverage of the new Ocean Panel report, but the penetration of the ocean into other sectors is low and the range of voices on the issue remains narrow.
A special focus on social media coverage around the UNFCCC Ocean and Climate Dialogue indicated that social media engagement around the event was relatively low. Most content was from organisations and individuals platforming their participation in the event.