Reporting on Nature's Deadline: The political, diplomatic, business and policy conflicts around global climate change.
Conference Report
By Jonathan Talbot, Class of '04
On issues of climate change the United States
government is out of step not only with other nations
but with many of its own states, cities and universities.
That message was conveyed by journalists, climate
researchers,
diplomats and industry representatives
at a January 13 conference, titled Reporting on
Nature's Deadline: The political, diplomatic,
business and policy conflicts around global
climate change and sponsored by The Knight
Center for Science and Medical Journalism, the Tufts
Climate Initiative and the New England Science
Center Collaborative.
In several discussions, panelists presented foreign perceptions of the United States on the issue of climate change and discussed differences in future business regulations between the U.S. and other nations. They also demonstrated that despite federal reticence to act, states, cities and universities have begun working to comply with the Kyoto treaty, which the United States has yet to sign.
People outside the United States view our government with increasing exasperation as it isolates itself through inaction and withdrawal from international efforts, according to a morning panel. While some European nations struggle to meet their Kyoto commitments, many in those countries so resent the U.S.'s wasteful energy habits and related foreign policy that "there is great glee at the idea of suing the U.S. or its corporations," said William Moomaw, professor of international environmental policy at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Moomaw, recounting recent European meetings with environmental officials to discuss climate change, described his "painful experiences" in which the United States was referred to as an "outlaw" nation on the issue. Kilaparti Ramakrishna, deputy director of Woods Hole Research Center, reported that many foreigners believe that the current administration disrespects international law. Many hope, he said, that the next administration will establish dramatically different climate change policies.
The U.S. government loses credibility arguing that the nation cannot afford to meet the Kyoto standards, Ramakrishna said. Using the administration's own numbers, he showed that several developing nations spend a greater percentage of their gross domestic product on merely servicing their foreign debt than the U.S. would need to spend to meet Kyoto standards. Yet those poor nations also manage to budget efforts to mitigate climate change. It's almost as though "the U.S. thinks there is no one outside the U.S. who knows how to count," he said.
While the federal government may have fallen into disfavor, at least two conference panelists mentioned the enthusiasm foreigners hold for American civil efforts on climate change. Sarah Hammond Creighton, project manager of the Tufts Climate Initiative and Susan F. Tierney, senior vice-president of the consulting firm Lexecon Inc., discussed the ongoing efforts of regions, states, cities and universities to reduce their emissions, even as the federal government calls for more study and only voluntary action. Tierney said that incentives for early public action on climate change include high energy costs and the health effects of air pollution. She suggested that local efforts focus on electricity generation, building codes, standards for appliances, and vehicle emissions. Tierney said that even local initiatives could have effects on a wider geographic area, as they pressure businesses to push for standards that cover larger areas.
The division among nations is mirrored in industry. Speakers pointed out that while forward-thinking automobile companies such as Toyota have accepted climate change and are moving ahead with hybrid cars and other fuel-efficient technologies, American auto makers have lagged. Experts in the fossil fuel industry pointed to some companies, such as Britain-based BP, that have begun to move beyond fossil fuels while their American counterparts resist change. Robert Greco, director of global climate change for the American Petroleum Institute, explained that reluctance by saying that it would be a mistake to change to renewable energy systems without maintaining more conventional, polluting technologies as backup. He also said that any treaty that does not control emissions in developing nations will fail to reduce global emissions.
In a similar divide, European insurance and reinsurance industries accept that climate change will affect their industries while U.S. insurance companies seem to follow a philosophy of "hear no evil, see no evil," said Christopher Walker, managing director for greenhouse gas risk solutions for the Swiss Reinsurance Company.
Several panelists touched on issues of wealth and climate change. Veteran journalist and author-turned-activist Ross Gelbspan lamented what he described as economics-driven changes at newspapers that have eroded the line between news and advertising divisions. Such change threatened the media's role as an "early warning system for the public," he said. Harvard University oceanographer James McCarthy noted that nations likely to suffer most from global warming — the poor nations — are also least able to cope with such change. He warned that although climate change may increase food production in the wealthy nations of the temperate zone, it will worsen the situation in poor, arid countries. Global food production will decrease overall, he said, as the temperature rises. Citing increases in vector-borne diseases in Africa, Central America, and Asia, Dr. Paul Epstein, associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, said that climate change has already caused the "emergence, resurgence and redistribution of infectious diseases," which disproportionately affect poorer countries with weak public health infrastructures.
Panelists made several recommendations to improve the press's coverage of climate change stories. Referring to climate change as both"the biggest story of at least this century" and the most underreported, Gelbspan suggested that journalists reconsider the traditional notion of balance that gives equal weight to opposing sides. Such journalism is misleading, he said, when it gives equal weight to the opinions of a few skeptics and that of the thousands of scientists who have concluded that global climate change has begun. Moomaw suggested that European viewpoints could provide important perspective for American readers. Steve Curwood, host of NPR's Living on Earth, suggested running many short pieces to provide context. Peter Spotts of the Christian Science Monitor warned that readers tire of seeing oft-repeated bad news. Fortunately, he said, thorough coverage will include solutions and improvements people want anyway, such as cleaner air. He implored journalists to embrace both original reports and uncertainty in their writing. American news consumers are sophisticated, he said — more so than journalists sometimes assume.
