ASIA: Media, Accidental Environmentalists?

By Lynette Lee Corporal

BANGKOK, Apr 6 (AMF) - As the first round of climate change talks get under way in Bonn, Germany, Asia’s media are taking stock of how environment issues have taken hold not only of the public, but also on the Fourth Estate itself.

   Ongoing until Apr. 8, the Bonn climate conference is the first of a series of events that will culminate in the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark on Dec. 1-18, 2009.

   Reacting to a review of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007, the fourth in a series of reports assessing climate change, Asian journalists during a media conference here on Mar. 27 agreed that there is a need to step up efforts in reporting on the issue.

   Saying that climate change is "not about science but about people's lives", Global Climate Change campaign lead Bert Marten of the charity organisation Oxfam UK urged the media to continue reporting on the issue.

   "We've moved away from positions of scepticism but there is a lot of disinformation and lack of awareness  (about the issue) out there still," Marten said at a media conference here in March.

   "Climate change is probably the biggest and most all-enveloping crisis we've ever faced in history. All other crises, such as wars and manmade disasters, would perhaps leave some people somewhere safe but climate change affects all of us," Indian environmental journalist Darryl D'Monte said at the same conference.

   Citing IPCC statistics, Marten said that an increase of two degrees in global warming temperatures "is the absolute maximum we can afford... beyond that is  what you'd call a 'catastrophic climate change'. The IPCC report says that average global surface temperature has risen by about 0.74 degrees Centigrade in the last 100 years.

   Global warming is caused by solar energy that gets trapped in the atmosphere because of increasing greenhouse gas levels. Studies have said that it is the poorest developing countries that will be hit the earliest and the hardest.

   Complicating the matter is the slow progress in the concrete implementation of mitigation at the regional and national levels, as well as the present economic crisis plaguing the region.

   According to 'Nepali Times' editor Kunda Dixit, there is a way to get people's attention and make them care about the environment. "It might be a better idea for journalists to say that going for environment-friendly energy options makes economic sense, not just ecological sense," he said.

   This is especially true when it comes to how media institutions themselves are dealing with the environmental crisis. Many journalists think that it could simply be a case of media organisations being 'accidental environmentalists'.

   When asked whether media institutions are practicing what they preach, Kishor Pradhan, deputy director of the Kathmandu-based Panos South Asia, said that the reality is "quite different from what (media) say or write" and that it is more for practical reasons rather than environmental that the media make efforts to 'go green'.

   "It's a dilemma because we have to look at things practically. In our Nepal office, for instance, the electricity goes off from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., so we have to buy diesel to power the generator. There's a lot of noise and air pollution, I know, but that's the reality," said Pradhan, adding that his office as a whole does try to reduce waste.

   Burmese journalist Kyaw Min Swe shares Pradhan's views. "My office's attempts at recycling paper, for instance, is not only due to environmental awareness but also in order to reduce overall costs due to the economic crisis," said Kyaw Min Swe, who works for 'Living Colour Magazine' and 'The Voice Weekly' in Yangon.    

   Sri Lankan journalist Dilrukshi Handunnetti, 'The Sunday Leader' Investigations Desk editor, says that so far she is only seeing interested and environmentally committed individuals doing their part.  "I honestly don't think media organisations are very concerned about the environment as I haven't seen any active campaign on the environment among these institutions. I am not seeing it right now," Handunnetti told AMF.

   D'Monte also urged the media to look at oft-ignored angles to the environment story, including the little signs along the way.

   For instance, he said, the media "have not so far been very conscious of the fact that there are 500 million to 600 million people who depend on the Himalayas for water".  He also said there was a need to look deeper into the so-called 'Asian Brown Cloud', which consists of dust, soot, and suspended particles of matter that hangs over the region.  In 2001, the United Nations Environment Programme released a study on the said phenomenon, "which worsened the whole impact of climate change and raised local temperatures over South Asia".

   Scientists like Laos-based Sean Foley of EcoAsia Ltd, a group that promotes economic development based on sustainable use of natural resources, would like to see stories give information on how people can adapt to the impact of climate change.

   "We can argue all we like about who is responsible for (greenhouse gas) emissions, but people can't cope on what's going to come. (We need) to get people to shift their focus away from mitigation to adaptation," he told the media conference. At the moment, "little money” is going to adaptation projects in the region, including India, Nepal and Bangladesh.

   Marten agrees: "The more we delay, the more global warming (we'll experience), the more costly it is," he said. (END/IPS/AP/LLC/JS/030409)