A new report by the  Media and Climate Change Observatory (MeCCO) at the University of Colorado Boulder, reveals that 2021 saw the highest amount of climate change coverage since the observatory started tracking coverage 18 years ago. 

According to MeCCO, which monitors newspaper, radio, and TV reporting in 59 countries, climate coverage has increased by 90 percent.  

Media and Climate Change Observatory (MeCCO) findings reveal that 2021 media attention increased 55% from 2020 across the world. This was a bit of a boost from 2020 that saw coverage 23% lower than 2019. 

"Compared to 2019, coverage was up 19%. 2021 coverage was more than double the amount of coverage in each 2016, 2017 and 2018, and 90% up from 2015. In fact, 2021 was the year with the highest amount of coverage of climate change or global warming since our global-level monitoring began 18 years ago in 2004," the report says. 

A report also says that,  October and November in 2021 marked the highest levels of global coverage of climate change or global warming among the sources tracked by Media and Climate Change Observatory (MeCCO) team.

MeCCO observes coverage of climate change or global warming reached all-time highs in six countries including Canadian print media coverage, Russian print media coverage, United Kingdom (UK) print media coverage, Finnish print media coverage, United States (US) print media coverage and US television coverage.

In six of the seven regions MeCCO monitored African print media coverage, Asian print media coverage, European print media coverage, Latin America print media coverage, Middle East print media coverage, and North American print media coverage.

MeCCO detected stories that media paid attention to in terms of key events, issues, moments, movements, and developments through political, scientific, cultural, ecological, and meteorological themes that transpired during the year 2021.  The month-to-month explainers or summaries were compiled by MeCCO team and posted. 

"In aggregate, this is our fifth annual review of coverage," the report said.

Media coverage of climate change or global warming in January 2021  increase 7% from December 2020. But that figure (January 2021) remains 28% lower than coverage in January 2020. According to MeCCO, the trends were consistent across monitoring of international wires services, where coverage increased 14% from the previous month but was still 39% lower than a year previous. 

"Elsewhere, media coverage of climate change or global warming decreased across global radio (-9%) in January 2021 from the previous month of December, and was 15% lower than levels in January 2020."

Within the same period, newspaper attention to climate change or global warming increased in eight of the 13 countries MeCCO monitors monthly.

"Australian coverage was up 5%, Canadian coverage was up 9%, German coverage was up 19%, New Zealand coverage was up 9%, Norwegian coverage increased 8%, Spanish coverage was up 15%, United Kingdom (UK) coverage increased 38% and United States (US) coverage was up 16%. Japanese coverage held steady compared to December 2020 while lower levels of media attention were detected in Denmark (down 11%), India (down 9%), Russia (down 22%) and Sweden (down 43%)."