Questioning the Doubt: Climate Skepticism in German Newspaper Reporting on COP17

Abstract

Despite numerous international studies on climate change, there is skepticism in the media and it is prominent in public opinion polls. This article focuses in particular on the framing of climate skepticism in Germany, a country that, in the main, is said to be convinced about climate change. By using a two-step content analysis of 379 news articles (print and online) we demonstrate that climate skepticism is present in German news media reporting on the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Durban, South Africa. We identify two overarching skepticism frames: skepticism about the phenomenon of climate change and about climate science. Our analysis further shows that climate skepticism is not exclusive to a specific political ideology, even though a newspaper's ideology may influence how skeptical frames are being evaluated.

Youth climate activists meet environmental governance: ageist depictions of the FFF movement and Greta Thunberg in German newspaper coverage

“…Whitmarsh (2011 adds that climate sceptics are more often men than women. In the German public setting, scholars have identified several climate skeptical German media reports and PR works of public institutions, independent of political ideology (Kaiser and Rhomberg 2016;Rahmstorf 2004). Rhomberg et al (2018) find that in Germany speakers communicate, and are aware of, the necessity of climate action, yet, speakers use the terms target and limit interchangeably, thereby blurring the meaning of the keywords in the discourse.…”

Constructing an illusion of scientific uncertainty? Framing climate change in German and British print media

“…Additionally our findings show that the amount of articles containing sceptical voices increased in both countries, compared to former studies (Kaiser & Rhomberg, 2015;Painter & Gavin, 2015). But the type of skepticism differs: Whereas scepticism in the German press coverage focusses more on the positive impacts of climate change, in the United Kingdom trend and attribution scepticism is far more widespread.…”

“…They even revealed a significant increase of articles containing uncontested sceptical voices. Likewise Kaiser and Rhomberg (2015) found for Germany that 15 percent of the articles covering the Durban climate summit in 2011 contained sceptical arguments. Taken together, the former certainty with which British and German media used to present human contributions to global warming and its negative impacts seems to decline, since the number of climate-sceptical voices in the media has increased in both countries.…”

“…Most of the current studies that have investigated media coverage of climate change have focussed on the quantity of sceptical arguments (e.g. Grundmann & Scott, 2014;Kaiser & Rhomberg, 2015;Painter & Ashe, 2012;Painter & Gavin, 2015), but they have not tried to explain how scientific uncertainty is constructed.…”

Being Skeptical? Exploring Far-Right Climate-Change Communication in Germany

“…This typology has been expanded by van Rensburg (2015; see also Capstick & Pidgeon, 2014), who speaks of evidence skepticism (covering Rahmstorf's three types), process skepticism (concerning knowledge generation and decision-making processes) and response skepticism (concerning policy responses) -a differentiation to which we will return in our analysis. The link between climate-change skepticism(s) and conservatism has been illustrated concerning, e.g., Australia, Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States (Anshelm & Hultman, 2014;Campbell & Kay, 2014;Capstick & Pidgeon, 2014;Carvalho, 2007;Jaspal, Nerlich & van Vuuren, 2016;Kaiser & Rhomberg, 2016;McCright & Dunlap, 2011;Painter & Gavin, 2016). At times, elements present in far-right climate-change communication resemble conservative contributions.…”