Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Climate negotiations ? What climate negotiations? The Italian press ignores COP21



Can you spot the box about the climate negotiation in Paris in the site of the Italian newspaper "Quotidiano.Net"? It takes a certain effort, but it is right there, the third in the right column, just below the news about soccer and just above the news about a pornstar.

In the image on the right, you can have a better idea of the prominence given by QN to the Paris conference (look at the text circled in red). And QN, a major coalition of newspapers in Italy, is not alone in ignoring the COP21. Here are the results of a brief survey that I made on the web pages of the major Italian dailies today.

La Repubblica. "repubblica.it" (the main "progressive," so to say, newspaper in Italy). The climate negotiations are the n. 7 in the list of the news. The first is terrorism, then there is the Pope, the need of economic growth, something about AIDS, scandals in Rome, etc.

La Stampa. "lastampa.it"  Mainstream "moderate" newspaper: the climate negotiations are n. 12.

Il Corriere. "ilcorriere.it". Moderate newspaper. One brief paragraph mentions Hollande's declarations on terrorism and climate. It is n. 3 in the list.

Il Giornale "Ilgiornale.it" - (extreme right): no mention of the climate negotiations

Libero. "Liberoquotidiano.it" (extreme xenophobic right) - no mention of the climate negotiations.


In terms of communication success, this is not an auspicious start for the climate negotiations. Better said, it is a complete flop, at least in Italy.



Who

Ugo Bardi is a member of the Club of Rome, faculty member of the University of Florence, and the author of "Extracted" (Chelsea Green 2014), "The Seneca Effect" (Springer 2017), and Before the Collapse (Springer 2019)