Analysis: How UK newspapers changed their minds about climate change
The past decade has seen a significant shift in the attitudes of UK newspapers towards climate change, according to new analysis undertaken by Carbon Brief.
Drawing from a database of more than 1,300 editorials, which are the formal “voice” of a newspaper, this work examines how the language used to describe human-caused climate change, as well as renewables, fracking and nuclear power, has shifted since 2011.
The analysis shows that the number of editorials calling for more action to tackle climate change has quadrupled in the space of three years, mirroring a wider increase in news coverage of the topic. Nowhere has this shift been more apparent than among the nation’s right-leaning newspapers.
Between 2011-2016 editorial articles in publications such as the Sun, the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail generally opposed action to tackle climate change, citing “unreliable” science and “expensive” environmental policies.
But in recent years – a period that has seen the Conservative government commit to net-zero emissions by 2050 and host the COP26 climate summit – right-leaning publications have more readily embraced some efforts to cut emissions.
As a result, these newspapers are now far more likely to support climate action in their editorial pages than oppose it.
In 2011, for example, right-leaning newspapers published five editorials arguing for less climate action and just one calling for more – a ratio of 5:1 against. By 2021, their seven editorials calling for less action were heavily outweighed by 65 supporting climate policy – a ratio of 1:9 in favour.