After a three or four degree increase in planetary temperature, human life on our earth will become almost impossible!  We are currently on a trajectory to have a hotter planet by about 2 degrees within this century. Such an increase will bring incredible challenges to societies and the human condition.

These are the frightening statements of climate change activists and scientists.

In 2019 the Cooperative and Policy Alternative Centre (COPAC), based at Wits University, staged a protest outside the offices of Tiso Blackstar (now Arena Holdings), the Press Council and SANEF to highlight the importance of climate change and the need for a much stronger emphasis from the media on this critical topic. COPAC pointed to the fact that Climate change is one of the most – if not the most – a significant challenge in our world today.

SANEF’s commitment

In July 2019, following the protests, COPAC organised a follow-up meeting, with SANEF at Wits university. The SANEF Executive Director and a number of SANEF members attended. A key discussion at the meeting was concrete ways that SANEF could assist in improving climate change coverage.

Some of the proposals for phase one of the project include the following:

• Working closely with COPAC and other climate activist organisations to create a list of climate change experts and activists for newsrooms to call for comment.
• Keeping an up to date list of climate change events (national and global) that journalists should be aware of.
• Creating a section on the SANEF website dedicated to resources to improving media coverage of climate change.

Phase two of the project could include fundraising for training for journalists and paying for journalist salaries to cover the climate change beat for a period of a year, or possibly longer, depending on donor support.

Please contact the SANEF administrator if you are interested in building and contributing to this campaign.