Editorial

                                 

                             Media role for climate change

While we sit and watch at our various comfort zones, climate change is undoubtedly fast raiding our various homes. Like it or not it is now at our door steps. 

Climate change is an issue which people are concerned about. It has caused much destruction to our environment, which is causing coastal erosions, flooding, storm emerges, coral bleaching and so on. The impacts of climate change are inevitably uncontrollable and people have to adapt to those changes. One obvious example of these unavoidable impacts is the rising of sea water we have experienced today. 

The media is seen as one of the important tool to inform and educate people about the impacts of climate change in our various societies.  Media in this case has to take the leading role to inform and educate people on how it could be sustained, managed and how people could adapt to it. Likewise advocating climate change policies or programs implemented by policy makers such as government organizations. Journalists or reporters are the right people to discuss climate change to the public daily through news paper, radios, TV, social media and so on.

David Sheppard, Director General of Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) at the Pacific Media and Climate Change Training Workshop held in Apia, Samoa on May 28, 2013, highlighted the importance of media and especially reporters who are the important players in their role to inform the people about climate change in the Pacific island countries. He said one of the highlighted areas of training at the workshop is the wide regional media coverage on climate change and the environment, which this will be distributed in Pacific media outlets.

Also at the workshop, Pacific reporters expressed the important role they played in disseminating climate change and environment issues in the region despite the challenges they faced.  Some obvious challenges stated in the workshop that journalists faced when dealing with climate change are: The difficulties in understanding the scientific terms and simplifying it to the people, lack of resources to cover the remote areas to actually interact and do awareness, and the high illiterate population of many Island countries which reporters’ lack the knowledge and skills to appropriately disseminate climate change information to the public.

Media in this case have to be prepared to face all challenges in reporting and advocating climate change because only through it people can easily access and understand information related to climate change. More climate change trainings should be provided for reporters to fairly understand the scientific terms of climate change and how they can interpret them to the people.

Also media through radio and television can make people easily understand the impacts of climate change through advocacy programs in audio and visual forms. This is one way to inform and educate our illiterate population.

Hence, we need media to take the leading role to help combat climate change because through it people can be easily informed daily with information related to climate change.