IFAD 13 April 2016 - As 60 million people around the world face severe hunger because of El Niño and millions more because of climate change, IFAD joined top media experts at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia in calling for improved news coverage around issues relating to climate change, weather patterns and migration.

In front of a packed room full of journalist, a panel of top media and development experts discussed key findings from IFAD's report “The Untold Story: Climate change sinks below the headlines.”

The report’s author, Sam Dubberley, was joined by Laurie Goering, an editor for the Thomson Reuters Foundation and Jacopo Monzini, IFAD's Senior Technical Specialist on Environment and Climate Change for the Near East and North Africa. Patricia Thomas, a producer from Associated Press Television News, moderated the event.

The report builds on research that was conducted in conjunction with the 2015 Paris Climate Change Conference (COP21). Specifically, it explores whether issues connecting climate change, food security, agriculture and migration made headlines in a two-month period before and after the climate summit, and if so, how much prominence these stories were given.

“Climate change was completely absent or decreased in numbers before and after COP21 in both Europe and the United States,” Dubberley said.

This lack of representation is in opposition to the research's other findings, which state that news consumers want climate change to be given more prominence in media outlets.

See more: https://www.ifad.org/stories/tags/18655926

Figure: In front of a packed room full of journalist, a panel of top media and development experts discussed key findings from IFAD's report “The Untold Story: Climate change sinks below the headlines.”