From "climate change" to "climate emergency"

Analysis of El País and El Mundo

Authors

Keywords:

Climate crisis, climate emergency, climate change, global warming, press

Abstract

Following the publication of the 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, the expressions “climate crisis” and “climate emergency” endorse a new discourse on climate also in the media. This article presents a literature review on the evolution of the different expressions used in public discourse in relation to the problem of the climate and an empirical study, through a quantitative analysis, on their use in the most widely distributed Spanish newspapers: El País and El Mundo (n = 1247). The expressions "climate crisis" and "climate emergency", almost non-existent during the 2015 Paris summit (1.2%), stand out at the 2019 climate summit, held in Madrid (20.8%). However, "climate change" continues to be the most widely used term in the sample newspapers (53%). It is concluded that the new discourse of the "climate emergency" is now with force in the agenda of the Spanish media, although it is still an emerging discourse that must be consolidated.

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Published

2020-10-30

How to Cite

Erviti-Ilundáin, M. C. (2020). From "climate change" to "climate emergency": Analysis of El País and El Mundo. Revista Prisma Social, (31), 64–81. Retrieved from https://revistaprismasocial.es/article/view/3866