2021 marks the 25th anniversary of Al Jazeera. Looking ahead to the next quarter of a century, I predict Al Jazeera journalists will increasingly find themselves reporting on stories that are linked, in one way or another, to our changing climate. The science – and actual events - make that statement overwhelmingly self-evident. To quote Bob Dylan: “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” The mission of journalism is to present facts, analysis and insight to inform people about what is happening in the world. It is a world in which we, as human beings, will need to meet the challenge of addressing the harm we are doing to our planet – and to our own chances of survival. In covering this story – the story of our time - the role of the journalist is more important than ever.
In early 2021 Al Jazeera English partnered with Covering Climate Now, a non-profit, non-partisan consortium of more than 400 news outlets committed to reporting climate change. We went further by joining The Guardian, Columbia Journalism Review, The Nation, Scientific American, and Asahi Shimbun, Japan’s top selling newspaper, and others in declaring that climate change is the emergency that scientists say it is. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the importance of the media leading the way in informing audiences about a global problem that has very direct and personal risks to everyone. Yet the deaths and upheaval due to the coronavirus, while truly awful, pale in comparison to the potential consequences of climate change.
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