Al Jazeera and the Story of Our Time
Al Jazeera and the Story of Our Time Giles Trendle | Managing Director of Al Jazeera English
In June 2021 I was invited to be on the jury to review entries in the first annual ‘Covering Climate Now’ Journalism Awards. The aim of the awards was to honour journalists all around the world who are producing coverage on all dimensions of the climate story. The range and depth of reporting on climate change, from many of the biggest names in journalism, was impressive. But the stories uncovering what is happening to planet earth made for grim reading. Science tells us that our planet is warming to critical levels, risking an uncontrollable chain reaction of alarming phenomena including droughts, heatwaves, wildfires, cyclones and flooding. The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, has described how the world is on course for a “catastrophic” temperature rise this century. Coming into office in 2021, the Biden-Harris administration acknowledged what it described as “the existential threat of the climate crisis.” Climate change may also be a hidden hand behind political affairs. For example, in the decade preceding the war in Syria, the country’s urban population increased by 50 percent as people flocked to the cities to escape prolonged drought. Some reports have cited this migration as being
a contributory factor to increased societal unrest that would go on to spill over into protests, and then war. The migration of peoples worldwide is likely to increase exponentially in the coming years as more land becomes inhospitably arid or submerged by rising sea levels. UN forecasts estimate that there could be anywhere between 25 million and 1 billion environmental migrants by 2050. A report in The New York Times entitled ‘The Great Climate Migration’ projected that rising sea levels could subsume nearly all of the Nile Delta, Egypt’s breadbasket, in as little as 30 years’ time. Some journalists are calling what is happening to the climate and our planet the ‘story of our time’. It is a story which Al Jazeera is well-placed to cover for at least two important reasons. Firstly, the mission of Al Jazeera is to tell the human story and hear the voices of those often unheard. That fits well with the story of climate change as too often it’s the poor and marginalised who are the first and foremost to pay the price for the actions of the carbon-emitting elites. Secondly, Al Jazeera’s international presence – with an extensive network of bureaux and reporters - means it is able to follow this unfolding, global story from all corners of the world.
Al Jazeera English has featured dramatic reporting from correspondents on the frontline of climate change highlighting the dire effects of environmental and ecological degradation. And our channel has featured longer-form, solutions- oriented journalism providing deeper context and inspiring stories. But given the scale of the story, are we doing enough? That remains an ever-pertinent question.
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