

“Basically, I found that women and scientists from the Global South are really underrepresented in highly cited climate science research,” Tandon said. No studies had a first author from Africa or South America, whereas 90% had at least one author from Australia, the United Kingdom, or the United States. Fewer than 1% of study authors were based in Africa, she reported, and fewer than 12% of lead authors were female. In 2021, Tandon penned a bleak demographic analysis of the gender and country of origin of scientists contributing to 100 highly cited climate studies from 2016 to 2020. The Global South Climate Database is the brainchild of Ayesha Tandon, a science journalist for Carbon Brief, a nonprofit website focusing on the science and policy of climate change. Sign up now Recognizing an Array of Experts Get the most fascinating science news stories of the week in your inbox every Friday. “There’s no reason a climate expert from the Global South…should be confined to only being quoted about their home country when their expertise may well be global energy systems or global carbon trading or another region entirely,” Dunn said, noting that because audiences tend to trust scientists more than politicians, access to local experts is especially important. The local experts who were consulted were frequently underutilized, often only asked about issues pertaining to their home nations, even when they had broader expertise. Journalists in the Global North also reported struggles in finding local or regional experts for stories about the Global South. Meanwhile, “Global North outlets tended to use nonlocal sources and miss nuances and subtleties, including when disasters were actually not necessarily tied to climate disasters but were a case of governments using climate as a way to brush over what local journalists recognized as poor planning and shoddy infrastructure,” Dunn explained. A third, from Burundi, waited months for basic weather data from the republic’s government. For instance, Dunn said, “one journalist from Nepal was telling us how frustrating it is not to have access to good local climate data-despite the fact that the Himalayas are extremely important for the climate and stability of South Asia as a whole.” (At least one organization, the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, is based in Nepal and provides access to climate data from agencies such as NASA and NOAA.) Another journalist from Nigeria reported difficulties finding Nigerian climate sources for a drought story. In the Global South, journalists reported frustrations over access to reliable climate data. Such feedback varies somewhat by geography, with journalists’ issues articulating a North-South divide. What they need are resources, access, and connections,” said Katherine Dunn, content editor of the Reuters Institute’s Oxford Climate Journalism Network (OCJN), which gathers feedback from climate journalists around the world.
Shotty southern how to#
“These are experienced journalists, and they don’t need training in how to report. The database connects journalists with experts from communities that are the most affected by climate change. With researchers from the Global North dominating funding and garnering more media attention, reporters worldwide scramble to better represent scientists and stakeholders from affected regions.Ī new Global South Climate Database could bolster efforts toward more accurate, equitable climate news coverage. It does not store any personal data.As the climate crisis intensifies and the global impacts of rising temperatures increase, climate journalists are faced with mounting pressure to both report facts accurately and convey the depth and scope of the communities affected. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin.

The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly.
