Next week, news outlets around the world will join together to cover a pivotal but little-known fact: The overwhelming majority of people in the world want their governments to do more against climate change.
The Joint Coverage Week is being organized by Covering Climate Now, the journalism collaboration launched five years ago to help newsrooms do a better job of telling the climate story. CCNow has since grown into the largest media collaborative of its kind, with more than 500 newsroom partners that reach a total audience of billions of people.
Beginning on Monday, April 21, participating news outlets will publish or broadcast coverage as part of The 89 Percent Project, a year-long initiative highlighting the silent global majority who want their political representatives to do more to tackle climate change.
The Guardian and Agence France-Presse are the lead partners on The 89 Percent Project. Joining them are Crooked Media; Drilled; Indian Country Today (ICT); The Nation; Rolling Stone; Scientific American; Telemundo (Noticias Telemundo); and TIME in the US; The National Observer, in Canada; Deutsche Welle, in Germany; Corriere della Sera, in Italy; the Asahi Shimbun, in Japan, and Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, in Jordan.
“We are gratified that newsrooms around the world care about this story and have decided to focus attention on it,” said Mark Hertsgaard, executive director and co-founder of Coverage Climate Now.
Outlets are planning stories ranging from profiles to investigative pieces to stories on the psychology of climate and belonging. Outlets will include branding identifying them as part of the project, which also will appear on social media along with the #The89Percent hashtag.
“Our hope is that the surge of coverage next week will help flip the script on climate coverage,” said Kyle Pope, Covering Climate Now’s co-founder and executive director of strategic initiatives. “Climate change doesn’t have to be a story about defensiveness or retreat. Journalism can explore the fact that an overwhelming majority of people want something done but don’t realize they’re the majority.”
The April week of coverage will be followed by six months of training and collaboration, then by a second Joint Coverage Week in October, in advance of the COP30 UN climate conference in Brazil.
For more information about The 89 Percent Project or Covering Climate Now, contact Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope, at editors@coveringclimatenow.org.