Climate Change in the News, 2019–2026: Attention, Geography and Tone of Global Climate Coverage, and How It Compares with Research and Invention
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: We measure how climate change was covered in a global news index from January 2019 to July 2026, using 430,668 de-duplicated climate change articles, and set that coverage beside 115,815 research papers (2015–2025) and 370 patent families (2015–2024) on the topic. Six results stand out: Falling share. Climate change took 39.33 of every 10,000 news articles in 2019 and 22.94 in 2025, a 41.67% fall, although raw counts rose from 46,442 to 61,912. Conference rhythm. The share peaked in November 2021, the month of COP26, at 73.78 per 10,000. On average 30.23% of each year's coverage appears in September, October and November. Geography. Azerbaijan, host of COP29, is the most over-represented country (lift 45.14), and the United Arab Emirates, host of COP28, is also over-represented (5.71). The United States (0.69) and India (0.71) are under-represented. Within India, Meghalaya (2.32), Himachal Pradesh (2.14) and Assam (2.08) lead; within the United States, Hawaii (7.24), Alaska (5.56) and Vermont (3.78). Tone and urgency. 44.5% of climate change articles are negative in tone (all news: 33.6%), and 73.5% are rated critical priority (all news: 42.6%). Negative articles outnumbered positive ones in 2019 but not in 2025. Vocabulary. 83.06% of matched articles say "climate change", 11.49% "global warming" and 7.44% "climate crisis". Research and invention. Climate change papers grew from 12.97 to 21.75 per 10,000 papers between 2015 and 2025 (1.68 times), while news share fell. Patent families naming the topic grew 4.35-fold from 2015 to 2024, and China's office held 50.0% of their office filings.
Author: Kumar, Narendra
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7222890398
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