Climate terms like ‘crisis’ and ‘emergency’ take over UK climate media

The UK media is abandoning terms like ‘global warming’ and ‘climate change’ and is instead using ‘catastrophe’ and ‘emergency’ in a bid to wake the world up to the threats facing the planet. Language learning platform Babbel and the Media and Climate Change Observatory analysed language trends and terminology around climate issues used by UK newspapers from January 2006 to October 2021. Researchers found the term ‘climate catastrophe’ has been used three times more in 2021 than it was in 2020, ‘climate emergency’ is now mentioned on average 126 times per month– 63 times more than before 2018 – and use of the phrase ‘climate change’ has fallen 27 per cent between March 2017 and September 2021. “The media plays a huge role in affecting public sentiment towards important issues via the language it chooses. “It’s interesting to see how different publications approach the language of climate change.