Is Climate Change Losing the Media’s Attention?

Monitor Says Climate Coverage Fell 14% in 2025, Even as the Planet Heated Up

In 2025, news sources showed less interest in covering climate change than in previous years, a media monitoring group said. ©fizkes/iStock

Climate change may be accelerating, but news coverage of it is moving in the opposite direction, according to the University of Colorado Boulder-based Media and Climate Change Observatory (MeCCO).

MeCCO monitors 131 newspaper, radio, and television sources in 59 countries across seven regions of the world. Its 2025 year-end review found that worldwide climate coverage fell 14% from 2024 and was 38% below its 2021 peak. Of the 22 years MeCCO has tracked climate coverage, 2025 ranked only 10th for the amount of attention devoted to climate change and global warming.

The decline stands in stark contrast to reported conditions on the planet. MeCCO notes that atmospheric carbon dioxide is now approximately 50% higher than at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, while the 10 most recent years have been the 10 hottest years since recordkeeping began.

Key MeCCO Data

• In 2025, global news coverage of climate change and global warming was 14% lower than in 2024. Compared with 2021—the highest-coverage year in MeCCO's dataset—2025’s coverage was down 38%.

• The volume of climate coverage in 2025 ranked just 10th among the 22 years MeCCO has monitored the issue, starting in 2004.

• The issue has not slowed down: The 10 most recent years have been the 10 hottest years in the nearly 150-year instrumental temperature record, underscoring the contrast between increasing planetary warming and decreasing media attention.

• Worldwide climate coverage in June 2025 was 28% below June 2024. International wire-service coverage was also 26% lower than a year earlier.

• In August 2025, US newspaper coverage was 21% below August 2024, while US television climate coverage dropped an even steeper 50% year over year. Worldwide coverage that month was down 25% from August 2024.

• The UN’s major environmental event in 2025— the 30th session of the Climate Change Conference— provided only a temporary boost: Global climate coverage increased 23% from October to November 2025, when the UN COP30 was held in Belém, Brazil. Latin American coverage jumped nearly 48% during the month. Yet worldwide, November climate coverage remained 24% below that of November 2024.

• Even during COP30, the five major US newspapers examined in one MeCCO dataset published a combined 362 climate-related articles in November 2025. This was comparatively low and approached the COVID-19 pandemic-era low of 297 articles in June 2020.

• In the weeks following COP30, global climate coverage plummeted 40% from November to December 2025 and finished the year 27% below December 2024. Asian outlets alone registered a 37% month-to-month decline.

Source: 

• Media and Climate Change Observatory, A Review of Media Coverage of Climate Change and Global Warming in 2025; Media and Climate Change Observatory.