Is Record-Smashing Heat a Big Story? Depends Where It Happens

“Climate Change Affects Everyone” (Reuters, 7/17/22)—but some effects are more newsworthy than others to US TV.

As news of record-breaking heat around the world makes its way onto our screens, it’s clear some heat waves are made to matter more than others. The general dearth of TV news reporting on climate disruption in the Global South is particularly stark when it comes to heat waves, a conversation that is centered around Britain and Europe, as opposed to India and other non-Western countries.

Britain experienced record-breaking heat on July 19 when the temperature hit 102.4° F in the English village of Coningsby (BBC, 7/19/22). Thirty-three other British locations also set record highs. The heat wave, a predictable manifestation of climate change, caused a surge of fires and left hundreds if not thousands dead (Bloomberg, 7/16/22).

Other European countries also experienced a heat wave, with Germany and Spain suffering particularly high spikes in excess deaths  (Politico, 8/3/22), and large wildfires breaking out across southern Europe (Reuters, 7/17/22). But while these stories are groundbreaking and worthy of coverage, they are not unique.

‘Dying on the baking pavements’

Bloomberg (5/3/22): “It was the hottest March in 122 years.”

While India may be dismissed as a country that’s always been hot, several of its cities experienced record-smashing heat this spring (CNBC, 5/16/22). Prominently, the capital city New Delhi reached a high of 120.5° F (India.com, 5/16/22). Besides the unprecedented temperature, what was different about this heat wave was its longevity—starting in March and spanning until at least mid-May.

The consequences of the heat wave were dire, especially in terms of agriculture. India, one of the world’s largest wheat producers, had to ban wheat exports to combat shortages caused by the extreme heat (UNEP, 6/9/22). While the reported death toll is 90, a number that is regarded as “low” (New York Times, 7/14/22), the actual death toll is believed to be much higher. As Bloomberg (5/3/22) noted, the majority of those who die from the heat in India are “dying on the baking pavements they sleep on, or in the unbearably hot slums on the city’s fringes,” leaving them uncounted in official records. According to the Washington Post (7/7/22), an estimated 89,000 currently die per year because of heat in India, a number projected to rise to 1.5 million a year with climate change.

US television did not reflect the brutality of this heat wave. A Nexis search of ABC, CBS and NBC news programs found not a single mention, even in passing, of the Indian crisis. In an attempt to capture even a belated mention of the crisis, FAIR began its search in March and extended it to the end of July, months after the heat wave had ended.

Only twice was India even mentioned in connection with heat waves—both in July, as Europe was experiencing extreme heat. On July 18, NBC News correspondent Kelly Cobiella described the intensity of the British heat wave by saying it is “hotter than the Sahara desert and Delhi” (NBC Today Show, 7/18/22). While it is true that on that particular day, Britain was hotter than India, the show failed to mention the even more extreme heat faced in Delhi just a few months prior. This type of rhetoric reaffirms intense heat in India as the norm, making its crises less newsworthy in the long run.

Not victims but villains

Chuck Todd (Meet the Press, 7/24/22) asks Al Gore a rhetorical question: “If the United States can’t be a global leader here, who will?” 

A couple of days later, also in the context of European heat NBC Meet the Press, host Chuck Todd (7/24/22) brought on environmentalist and former Vice President Al Gore to “unpack” the “global” heat waves. “Global” seemed to NBC to mean “Western,” as the episode opened with Spain and Portugal’s death toll, and continued on to position the US as the only possible “leader” in the climate issue. As Todd asked: “If the United States can’t be a global leader here, who will?”

India was not mentioned as a country that also experienced extreme heat; rather, it was blamed for it, framed along with China as “emerging powers that are relying on fossil fuels.” While it’s true that India is currently the third-largest emitter of carbon—producing a little more than half the output of No. 2 United States, and about a fifth of first-place China—India is in sixth place when it comes to cumulative carbon emissions, which is more to the point when it comes to gauging responsibility for the current heat waves. Besides the US (far in the lead) and China, India is also behind Russia, Germany, Britain and Japan in terms of total historical emissions.

And India is far down the list of carbon emitters per capita. According to data from 2020, India releases 1.7 tons of carbon per capita, making it 110th nation on the list; by contrast, the US is 13th on the list, with an emission of 13.7 tons per-capita. Even China, which was also singled out in this interview, falls behind the US on this list, ranking in 28th place with 8.2 tons per-capita. Most European countries have per capita emission rates that are two to five times higher than India’s.

Pointing towards China and India only as “fossil-fuel countries,” without even mentioning their own experiences with devastating heat, implies that India and China are somewhat to blame. If not to blame, then not worthy of the human angle—a story about dire agriculture, about death, about exhaustion….

After Todd’s mention of India and China, Al Gore added that “the United States must step up and provide leadership.” While Gore did go on to talk about several issues in the country regarding the climate politics, this angle suggested that countries like India are incapable of taking charge; it’s up to the American people to save the world.

Made to matter more 

NBC Nightly News (7/16/22)

According to a Nexis search beginning in March until the end of July, Britain and Europe’s extreme heat were covered 51 times. The fires sweeping Europe in July were covered dramatically (NBC Nightly News, 7/16/22; ABC World News Tonight, 7/16/22; CBS Evening News, 7/18/22); the channels even covered the anticipation of Britain’s record-smashing heat (ABC World News Saturday, 7/16/22). ABC also mentioned that Britain is a country “where the majority of residents have no air conditioning”—an important point, but one that could have been made even more strongly about India,  where only 12% of residents have air conditioning (Bloomberg, 3/22/22).

Even when US network TV covered domestic heat waves, it frequently mentioned the UK or Europe—expressing concern about their “friends across the pond in Europe,” as an NBC weather anchor (NBC Today, 7/18/22) put it. Some segments even started with Europe and the UK, and then segued into national extreme heat news (CBS Mornings, 7/19/22). The fact that the two Western regions are reported on in pairs, referred to as “friends,” highlights the importance given to Britain and Europe in US news; the same status is implicitly not extended to non-Western countries, whose heat crises received little or no coverage.

Only a handful of times was the US heat wave presented in tandem with non-European heat waves, and then only with vague one-liners like: “Millions living under record heat from California to Western Europe, as well as parts of Asia and Africa” (NBC Nightly News, 7/19/22). Even as Europe cooled off, it still continued to be mentioned alongside reports of US heat—“as the heat wave in the US expands, Europe is cooling off,” reported NBC (Today, 7/22/22). On the other hand, countries like India seem to never make it onto the radar at all, even at heat wave heights.