About the Blog

In our Climate Debate Watch Blog we present an analytical view of the media coverage and public debates concerned with climate change, climate politics and other issues concerning the sustainable transformation of societies. We look at these debates through the lens of academic observers from social and climate sciences. The blog posts, in contrast to research papers, express personal opinions, ideas or conclusions drawn from our research. Other people with other values and points of view will draw different conclusions. This is just our contribution to the public debate, informed by our and other people’s research.

The Blog was started during the UN-Climate Change Conference in Paris* (November 30 – December 12 2015) and includes also some guest authors who are not affiliated with Universität Hamburg.

The blog is hosted by the Chair of Climate Communication, the team of Prof. Brüggemann at the University of Hamburg. Its authors are climate researchers and social scientists including advanced students from a range of different backgrounds united by an interest in the interdisciplinary study of climate change.

The point of the blog is not to bash climate communicators or the media: Covering climate change is a demanding challenge for journalists and we do not pretend that we could provide better coverage than journalists do. Yet, as outsiders and interested followers of the media debate, we hope to add new perspectives and voices to a debate that deserves humanities’ fullest attention.

The blog is (mostly) in English to allow an international audience and international contributors to participate. All blog entries represent the personal opinions and observations of the respective blog author and are neither official statements issued by the University of Hamburg, nor from the hosts of the blog.

This booklet with the blog posts (PDF) preserves the first contributions as they appeared during the COP21 (and as they are still available on this site).

*the entire name is United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 21st Conference of the Parties, in short COP 21