Few auto media outlets have acknowledged the most important climate change news in a number of years. Last Monday the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2021a) came out with its first major report since 2014. This should be big news to the automotive media, because the IPCC’s assessments represent the scientific basis for public policies that will significantly impact the future of the industry.
The IPCC report is a “code red for humanity,” argued UN Secretary-General António Guterres (2021). “The viability of our societies depends on leaders from government, business and civil society uniting behind policies, actions and investments that will limit temperature rise to 1.5°C. . . . If we combine forces now, we can avert climate catastrophe. But, as today’s report makes clear, there is no time for delay and no room for excuses.”
Automotive News leads the charge in ignoring report
The new “Working Group 1” report is the sixth assessment produced by the IPCC, which was formed in 1988 by the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization (IPCC, 2021b). The intent of the report is to provide a “high-level summary of the understanding of the current state of the climate” and “the state of knowledge about possible climate futures, climate information relevant to regions and sectors, and limiting human-induced climate change” (IPCC, 2021c).
The IPCC report has thus far been ignored by Automotive News. Instead, the front page of its website has been filled with the usual minutiae of automaker staffing changes, product launches and chip-shortage machinations. So has the news coverage of The Detroit Bureau.
Also see ‘Automotive News backtracks on shift to electric vehicles’
The buff magazines have mostly been no better. Car and Driver’s Facebook page mentioned nothing about the IPCC report, although it helpfully noted that “wild weather and wild fires can’t stop the record-seekers at the Bonneville Salt Flats” (Scherr, 2021). Meanwhile, Autoweek thought you’d be more interested in back-to-school supplies “with an automotive flair” (Hearst Autos Gear Team, 2021). And MotorTrend wanted parents to know about a “kid-sized” Ferrari 250 TR replica with a starting price of $100,000 (Stoklosa, 2021).
Why can’t governments ‘get their shit into gear?’
A few auto media outlets did acknowledge the IPCC report. Jalopnik had a fairly short piece that largely quoted from a New York Times story. But then reporter Eric Shilling (2021) engaged in tribalistic chest thumping by concluding that “cars are a not-small part of this, of course, but it’s a mistake to blame car enthusiasts, who are an infinitesimal part of it; governments really gotta get their shit into gear to make any real impact, including our own.”
Shillings’ comment is odd for a number of reasons, including that he seemed to blame governments for not moving more quickly when the auto industry has been one of the biggest sources of resistance (go here for further discussion). However, the article’s comment section did occasionally engage the nuts and bolts of responding to climate change.
Also see ‘Auto media are still not taking climate change seriously enough’
For example, Jack Shaftoe (2021) stated, “A parking permit where I live is fifty bucks and it should be at least quadruple that. I fully expect one-off parking to settle into pricing where you pay double what it would take to use public transit in a given hour.”
Even Forbes magazine calls for major change
As might be expected, Electrek offered the most substantive coverage of the auto media outlets I looked at. Reporter Michelle Lewis (2021) summarized the report by noting that the bad news was, “Humans have already heated the planet by roughly 1.1C since the 19th century, a result of burning fossil fuels. The scientists who authored the IPCC report believe that 1.5C will be reached by 2040, no matter what. If emissions aren’t slashed in the next few years, this will happen even earlier. But if we do nothing, it will be much worse.”
Also see ‘Auto media copy each other instead of covering news that matters’
And the good news? “(A)lmost every country in the world is signed up to the Paris Agreement, which seeks to limit global warming to well under 2C, and ideally below 1.5C” (Lewis, 2021).
So what can be done? Even Forbes magazine, which poo-pooed electric cars, itemized other policy ideas that could make the auto industry squirm, such as restricting vehicle usage. “Motoring prospered in the 20th Century because the infrastructure was built for it, usually excluding all other modes,” wrote Carlton Reid (2021). “But motoring, believe many experts, cannot be allowed to dominate the future.”
What will be Jason Stein’s journalistic legacy?
Perhaps the single most important journalist in the automotive media is Jason Stein, who is the publisher of Automotive News. I get that it may be easier in the short run for him to engage in business as usual — which means continuing to deemphasize climate change news coverage. The problem is that the less attention given to the topic, the less likely it is that the industry will adapt as rapidly as needed.
Does Stein want to take the risk of seeing his journalistic legacy being tarnished because the media outlet he led failed to rise to the occasion? A similar question could be asked of every other leader within the automotive media — and may someday be asked most pointedly by these journalists’ children and grandchildren.
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RE:SOURCES
- Heart Autos Gear Team; 2021. “Get Back-to-School Gear with Automotive Flair.” Autoweek. Posted Aug. 9.
- Guterres, António; 2021. “Secretary-General Calls Latest IPCC Climate Report ‘Code Red for Humanity’, Stressing ‘Irrefutable’ Evidence of Human Influence.” United Nations. Posted Aug. 9.
- IPCC; 2021a. “Sixth Assessment Report.” Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Published Aug. 9.
- IPCC; 2021b. “About the IPCC.” Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Accessed Aug. 11.
- IPCC; 2021c. “AR6 Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis.” Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Published Aug. 9.
- Reid, Carlton; 2021. “Don’t Despair Over Climate Report’s Horrors, There Are Fixes — But Electric Cars Not One Of Them.” Forbes. Posted Aug. 8.
- Scherr, Elana; 2021. “Earth, Wind, and Fire: Bonneville Speed Week Gets Elemental for 2021.” Car and Driver. Posted Aug. 10.
- Shaftoe, Jack; 2021. Commentator in “Hell Is Hot: A new report says that global warming has already happened and is likely to get worse.” Jalopnik. Posted 10:48 a.m., Aug. 10.
- Shillling, Eric; 2021. “Hell Is Hot: A new report says that global warming has already happened and is likely to get worse.” Jalopnik. Posted Aug. 8.
- Stoklosa, Alexander 2021. “Kid-Sized 1957 Ferrari 250 TR Replica Costs More Than a New Porsche 911.” MotorTrend. Posted Aug. 9.
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