The heat wave that swept across the United Kingdom in late June left behind not only record-breaking temperatures, but also an uncomfortable question about how we report on climate change.
An analysis by theEnergy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), which examined nearly 2,500 articles published between June 22 and 28 by the nine major British daily newspapers, showed that nearly three out of four articles (72%) covering the extreme heat contained no reference to climate change or global warming, while only 5% linked the heat wave to climate change and policies aimed at mitigating and adapting to it.
The result is striking because it comes from a country where the climate debate is now well-established and informed, and where scientific research on the attribution of extreme events is among the most advanced in the world.
The study doesn’t just examine how the United Kingdom reports on heat waves. It also provides an opportunity to reflect on how these same events are covered in Italy.
The context is missing
We do not currently have, at least for now, a systematic analysis similar to the one conducted by the ECIU. It would therefore be incorrect to make quantitative comparisons. However, one need only look at the coverage of recent heat waves (or how these events are reported in weather programs) to see a similar pattern. Most news reports focus on record temperatures, red alerts, tropical nights, emergency rooms under strain, energy consumption, and disruptions in cities. More rarely are these events placed within the broader context of climate change or accompanied by an explanation of the link between global warming and the increased likelihood, frequency, and intensity of heat waves.
The point, however, is not simply whether climate change is mentioned or not. The real issue is how it is portrayed.
Very often, references to the climate appear as a stock phrase (for example: “due in part to climate change”) without further explanation. Rarely are attribution studies cited, which today allow us to assess the extent to which global warming and the resulting changes in the climate system have made a given extreme event more likely or more intense. It is worth noting that the IPCC, the world’s leading scientific authority on the subject, defines extreme weather and climate events as extreme heat and cold, intense precipitation and flash floods, river flooding, droughts, storms (including tropical cyclones), as well as composite events (multivariate and simultaneous extremes). Even more rarely does the narrative extend to the implications for adaptation, urban planning, public health, or emissions reduction.
As a result, the heat remains a weather story, while climate change continues to be perceived as a vague background issue.
A Different Story
Yet scientific research tells a different story. No climatologist claims that climate change directly causes a single heat wave. What the scientific literature demonstrates with ever-greater precision is that rising concentrations of greenhouse gases alter the underlying conditions of the climate system, making extreme events more frequent, more intense, and longer-lasting. This is the difference between meteorology and climatology: the former describes the event, while the latter explains its context.
There is also another aspect that still receives little attention: mortality linked to extreme events, particularly heat waves. Extreme heat is already one of the main climate-related risks to human health in Europe, but it is also one of the most difficult to quantify. Unlike a flood or an earthquake, it rarely results in an immediate death toll. People do not die “from the heat” in the strict sense of the term. Heat accelerates or exacerbates cardiovascular, respiratory, renal, and metabolic conditions, leading to deaths that are recorded on death certificates under other causes.
For this reason, there are no official statistics—at least for the time being—on deaths attributable to heat waves, let alone to climate change.
In recent days, a group of researchers from Imperial College London, the Met Office, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine estimated that the heat waves in May and June caused more than 2,700 deaths in England and Wales. Of these, approximately 1,100 (42%) are believed to be attributable to global warming caused by human activities.
Excess Mortality
This is a scientific estimate, not an official figure. To arrive at these numbers, epidemiologists compare the mortality observed during the heat wave with what would have been expected under normal climatic conditions: the so-called “excess mortality.” Subsequently, attribution studies compare the actual climate with a hypothetical scenario in which global warming had not occurred, thereby estimating what proportion of those deaths can actually be attributed to climate change.
It is a complex but essential process. Because it brings to light what would otherwise remain hidden. Perhaps this is precisely the most interesting lesson that emerges from the British study. It is not so much that climate change is absent from the news. More often than not, what is missing is the context needed to interpret events.
Why does this happen?
Why does this happen? The answer likely doesn’t stem from a single cause. News reporting is designed to cover events: what’s happening today, what disrupts normalcy, and what requires an immediate response. Climate change, on the other hand, is a process that unfolds over decades. While meteorology describes the event, climatology explains its context. Turning this context into a news story requires time, expertise, and space—resources that daily journalism cannot always devote.
Added to this is a scientific consideration. For many years, climatologists have rightly pointed out that it was not possible to attribute a single weather event to climate change. Today, thanks to so-called attribution studies, we can ask a different and more accurate question: not whether climate change caused a specific extreme event—including a heat wave—but to what extent it increased the likelihood, intensity, and duration of that event. This shift in perspective has not yet fully made its way into the language of news reporting.
There is also a fragmentation of coverage. Heat waves are often reported in the news, weather, or health sections, while climate change remains confined to the sections dedicated to the environment or science. Thus, the effects are described accurately, but the broader context linking them tends to fade away. Furthermore, reporting on the effects is almost always easier than explaining the causes: a record-breaking temperature or a city under a heat warning are immediate and easily understandable images; it is much more complex to explain how the accumulation of greenhouse gases has altered the planet’s energy balance, making extreme events increasingly frequent and intense.
Of course, this is not the only explanation. Alongside the structural limitations of journalism, there are also dynamics at play within the information system and public debate. The scientific literature on climate communication and the IPCC’s assessments have documented how disinformation campaigns and influence strategies promoted by actors linked to the fossil fuel industry have contributed, in various countries, to delaying climate action by emphasizing scientific uncertainty, downplaying the impacts of global warming, or shifting the debate toward divisive issues. Studies by researchers such as Naomi Oreskes, analyses by InfluenceMap, and reports from the Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD) coalition have shown how these strategies continue to shape public debate today, particularly through traditional media and digital platforms.
A cascade of impacts
At the same time, international assessments such as those by IPBES—in particular the Values Assessment (2022) and the Transformative Change Assessment (2024)—emphasize that the way society interprets and communicates the climate crisis (and the biodiversity crisis) also depends on the knowledge systems, values, dominant narratives, and economic interests that shape public debate. Furthermore, in some contexts, even public service broadcasters have been criticized for reducing or discontinuing programs and segments dedicated to environmental reporting, thereby limiting opportunities for in-depth coverage of one of the major challenges of our time.
The scientific community now describes the climate crisis as a cascade of impacts: extreme heat, health effects, drought, water crises, loss of agricultural productivity, damage to ecosystems, and many other consequences are different manifestations of the same process—a systemic climate crisis. In everyday reporting, however, these phenomena often continue to appear as separate emergencies, each confined to its own news story.
Perhaps this is the challenge facing journalism in the coming years: not merely to report on the heat wave, but to help readers understand the context. Because the real news isn’t just that temperatures reached 40 °C today. The real news is that temperatures that were once the exception are gradually becoming the new normal.
