Mídia e mudanças climáticas no Brasil: entre demandas por crescimento econômico e desenvolvimento sustentável

Abstract

This work investigated how the politics of climate change has been treated by the newspapers Folha de São Paulo and O Globo in the first half of 2007. In the pages of these newspapers, the conflict between demands for economic growth and sustainable development took the form of media event related to the themes of the expected future impacts of climate change science and the process of political debate made of news stories and opinion articles. This political debate mediated by journalistic practices institutionalized tensed form and content coverage. The temporal distance between politics of climate change and the manifestation of the environmental consequences of the issue is nevertheless clear where the "facts" (and therefore news stories) aboutclimate change are. The multidisciplinary character and ethical choices and policies that underlie the climate issue tensed concrete impasses faced by Brazil and the globality and normativity implicit in the concept of sustainable development. The empirical results showed a great deal of coverage achieved by opinion texts. And it was even possible to see differences in approaches and arguments between different formatsinvolved in the coverage analyzed. The analysis also showed an apparent paradox as the domestic policy was somehow legitimized by the editorial position of the newspapers and for much of the news stories and opinion articles. This legitimacy was manifested in the form of officialdom that characterized the media coverage on climate change. Nevertheless, a more general assessment about the Brazilian position in relation tointernational negotiations and aspirations for sustainable desenvolimento was widely challenged. These differences in the shapes and distribution of sources and opinions given and between domestic legitimation and foreign policy contestation were understood as manifesting the character beyond majority of sustainable developmentconcept and of public deliberation required by the policy of climate change, since it is a problem that requires interpersonal, interparty and internationally cooperation.