Fox Only Covered U.N. Climate Talks When Things Were Going Wrong

UN talks

United Nations delegates have gathered over the past two weeks to discuss action on climate change. Fox News only covered the talks once, to warn that they were “breaking down,” but ignored the deal reached Sunday morning: a pledge from every nation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate change.

On Saturday, December 13, Fox News' America's News Headquarters reported that the United Nations climate talks were “breaking down.” The international negotiations took place over a two-week stretch in Lima, Peru, and were supposed to conclude Friday, December 12, but were extended one day to ensure that countries could reach an agreement. Fox News reported that “countries can't agree on what nearly 200 nations should pledge to keep our air clean”:

But an agreement was, in fact, reached early Sunday morning. On December 14, the United Nations' chairs released a document called the "Lima Call For Climate Action," which ensured a pledge from every country to lower their greenhouse gas emissions. The pledge states that countries must aim to phase out fossil fuels and achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

The agreement itself is somewhat contentious among environmental advocates, some of whom call it too "weak." Others heralded it for paving the way to a more robust deal at the U.N. climate negotiations in Paris next year. And the agreement's geographic scope -- a pledge from each and every country -- is considered a "breakthrough" by Harvard economist Robert Stavins. Political scientist David Victor said that the voluntary nature of the agreement is actually a good thing, in an interview with Vox:

Victor has long argued that UN negotiators would never be able to impose a climate plan on reluctant countries from on high. Instead, any climate deal should work from the bottom up -- start with what countries are actually willing to do and slowly build from there. And that's essentially taken in these latest climate talks. It's not enough to avoid drastic global warming-- not yet, at least. But it may be a step forward from past gridlock. 

Yet Fox News has made no mention of this agreement since its Saturday report that the talks were breaking down.*

*Based on a search of internal video archives for “climate.”