CBS has led on climate solutions coverage for the last four years running — in fact, the network has led the field in overall volume of climate coverage since at least 2020. 

CBS led its competitors again in climate solutions coverage in 2024, mentioning solutions in 40 of its 129 climate segments (31% of its segments), followed by ABC with 21 mentions (20%) and NBC with 14 (16%). The majority of CBS’ segments addressing climate solutions (26) aired on the network’s morning news program, CBS Mornings. 

CBS senior national and environmental correspondent Ben Tracy reported 30 climate segments in 2024 before departing the network in September, leading all correspondents across corporate broadcast networks. These segments discussed the role of burgeoning technologies in addressing climate change, from examining how AI can optimize traffic lights to cut down on the release of carbon emissions from idling cars, to exploring new technology that provides lifesaving air quality alerts — particularly important as wildfires are becoming more frequent and severe due to climate change.

Tracy’s reporting on carbon capture technology — a prohibitively expensive and controversial approach to reducing emissions — is notable for presenting the critiques of these types of advancements. In this case, experts caution that in addition to being unproven and costly, the technology would incentivize industry to continue to burn fossil fuels unabated. 

During the March 19, 2024, edition of CBS Evening News, Tracy looked at the new carbon capture industry that the Biden administration helped launch while noting: “To avoid the worst impacts of climate change, scientists say we need to stop burning fossil fuels and switch to cleaner forms of energy — but also need to remove billions of tons of carbon dioxide we've already put up into the atmosphere.”

During a lengthy April 20, 2024, segment featuring an interview with Bill Gates, who is investing in and promoting carbon capture through his Breakthrough Energy foundation, Tracy evinced skepticism about the efficacy of carbon capture and questioned its role in helping the fossil fuel industry to “greenwash” its products.

“Critics and scientists worry that using direct air capture this way will prolong oil production, leading to more planet-warming emissions just as world leaders have pledged to transition away from fossil fuels,” he reported. 

Climate coverage has started to more regularly include discussion of how we are already living in a world affected by a changed climate, while examining what strategies and technologies are available to adapt to this new reality. In 2023, the largest share of solutions coverage focused not on mitigation of climate change but adaptation to it, and that trend continued in 2024 — adaptation strategies were mentioned in 30 segments across corporate broadcast news networks.

These segments addressed subjects ranging from strategies to save Joshua trees in the Mojave Desert and cherry trees in the nation’s capital (both impacted by our changing climate) to protecting homes against sea-level rise and erosion.

Solutions that address pollution in the transportation sector — the second largest source of carbon emissions — were mentioned in 14 segments. Others mentioned solutions related to clean electricity production (10 segments) and individual climate actions (9 segments).

Nearly 29% of broadcast news segments mentioning climate solutions in 2024 aired during the summer months of June (11 segments) and August (11), which also corresponds with the highest volume of overall climate coverage in June (2 hours and 3 minutes) and August (1 hour and 44 minutes). 

The high volume of climate coverage during the summer months typically matches the peak in extreme weather events in the U.S., and broadcast reporting on climate-fueled events in 2024 included discussion of how communities are adapting to the frequency of extreme weather impacts on their homes, health, and livelihoods. For example, a June 1, 2024, segment on CBS Saturday Mornings looked at how architecture design is responding to the dangers posed by hurricanes, while an August 20, 2024, segment on NBC Nightly News reported on new solutions to protect workers from extreme heat using technology.

In April — a month when networks typically elevate their climate and environmental coverage in observation of Earth Day — corporate broadcast news aired another 11 segments about climate solutions. During the period from April 16-28, 2024, ABC, CBS, and NBC spent a combined 2 hours and 5 minutes discussing climate and environmental issues. 

This year’s Earth Day celebration is unfolding against the backdrop of President Donald Trump’s massive federal environmental rollbacks and the repeal of climate policies. To meet this moment, broadcast news programs should incorporate these actions by the Trump administration into their Earth Day coverage.

On the July 10, 2024, edition of CBS Evening News, Ben Tracy interviewed a former oil and gas worker now employed at a facility that recycles old electric vehicle batteries to store solar energy. 

“Battery storage is what allows renewable energy to provide power even when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing,” Tracy explained. “It’s key to making the electric grid reliable as we transition away from coal and gas and their planet-warming emissions.” 

This segment is a useful example of climate solution coverage in 2024 that also highlights how corporate broadcast news might shift focus away from the “renewable revolution” in 2025, as the Trump administration continues to roll back incentives for cleaner energy sources and boost fossil fuel development. 

As reported by Politico, President Donald Trump did more to unravel U.S. climate policy in the first month of his second term than during the entirety of his first administration. Rolling Stone has referred to Trump’s irreparable harm to efforts to address climate change as an “all-out-assault on climate,” and Axios reports that “President Trump's head-in-the-sand approach to climate change during his second term could put Americans at greater risk of harm from its effects, some analysts warn.”

Trump’s executive orders have targeted the “endangerment finding,” which allows the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and the transportation sector under the Clean Air Act; paused development on offshore wind; withdrawn the U.S. from the landmark Paris climate agreement; and ordered the opening of more land for oil and gas exploitation in Alaska and the Arctic, to name just some of the ways he’s directly attacked clean energy solutions and other climate policies and programs. 

Every agency that addresses climate change is reversing its efforts to take action against climate change. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has indicated that he plans to roll back fuel economy standards for motor vehicles; the Department of Energy is targeting appliance energy efficiency standards, which make home appliances use less energy which saves consumers money; and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has radically changed the agency’s mission while bragging about the largest environmental deregulation in history.

The Trump administration has fired hundreds of federal employees and scientists who work on climate and weather forecasting and safeguards while “deleting government climate websites and datasets” from agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The administration is also illegally canceling or trying to claw back funding for climate programs. For example, Zeldin has frozen over $20 billion in funds for programs to reduce climate emissions and lower energy costs that were allocated by the Inflation Reduction Act — and the administration is attempting to repeal other parts of this historic climate law. 

Taken together, Trump’s actions threaten any progress toward curbing the worst impacts on our overheated planet while committing Americans to a renewed reliance on dirty energy. 

Of course, climate solutions in the U.S. will continue to some degree despite Trump’s efforts, and those stories should continue to be amplified by TV news coverage. But the true task will be whether broadcast programs can articulate the scale on which U.S. climate efforts are being reversed and commit to their critical role in communicating these actions and their consequences to viewers.

Media Matters searched transcripts in the Nexis and SnapStream databases for ABC’s Good Morning America, GMA3, World News Tonight, and This Week; CBS’ Mornings, Saturday Morning, Sunday Morning, Evening News, Weekend News, and Face the Nation; NBC’s Today, Today 3rd Hour, Sunday Today, Nightly News, and Meet the Press for any of the terms and any derivations of the terms “climate,” “global warming,” “global heating,” “global temperatures,” “warmer planet,” “warming planet,” “planet warms,” “warmer globe,” “warming globe,” “globe warms,” “rising temperatures,” “hotter temperatures,” “green new deal,” “emissions,” “greenhouse gases,” or “net zero” from January 1, 2024, through December 31, 2024.

We included any segment in which climate change was the stated topic of discussion, as well as news rundowns that included a substantial mention of climate change, which we defined as a paragraph or more of a news transcript or a block of uninterrupted speech by a host, anchor, or correspondent. We also included weather reports, which we defined as instances when climate change was mentioned in an extreme weather report by a meteorologist in front of a green screen. We also included instances of a guest mentioning climate change in a network correspondent segment if the context of the segment was clearly about a climate, energy, or environmental issue.

We timed identified segments using the SnapStream or Kinetiq video databases, or YouTube if a network posted the segment to that website.

We rounded all times to the nearest minute and all percentages to the nearest whole number.