South Africa’s Climate Story: How the media shape the narratives of climate change and the energy transition

Climate change and the course we take to adapt our economies and societies to the shocks produced by Earth systems collapse is, perhaps, the biggest story of our time. How media tell the climate story gives us an indication of the dominant narratives informing a society’s understanding of climate change, and where societal priorities are understood to lie in relation to the actions required to survive it. 

In this report, we provide a data-driven analysis of how the climate change story has been told in South Africa between 2020 and 2023, with an additional focus on the energy transition as an essential component of South Africa’s climate response.

We unpack how both legacy and digital media have been performing regarding their meaning-making role in terms of their output. We explore the sentiments and narrative frames through which they cast the climate story, and what this might mean for strategic communicators and campaigners in their efforts to advance a net-zero development agenda towards a new economy.