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| Entries 2009 |
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| Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved with CMS |
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| Programme >> IFEJ >> Contd.. |
| INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL JOURNALISTS (IFEJ) CONGRESS |
| India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, October 28-30, 2009 |
| Theme: "Bridging North-South Differences in Reporting Climate Change:
Journalists' Role in Reaching an Agreement at COP15 in Copenhagen"
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Contd.....
In South Asia, as many as 210 million people directly in the Himalaya and 1.3 billion downstream in the Indo-Gangetic agrarian belt - one-fifth of the world's population - are already facing the threat of the receding glaciers which will eventually lead to crippling droughts. In terms of numbers of people affected in one region, this is the largest number anywhere in the world. One can add several tens of millions living in the low-lying coastal areas of Bangladesh, who will have to be evacuated as ocean levels rise. South Asia has received scant attention in the reporting on climate change in the North and, for that matter, other countries in the global South.
Furthermore, media attention in the North, which often sets the agenda for the rest of the globe, particularly with global news channels like the BBC and CNN, has by and large been confined to the mitigation of greenhouse gases through a range of restrictions, market mechanisms and the like. It has largely ignored reporting on adaptation, which will affect countries in the South far more adversely. Developing countries are already reeling under the impacts of droughts and floods. The risk of communicable diseases emerging with climate change is, again, first felt by developing countries.
The ethical issue of industrial countries being responsible for global warming while developing countries face the brunt has still not received the media attention it deserves in some developed countries, even while some industrial countries are now calling upon big emerging economies like China, India and Brazil to cap their emissions by the time UNFCCC meets in Copenhagen this December.
Objective:
The IFEJ Congress has as its theme "Bridging North-South Differences in Reporting Climate Change: Journalists' role in Reaching an Ambitious Agreement at COP15 in Copenhagen" where participants from industrial and developing countries will be able to air their viewpoints on this controversial issue and this will lead to greater insights into this most crucial global problem.
The Congress:
The International Federation of Environmental Journalists (IFEJ), was formed in Dresden, Germany in 1993. Darryl D'Monte, Chairperson of the Forum of Environmental Journalists of India (FEJI), was elected the first President in Dresden in 1993. It has, as its name suggests, several associations of environmental journalists from around the world as its members, along with individual journalists. There are now journalists from some 70 countries as its members.
The IFEJ has met annually after that in cities such as Paris (twice), Boston, Budapest, Cebu (Philippines), Sri Lanka, Bogota, Cairo, Germany, New Delhi, St Petersburg and Stockholm. D'Monte was re-elected President for three years in Cairo in 2000 and in St Petersburg in 2003, was nominated to serve on the Administrative Council.
In 2009, the IFEJ, which is 17 years old, in collaboration with the Forum of Environmental Journalists of India (FEJI) and CMS Academy of Communication and Convergence Studies (www.cmsacademy.org), New Delhi, is holding its annual congress in New Delhi, October 28-30. The theme will be "Bridging North-South Differences in Reporting Climate Change: Journalists' role in Reaching an Ambitious Agreement at COP15 in Copenhagen". The congress is supported by Denmark, the COP15 host country. The Society of Environmental Journalists in the US, which has some 1,900 members, is also collaborating with IFEJ in organising this Congress.
The Congress, which will be held concurrently with the 5th CMS VATAVARAN - Environment and Wildlife Film Festival 2009, will also be followed by an exciting six-day all-expenses-paid field trip to Leh in Ladakh from October 31 to November 5, offering journalists an exclusive opportunity to film, photograph and write on Himalayan glacial melt.
The IFEJ is a founding member of the Com+ initiative - Communicators
for Sustainable Development (www.complusalliance.org)
-- together with the World Bank, Global Environment Facility, InterPress
Service, Conservation International, BBC, DevTV, Television Trust
for the Environment, National Geographic and several other partners.
It runs an occasional feature service with InterPress Service under
the umbrella of Com+ for journalists from developing and industrial
countries on sustainable development issues, among many other initiatives:
http://www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/sustdev/index.asp
The IFEJ Secretary, Dr Robert Thomas from Loyola University in New
Orleans, runs the listserv, which has members from over 70 countries
and manages the website: www.ifej.org
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