Reporting Guidance: Extreme Heat

The guide advises journalists to explicitly link extreme heat events to climate change and the burning of oil, gas, and coal, noting that heat is the deadliest extreme weather event. It provides sample language for reporting, recommends avoiding trivializing visuals, and suggests using tools like the Climate Shift Index for attribution.

• Climate scientists maintain that human-caused climate change increases the likelihood and intensity of every heatwave globally.
• Extreme heat is the most lethal type of extreme weather, with UN data indicating nearly 500,000 annual deaths since 2000, which is approximately 30 times the mortality rate of tropical cyclones.
• Journalists are encouraged to use specific causal framing: climate change warms the planet, is primarily driven by the burning of oil, gas, and coal, and will continue to raise temperatures until these fossil fuels are phased out.
• Reporting should prioritize safety information for highly vulnerable groups, including children, older adults, pregnant people, people with disabilities, unhoused and incarcerated individuals, and outdoor workers.
• Visual choices should reflect the severity of heat as a leading cause of death, avoiding 'fun in the sun' imagery in favor of photos showing people struggling with heat or warning signage.

APA

CCNow (2024). Reporting Guidance: Extreme Heat. Covering Climate Now. https://coveringclimatenow.org/from-us-story/reporting-guidance-extreme-heat/

Chicago

CCNow. Reporting Guidance: Extreme Heat. Covering Climate Now, 2024. https://coveringclimatenow.org/from-us-story/reporting-guidance-extreme-heat/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=CCNow |title=Reporting Guidance: Extreme Heat |publisher=Covering Climate Now |date=18 June 2024 |url=https://coveringclimatenow.org/from-us-story/reporting-guidance-extreme-heat/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{ccnow2024reporting, author = {CCNow}, title = {{Reporting Guidance: Extreme Heat}}, institution = {Covering Climate Now}, year = {2024}, month = jun, url = {https://coveringclimatenow.org/from-us-story/reporting-guidance-extreme-heat/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }