Canada's 2023 wildfires broke longstanding media caution around climate reporting

In 2023, Canada experienced its worst wildfire season on record, with over 15 million hectares of land burned due to record-breaking drought and unusually high temperatures. The smoke from these fires reached the eastern seaboard, prompting health alerts and turning the skies an eerie orange. This unprecedented event not only shifted how the media covered the issue but also prompted a notable change in mainstream coverage.

A study by Concordia University analyzed media coverage from major Canadian and U.S. outlets, including The Globe and Mail, The New York Times, and The New York Post. The findings revealed that nearly 40% of all stories mentioned climate change, and over 30% explicitly linked the wildfires to climate change. These connections were more prevalent in opinion pieces, where about 65% made explicit connections between the fires and climate change, compared to 26% in news reports.

The increased links between the wildfires and climate change appeared to be a response to the August 2023 World Weather Attribution report, which highlighted that climate change more than doubled the likelihood of extreme fire weather conditions in Quebec. Researchers suggest that as journalists become more familiar with the scientific consensus on climate change and its impact on extreme weather events, they feel more confident linking such events to climate change.

However, they caution that as these extreme weather events become more frequent, they might lose their newsworthiness and the urgency of addressing anthropogenic climate change could diminish.