This is getting repetitive. The third and final US presidential debate ended without moderator Chris Wallace asking a single question about climate change, and only a fleeting reference to the issue by one of the candidates. Just like the first and second debates.
This time, while discussing the economy, Hillary Clinton called for 鈥渘ew jobs in clean energy. Not only to fight climate change, which is a serious problem, but to create new opportunities and new businesses.鈥�
That was it. A handful of seconds devoted to the biggest challenge facing the planet and the US鈥檚 most far-reaching national security threat. In all, across 360 minutes of presidential and vice-presidential debate, climate change received just of discussion, all in passing.
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To be sure, Donald Trump鈥檚 outrageousness has sucked the air out of most substantive discussion of policy issues. On Wednesday night, he cast doubt on the legitimacy of American democracy by refusing to say that he would accept the outcome of the election if he were to lose.
Glut of questions
Yet Wallace and the other journalists moderating the previous debates have managed to ask the candidates directly including six about Syria, four about terrorism and two about the national debt 鈥� just none about climate change.
This failure is all the more glaring when you consider that the moderators have asked more than 15 questions about the candidates鈥� faith, appearance, tweets, behaviour, foundations, taxes, paid speeches, public comments or alleged sexual behaviour.
In their defence, the moderators might point to polls that show climate change of perceived policy priorities for the public, or other surveys that reveal that it is . Our job as moderators, they might respond, is to ask about those issues that are top of people鈥檚 minds.
But just as we need courageous leadership on climate change from our elected officials, we need a similar level of resolve from journalists to elevate attention to the issue. If US voters don鈥檛 currently perceive climate change as a major campaign issue, this is largely a function of its absence from election coverage, including the failure to ask about the topic at presidential debates.
Opinion shapers
Among the most widely accepted is that news coverage does not follow the public鈥檚 agenda, but instead leads and shapes it. As news coverage of an issue increases, public attention soon grows, becoming part of the criteria by which voters judge candidates and elected officials.
And that鈥檚 the way it should be. Given limited time and access to information, the public has historically relied on journalists and debate moderators to sort through the many complex policy issues in an election and focus on those that are of most-pressing importance, newsworthy and divide candidates.
On no other issue do these criteria apply more clearly than on climate change, an issue that Trump has dismissed as a 鈥�hoax鈥� and that Clinton justifiably believes is the 鈥�.鈥�
The final debate, held in Las Vegas, Nevada, came as natural, but disaster-level, drought continued to plague the West coast, in the same week that scientists declared September as the hottest on record, and within days of nearly 200 countries approving yet another historic agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions, this time tackling hydrofluorocarbons from refrigerants.
We need journalists to step up on climate change, to fulfil their professional duty to focus on and cover issues no matter how complex or divisive they are, and to alert the public to what truly matters. But in regards to this core professional function, history will show that, in the 2016 election, the debate moderators failed us.
