When reporting on climate change, there's no need for hyperbole – it really is as shocking as it sounds

It’s sad but perhaps inevitable that some will only sit up and listen when the waves are lapping at their front doors

I write about climate change a lot. I write about it because there is an awful lot of research being done into it, but also because I think it is an important topic that people need to know about.

The problem is that for a slow-burning problem like climate change, it’s not often an event happens that is dramatic enough to really stand out from the background hum of scientific research and expert warnings. This means that even though this environmental catastrophe is – as I have tweeted – the “biggest news story in the world”, it seldom makes newspaper front pages.

That’s why, when the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was released in October, I was pleased that it got a good showing in The Independent. Though the report itself was written in a typically dispassionate style, within its pages were predictions of a world completely devoid of coral reefs and where millions were forced from their homes by rising tides. Built on the expertise of hundreds of scientists and thousands of studies, this document was definitely worth making a big deal out of.

Of course, this makes it all the more tragic that, given the opportunity, only a tiny fraction of the British press chose to prioritise the story over the far more important Strictly snog.

Considering the year we have just had, with heatwaves scorching Europe and setting the Arctic on fire, my prediction is that global warming-related front pages will only become more common. Scientists are now confidently identifying the “fingerprints” of climate change in extreme weather across the world. These fingerprints can also be seen in many seemingly unrelated news stories, from wars to mass migration. At the major COP24 climate summit that has been playing out in Poland over the past couple of weeks, leaders of island states made it very clear they were terrified for the future of their nations, as rising sea levels gradually render their homes uninhabitable.

UK government advisers have issued clear warnings that this problem is not restricted to faraway lands. Only a few weeks ago, a Committee on Climate Change report urged ministers to protect coastal communities from rising sea levels, and stated that in all likelihood many coastal areas will become essentially uninhabitable.

It’s sad – but perhaps inevitable – that some will only sit up and listen when the waves are lapping at their front doors, but now the evidence is clearer than ever, it is the responsibility of good journalists to make those unseen fingerprints of climate change very clear to their readers.

Alarmism must be avoided, but what the IPCC report made clear was that seemingly outrageous warnings are not alarmist: they’re just true.

Yours,

Josh Gabbatiss

Science correspondent