Asian Societies and Climate Change : The Variable Diffusion of Global Norms

Abstract

Through the promulgation of science, norms and rules about climate change, the United Nations has been trying to build a global community of agreement, concern and action. This essay compares the changing response of five Asian societies, namely, China, India, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan to the emerging UN global climate change community. Data comes from the content analysis of Asian newspapers from 1997 to 2010, with a special focus on 2007-8. The global average and the Asian societies paid increasing attention to climate change, but only episodic focus to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The relatively low level paid by Taiwan indicates the positive effect of membership in the UN system on global climate change coverage. The Asian societies framed climate change in different ways, indicating the effect of divergent domestic factors with data from the international project Comparing Climate Change Policy Networks (Compon).