Political polarization and climate change: The editorial strategies of The New York Times and El País newspapers

The editorial section is the perfect space to investigate the identity of newspapers, as it reflects their ideological position. For this reason, this work analyses the editorial position on climate change of two highly prestigious newspapers: The New York Times (United States), which is a reference for the Anglo-Saxon world, and El País (Spain), which is a reference for the Spanish-speaking world. Both newspapers seem to share a similar editorial stance, in the sense that they both accept the consensus on climate change and support the objectives set in the Kyoto Protocol in relation to the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG). However, the analysis of the editorials published over the fourteen years between the two climate summits, held in Kyoto and Durban, shows that political polarization has taken precedence over the need to spread public awareness about the seriousness of climate change. This implies that the editorial agendas of these newspapers are not giving importance to the dissemination of the causes of climate change, and are generally not providing opinions based on reliable and fully identified scientific sources.