University work
A small collection of university papers.
MA Journalism, 2020 - 2021, National University of Ireland, Galway.

The introduction and one of the interviews featured in my final project. The project consisted in a series of interviews about difficulties caused by man-made climate change by five individuals in five different countries.
August 2021
Unprecedented changes to the climate have been predicted by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in their last report published earlier this month. The IPCC issued a ‘code red’ for humanity as scientists reached for ever-more urgent language to describe the accelerating pace of climate change.
In light of this new publication, four people from four continents talked to me about their personal experiences when it comes to the climate crisis.
The document warns of temperature expected to rise higher than 1.5C. If the current trend is maintained, says the report, humanity is heading for a 3.7C warming by the end of the century. All points to a rapidly escalating incidence of extreme weather events caused by climate change. No region is left untouched by the climate crisis.
Summer 2021 has witnessed an increase in abnormal weather events and has been the hottest on record. Deadly floods, numerous wildfires, storms and tornadoes, droughts or extreme heatwaves hit the whole world in the months of June, July, and August, with record temperatures seen in Turkey, Sicily, and Greenland. The planet is overheated.
Severe floods have been witnessed in the United States, Bangladesh, Kashmir, Venezuela, Pakistan, Belgium, Mexico, Germany and England, wildfires in the United States, Siberia, Italy, Turkey, Russia and France, storms in Iran, a typhoon causing floods in China, a record temperature of minus nine degrees Celsius in South Africa, hail in Saudi Arabia, Germany, France, Switzerland and Italy, sandstorm in China and heavy storm in Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United States, a tornado in Sweden and a tornado in the United States, hurricane wind in the Emirates Arab United, and landslides in India and Peru. Wildfires devastated acres of forest in the United States and in Australia, with fires lasted longer than usual because of global warming.
The report calls for an “immediate action” on climate change. This summer events are, according to scientists, only a taste of what is to come. Greenland has reached a record temperature in late July of 19.8C, its ice melting as fast as 12,000 years ago, during the period that we call the Antarctic Cold Reversal, and Sicily has passed European record of highest temperature with 48.8C in Syracuse, the highest temperature ever recorded in Europe.
In the United Kingdom alone, as shown by a report published in July 2021 from the Met Office, 2020 was “the third warmest, fifth wettest and eighth sunniest on record in the UK” (from series since, respectively 1884, 1919 and 1862). Sea level rise, one of the main sources of concerns among experts, rose by 3 mm.year -1 on average for the period 1993 - 2019, twice more than the usual 1.5 mm.year - 1 from the 20th century.
Experts found evidence of the slowdown and potential collapse of the Gulf Stream, with a new analysis showing the currents may be close to a shutdown. The Amazon rainforest is officially emitting more CO2 than it absorbs.
Looking back a few years, the threat of ‘global warming’ officially became greater than the threat of a new ice age in 1977.
The first IPCC report was published in 1990, officialising the link between human activities and the increase of natural greenhouse effects in the atmosphere, itself linked with global warming.
Evidence backing the 19th century claims attributing global warming to human activities were made in the 1960s. Following these discoveries, widespread scientific concerns about the impact of anthropogenic warming began in the 1970s. The first scientific report proving the link between levels of CO2 and increase in global temperatures was published in 1979, while the discovery that CO2 levels in the atmosphere were steadily increasing were made in 1957.
Governments have given no clear sign of strategies for climate change mitigation, and the 2015 Paris Agreement has not been respected by many.
The United Nations calls for countries to redouble efforts to combat climate change against global warming, and to respect their engagements, however delayed by the postponement of the 26th Conference of the Parties. The question arising now is to know what the outcomes of the COP26, held this November in Glasgow, will be.
HARRY, CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA
Harry has done his PhD in Canberra, the capital of Australia, in the south-eastern part of the continent. As a father, he is particularly worried about the climate crisis.
“Australia is one of the countries that is going to get affected the most” says Harry during our interview. A 49-year-old with a PhD in astrophysics from Canberra, Australia, he works at Geoscience Australia as a geodesist, allowing him to understand the science behind the current climate events.
Eight years ago, Harry also started bushfire fighting, working his way up to crew leader at the Rivers Brigade in the Australian Capital Territory Rural Fire Service (ACTRFS). As a crew leader, he explains that he is in charge of a tanker and that he can take control of incidents called level 1 incidents (incidents where a fire that is not too complex and can be contained or extinguished with less than seven units).
Harry says he joined the ACTRFS as he is “fully aware that bushfires will impact our country more and more severely as the climate changes and so many people will need help.” He adds that another motivation was that the observatory where he did his PhD, Mt Stromlo, in Canberra, partially burnt during a fire forest in 2003.
Harry experienced the 2019 and 2020, when the fires devastated the country.
“The bushfires of 19/20 were unprecedented. They started in Queensland, sort of in the North of the East Coast in June 2019. As we moved further into spring and summer, the region South starts drying out. You get fire behaviour moving from the North to the South. By July and August, we had fires in the North of New South Wales, then it just kept moving South.”
Harry spent about 230 hours fighting fires in the space of 12 weeks that summer.
“The last fires went out in February 2020 when we got rain. That’s more than 8 months of almost continuous campaign bushfire fighting.”
He remembers that when the fires started, he had difficulties even going for runs, as he felt like he “was going to throw up” and he had been breathing a lot of smoke.
The bushfires of 2019 and 2020 destroyed millions of acres of land and thousands of homes.
He explains that even if bushfire season is an established fact in Australia, usually stretching between October 1 and March 31 (referred to as “fires danger periods” by the authorities), the start of the season and its duration has changed this past decade. The change is due to the noticeable variation in the weather patterns.
“We have droughts in Australia, and sometimes these droughts can last seven, eight years. But in three years, with climate change, these droughts are so severe that things now dry out much quicker in three years than they used to in 10 years.”
As a scientist, Harry says he understood science of climate change very early on, but that it was a series of “traumatic events” that spurred him into action.
“I did over 200 volunteer hours during that season and had three life threatening near misses, and 2 other serious near misses. A friend of mine, not a fire fighter, died helping to save a friend’s property. He was one of 33 dead.”
While he understands that people can somewhat still be oblivious to what is happening, having been in this situation himself, he does not think the same of governments.
“The fact that they rely on volunteers to fight these increasingly intense fires makes me furious. They are knowingly making our jobs more dangerous.”
Anger is a recurring emotion when talking about the climate crisis. Harry says the need to stop global warming is of the utmost importance, as “it will only continue to get worse.”
“I am very passionate about forcing action on addressing climate change and I’m super frustrated that our government is one of the worst in the world.”
He says the government is not taking the necessary actions to combat climate change, and that the fossil fuel lobby is “particularly powerful”. After the IPCC report publication, Prime Minister Scott Morrison held a press conference. The Australian Prime Minister stated that technology would help fight climate change, and that what was most needed to solve the climate crisis was a “focus on the technological breakthroughs that are necessary to change the world.” The Australian government is planning on a gas-led recovery of the Covid-19 crisis, calling gas a “transition fuel”.
In this press conference, Morrison congratulated himself and the Australian government to have made Australia “part of the solution”. Harry strongly opposed the PM’s views.
“He [Scott Morrison] claims we are leading the world on action when most independent assessments put us dead last.”
Harry adds that the technology the government talks about does not exist yet.
The Bureau of Meteorology’s annual climate statement of 2020 says climate change is causing significant changes. Since 1910, the country has warmed by 1.44C on average. Furthermore, a 10 to 20% decrease in rainfalls between April and October has been recorded in recent decades, in the southern part of the country, where the capital is. The Bureau officially announces that the country cannot escape extreme heatwaves in summers and springs.
Through his action, Harry says that he is trying to do some good.
“I am trying to do something positive and right. Something my kids and wife will be proud of me for doing.”
Harry talks about the media coverage of global warming, in a country that has one of the highest concentration of media ownership. According to the HHI index, in 2020, measuring market ownership, NewsCorp controlled over half of the market of the country, with 51,9%. According to Harry, a lot of newspapers and air channels take what he calls a “denialist stance.” Those channels of communication have a big impact on people’s opinion in the country, a high rate of media ownership being damageable to public discourse and freedom of opinion.
“They say, ‘oh so what? This is Australia and we have always had droughts and fires.’ People can’t see that things are getting worse, or they are too afraid to admit it.” He adds the country has a duty of care that they are, at present, not respecting.
Bluntly, Harry says “We have fucked up real bad. And we desperately need to stop as it will only continue to get worse.”
An article I wrote for a class on the RDC and the environmental challenges the country faces.
May 2021
There is a saying that says that God has prepared all the gifts he wanted to give the world in a basket and went around the world to give them. But when he arrived in RD Congo, he was so tired that he just said: ‘Let me give them everything that’s in the basket.’ Now, in 2021, the Democratic Republic of Congo is now one of the richest countries in the world in terms of natural resources, but its inhabitants are some of the poorest.
If you think of hardship of violence as well as sumptuous natural sceneries when you hear Democratic Republic of Congo (frequently called Congo or DRC), it is because the country has a particularly troublesome history and is often on the news for a plethora of reasons. One of them is for being the world's largest producer of cobalt, one of the key ingredients in new technology and well sought-after worldwide. But it is not the only resources that the Democratic Republic of Congo’s soil offers. Diamonds, tungsten, gold, copper, tourmaline, coltan, cassiterite and uranium are also a source of potential great wealth. The Democratic Republic of Congo is envied for its rich soil by the wealthiest countries and entrepreneurs, and its main industry, before commercial ship repair, is mineral extraction. However, natural resources attract corruption, and corruption attracts armed conflict. For nearly three decades, the international community have witnessed violence, looting and starvation in the DRC, in an endemic cycle of corruption.
The country has a population of nearly 87,000,000 inhabitants dispersed on more than 2,000,000 km2. It the fourth largest countries on the African continent. The Head of State is Felix Tshisekedi, who is following Joseph Kabila, and Head of the Government Sylverstre Ilunga Ilikamba. Its Human Index Development (HDI) is one of the poorest in the world, at 0.494 in 2020. The DRC shares its borders with nine other countries: Congo, Central African Republic, South Soudan, Ouganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Zambia and Angola. Conflicts regularly erupt around territory and money issues, leaving the population in distress, often having to flee and abandon their homes. Over 900,000 Congoloses nationals are refugees in those neighbouring countries, in Rwanda in particular.
In 2019, the International Monetary Funds, working with the European Union and civil society, estimated at 15 million dollars the amount of money the Democratic Republic of Congo lost each year. The national budget is estimated at about 5 billion dollars. The country’s past is riddled with darkness and corruption, from its colonial past to its more recent dictatorship. As in many other countries, in the DRC not everyone is fully aware of the money and quality of life corruption and violence deprived them of, and not everyone is able to stand up for a better future. Life conditions are precarious, especially in towns still ravaged by armed conflicts, making the DRC a country that has of the world's worst humanitarian situations: the United Nations’ website says that 19.6 million people will face severe food insecurity between the months of January and June 2021, and the international confederation of NGOs Oxfam reports that “millions of people have been forced to flee their homes because of the conflict.” An explanation as to why, despite its extraordinary wealth in mining resources, the DRC is the second poorest country of the African continent and one of the least advanced countries in the world. 70% of the DRC’s population lives below the poverty line, prompting United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi to call for ‘greater international support and solidarity’ for the country, earlier this month.
Corruption in the DRC has been there since the Belgian colonisation. The issue has intensified under dictator Mobuto Sese Seko. Dictator Mobutu, in power between the years of 1965 and 1997, transformed an important part of national properties and the country thus society’s resources into personal property, intensifying the injustices of the system in place. Talking to RDC’s inhabitants we have been able to learn more about the country’s past, that explains in part the financial situation.
We spoke to Espoir Ngalukiye, activist and campaigner at LUCHA (Lutte pour le Changement, “fight for change”): “It [the corruption] has become almost an institution in our country, especially because of the politicians. They are the most corrupt but also the ones who corrupt the most” says Ngalukiye. “Here, many people, especially those in the civil service and even in NGOs, put money first instead of the fight for freedom and justice, and when a person refuses money then it’s the sign of someone extraordinary.” Talking with him about the country’s natural resources and the numerous mining exploitations, especially in East Congo, he says: “That is where corruption is in good health.” He explains to me that for people to own mining deposits one does not go through official channels. He adds: “It’s all about influence peddling with politicians. Even the mining law is not at all respected.” When I asked if the law changed according to politicians’ whims or if it was fixed, he replied laconically: “The law exists, but it is not respected.”
One of the most striking examples of how big corporations and governments are working together in DRC can be found in the region surrounding the border between Copperbelt and Haut-Katanga, in the South-Est of the country. Minerals, mainly extracted in large mining operations along the Copperbelt, a natural region between Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo and bordering Haut-Katanga, are also mined in smaller operations. Small-scale and artisanal operations together employ around 100,000 workers year-round.
The Katanga province is of interest to many businessmen and entrepreneurs. The region, located in the East side of the DRC, is particularly renowned for its mining explorations and exploitations. The Mining Union of the Haut-Katanga, called "Union Minière du Haut-Katanga" (UMHK), a Belgian industrial group, was the first company to open mining operations in the region and has been operating there since 1906. Since then, other companies have decided to exploit the vein. The Haut-Katanga region now has a total of 22 cobalt and copper mines. The region has always attracted a lot of immigrants seeking work, many of them in mining operations.
We have talked with one of the region’s activist, Emmanuel Ndimwiza Murhonyi. Murhonyi defines himself as an ecologist and sociologist from Congo. Member of Droits Environnement et Citoyenneté ASBL (DEL ASBL), he is passionate about the environment, and that goes hand in hand with the protection of his country. We discussed the political system, the mining issues, poverty and how the environment was badly impacted by human activity.
“Katanga is one of the biggest producers of copper and cobalt,” says Murhonyi, “but the wealth it produces is exploited by multinationals. What’s more is, the local population not only suffers from this poor redistribution of money suffers enormously from the pollution generated by these activities.”
With the Haut-Katanga’s biggest city, Lubumbashi, hosting many international corporations (including Gécamines, one of the largest mining companies in Africa), the region’s inhabitants experience on a daily basis the plundering of the Kapowole River’s resources, a once beautiful river now tainted by pollution.
“More than 3,000 inhabitants are dependent on this river, which is heavily polluted as a result of mining activities”, says Murhonyi. The Kapowole River is essential for the inhabitants, allowing them to find food and have access to drinking water. But it is not the only deeply impacted site in Katanga. Lake Kivu and Lake Edouard are also known for being two very polluted natural wonders. Beyond the pollution problems, the economic situation is a constant concern. “The situation in Katanga, particularly in the city of Lubumbashi, is difficult.”
Murhonyi tells me about the controversial new management of Gécamines: “[They] operates without taking environmental standards into account. These activities pollute the waters, rivers and lakes of Katanga province. […] The employees work in difficult conditions, without physical protection. They are exposed to pollution because they are not protected”.
Legislation protecting employees exists, but according to the ecologist, is once again “not enforced”. He points out that it is the authorities who decide and agree on the various mining operations in the countries, therefore the establishment of companies and multinationals, and adds that they do not have to answer to anyone and are not under any obligation to protect the population from the pollution generated by these activities.
The list of demands from Congolese ecologists for the government is long. Amongst them, to set up a national education campaign on climate change and the measures to be taken, to design and adopt a strategy for the energy transition, to reject major fossil fuel exploration sites, and to adopt and implement laws and actions enforcing the respect of climate commitments. They ask for all decisions taken at local, national and international level to be screened for their climate impacts.
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