Human rights to water and sanitation at COP30: a comparative media analysis from a climate-vulnerable host city

1 Introduction

The climate crisis no longer unfolds in cities as a distant projection but as an everyday reality, materializing through heatwaves, floods, extreme rainfall, and droughts that increasingly stress and disrupt urban infrastructure systems (IPCC, 2022; Favier et al., 2025). These events are becoming more frequent and severe, exposing the structural limits of infrastructures historically designed for more stable climatic conditions (IPCC, 2022; Arnfield, 2003). In particular, intensified precipitation and urban flooding challenge drainage systems, while rising temperatures amplify urban heat risks and energy demand, reinforcing the vulnerability of densely built environments [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2021]. Urban climate risks are disproportionately concentrated in contexts marked by socioeconomic inequality, where heightened exposure and limited adaptive capacity converge to produce structurally differentiated vulnerabilities (IPCC, 2022; Pelling, 2011; Satterthwaite et al., 2020). In such settings, water supply and sanitation systems are not peripheral services but constitute critical infrastructures of urban resilience. When robust, they buffer climate shocks and protect public health by reducing exposure to waterborne diseases and environmental hazards [Bartram and Cairncross, 2010; World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), (2023)]. Conversely, when fragile or unevenly distributed, these systems amplify disease burdens, exacerbate service disruptions, and reinforce patterns of territorial and environmental injustice (Mc Granahan, 2015; UN-Habitat, 2022; Heller, 2018).

Despite global progress, persistent disparities in access to basic services continue to complicate efforts to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 6 and reinforce uneven vulnerability to climate impacts (UN-Habitat, 2022; WHO and UNICEF, 2025). At a time when climate-related health risks and social inequities are intensifying (Romanello et al., 2024), the marginalization of essential urban services within dominant climate narratives becomes analytically and politically consequential.

The human rights to water and sanitation (HRtWS) framework offers a normative and operational lens to interrogate this tension. Formally recognized by the United Nations in 2010, the HRtWS affirms that access to safe water and sanitation is indispensable to human dignity and the realization of other rights (Heller, 2018). As articulated by (de Albuquerque 2014) and further developed by Heller (2022, 2023), the framework establishes state obligations to ensure availability, accessibility, quality, non-discrimination, participation, and accountability, principles that are particularly salient in unequal and climate-stressed urban environments. Empirical applications of this lens have demonstrated its capacity to reveal distributive gaps and policy blind spots in crisis contexts (Victral and Heller, 2021), positioning HRtWS not merely as a legal commitment but as an analytical anchor for assessing how cities operationalize sustainability and justice.

The 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), hosted in Belém, an emblematic Amazonian city marked by persistent sanitation deficits, intensifies this analytical tension. While the summit elevates the city to the center of global climate diplomacy (UNFCCC, 2025), local infrastructural inequalities remain structurally embedded (Nunes et al., 2024). This paradox echoes broader patterns observed in mega-events, where global sustainability discourses coexist with enduring local vulnerabilities (Gaffney, 2013). Against this backdrop, this article examines how water and sanitation, framed through the HRtWS, were represented in media coverage during COP30. For this, the article is guided by four main objectives: (i) to map the thematic distribution of media coverage related to water and sanitation in the context of COP30; (ii) to analyze how different categories of media outlets construct distinct bias and narrative framings of these issues; (iii) to identify which normative dimensions of the HRtWS are made visible or remain absent in media discourse; and (iv) to examine how these dimensions are distributed across different segments of the media landscape.

The need to reflect on the complexity of environmental challenges from a communication-oriented perspective becomes increasingly urgent in light of the amplification of climate risks and the growing threats to information integrity regarding preventive measures (Nepote et al., 2020; Sarmento et al., 2026). Furthermore, the relative scarcity of scholarship examining the intersection of communication and environmental studies (Abib, 2025; Loose, 2025), in contrast to the backdrop of media hype surrounding COP30, provides a key rationale for this study. Moreover, given the role of the media in shaping informed public opinion (Chambers, 2017; Habermas, 2006; Maia, 2018, among others), this article argues that the contextualized dissemination of news about COP30, taking into account its specific areas of concern, is essential for the proper circulation of information within the public sphere, which is often permeated by distortions such as disinformation, denialism, and toxic discourses. From this perspective, we emphasize the significance of COP30 as a collective-interest event, as it aims to advance public policies on mitigation, adaptation, financing, technology, and capacity building in response to global climate risks. Furthermore, the event has sparked important debates, particularly regarding the role and participation of riverine and quilombola communities in addressing climate challenges.

The paper specifically analyzes whether the HRtWS were integrated into narratives of climate justice and urban sustainability, and whether journalistic framing reproduced a separation between high-level climate diplomacy and the material infrastructures underpinning urban resilience. By doing so, the study argues that the visibility, or silence, surrounding essential services in climate discourse reveals how cities and their inequalities are positioned within the politics of climate transition.

In terms of methodology, this study adopts a mixed-methods media analysis of news articles collected via the Google News RSS feed to examine how water and sanitation were represented during COP30. The dataset was analyzed through quantitative and qualitative approaches, guided by the HRtWS framework.

2 Materials and methods

2.1 Study design

This study adopts a mixed-method research design to examine how water and sanitation issues, framed through the HRtWS, were represented in media coverage during COP30. The research is structured as a cross-sectional media content analysis of the period surrounding the United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties in Belém, Brazil.

The design combines quantitative descriptive analysis and qualitative thematic content analysis to capture both the visibility and framing of water and sanitation within climate-related narratives. Methodologically, the study is exploratory and analytical rather than causal. It does not seek to determine the determinants of media framing, but rather to map patterns of representation and silence within a specific political and temporal context.

2.2 Media selection criteria

This research adopted an inclusive selection strategy informed by Google News's indexing mechanisms. All news articles retrieved through the search queries were considered eligible for analysis, regardless of the institutional nature of the source outlet. Consequently, the dataset includes publications from a variety of media organizations, provided that the content was indexed and distributed through Google News.

In this study, Google News served as a discovery and aggregation layer, enabling the identification of media coverage related to COP30 across a diverse ecosystem of news sources. This approach enables a broader mapping of the public communication environment surrounding the event, rather than restricting the analysis to a predefined set of major outlets. By including all retrieved sources, the study captures variations in how water and sanitation issues were represented across different segments of the Brazilian media landscape.

2.3 Data collection

Data collection was conducted on 10 March 2026, approximately 4 months after the conclusion of the COP30. Conducting the search after the event had concluded provided a sufficient temporal window for the stabilization of the news cycle, allowing both immediate event-related reporting and subsequent post-event analyses to be captured within the same dataset. This retrospective approach reduced the likelihood of excluding articles published after the conference and enabled a more comprehensive assessment of how water and sanitation issues were represented throughout the broader media coverage of COP30.

Data collection was conducted by automatically extracting news articles published by media outlets indexed by Google News, using the platform's RSS (Really Simple Syndication) search protocol. The RSS feed was selected over direct HTML (HyperText Markup Language) page scraping because it provides a structured, standardized mechanism that is less susceptible to layout variations, thereby ensuring greater methodological reproducibility.

Search queries were constructed using Boolean combinations of the study's central thematic terms: “COP30,” “water,” and “sanitation,” including combined variations (e.g., “COP30 AND water,” “COP30 AND sanitation,” and “COP30 AND (water OR sanitation)”). Due to Google News result limitations (approximately 100 results per query), multiple Boolean combinations were employed to maximize retrieval coverage. The queries were configured for Portuguese (pt-BR) and geographically restricted to Brazil to prioritize national media coverage.

The data extraction process was implemented using a Python script in a Jupyter Notebook. The following libraries were employed: feedparser (for reading and structuring RSS content), requests (for resolving URL redirections and identifying the final article link), and pandas (for data organization and processing). For each retrieved record, the following information was extracted: article title; publication date; source outlet; RSS-provided link; final article URL (after redirection resolution), and article summary (when available).

The retrieved data were consolidated into a CSV (Comma-Separated Values) -formatted database to enable subsequent content analysis. To prevent duplication, a deduplication procedure was applied using the combination of the article title and final URL.

Following the initial extraction, the data underwent cleaning, including date standardization and manual consistency verification. The automated Google News scraping process may not have captured all available articles related to the search queries due to platform limitations, including algorithmic ranking and the maximum number of results returned per query. Consequently, the dataset should be interpreted as a representative sample of indexed coverage rather than an exhaustive compilation of all relevant news articles.

To further enhance corpus stability, the complete search strategy was repeated after the initial retrieval using the same search queries and selection criteria. The repeated search produced no substantial changes to the final corpus beyond the identification of duplicate records, increasing confidence that the dataset adequately represented the Google News-indexed coverage available for the selected search terms at the time of collection.

3 Analytical framework

To examine how water and sanitation were represented in media coverage of COP30, this study employed an analytical framework grounded in the normative content of the HRtWS. The analytical categories correspond to the core principles that define these rights in international human rights law and were operationalized as coding categories for the media narratives analyzed in this study (Table 1).

Table 1. Analytical framework of thematic categories for classifying media coverage of water and sanitation in the context of COP30.

The HRtWS framework establishes that water and sanitation services must meet a set of substantive and procedural criteria, including availability, quality and safety, accessibility, affordability, acceptability, privacy and dignity, equity and non-discrimination, participation, access to information, accountability, and sustainability (United Nations General Assembly, 2010; de Albuquerque, 2014; Heller, 2018).

In this study, these principles were used as analytical codes to identify and classify references to water and sanitation in the media articles, enabling a systematic assessment of how HRtWS dimensions appeared in public media discourse surrounding COP30.

Quantitative analyses of the dataset were conducted using NotebookLM, a research and analysis tool developed by Google that integrates large language model (LLM) capabilities for document exploration and data interpretation. Language models are computational systems trained on large textual corpora to identify patterns in language, enabling tasks such as classification, summarization, and information extraction. In this study, NotebookLM was used exclusively after manual coding had been completed. It served only as an auxiliary tool for organizing the manually coded dataset, calculating frequencies and checking descriptive summaries. All coding decisions were performed manually by the researchers according to the predefined analytical protocol. The tool facilitated the structured examination of the coded dataset and the aggregation of descriptive statistics related to the number of articles associated with each theme and media category. The use of NotebookLM did not replace the conceptual coding procedures defined in the analytical framework but served as a complementary instrument to assist in the quantitative consolidation and verification of the categorized data.

4 Coding procedures

The coding process was conducted independently by the two authors following a predefined analytical protocol based on the HRtWS framework presented in Table 1. Before coding, both researchers discussed the analytical categories and their operational definitions to ensure a shared understanding of the coding criteria and the objectives of the study.

The entire news article was adopted as the unit of analysis. Each article was read in full and assessed to determine whether it substantively addressed water and sanitation issues within the context of COP30. Articles in which these topics were mentioned only incidentally or without meaningful relevance to the conference were excluded during the screening stage.

For the articles included in the final corpus, the coding procedure comprised four sequential steps. First, each article was assigned to a thematic category according to its predominant subject matter. Second, the source was classified into one of the predefined media categories based on its institutional profile and the dominant narrative orientation observed in the article. Third, the article was examined for the presence or absence of each normative content and principle of the HRtWS framework. Because a single news article could address multiple rights-related dimensions, multiple HRtWS codes could be assigned whenever the corresponding normative content was explicitly or implicitly identified in the text. Finally, descriptive information required for the quantitative analysis, including thematic frequencies and media category distributions, was consolidated in the coded database.

Coding decisions were based on the presence of content consistent with the conceptual definitions of each HRtWS principle rather than on the explicit use of human rights terminology. Thus, articles referring to issues such as service availability, affordability, participation, accountability, or equity were coded according to their substantive content even when the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation were not directly mentioned.

The coding performed by the two researchers was subsequently compared to verify consistency across the analytical categories. Any disagreements were planned to be resolved through discussion and, if necessary, by consultation with a third researcher experienced in the HRtWS framework. However, no cases required third-party adjudication, as consensus was reached through discussion between the two coders for all articles included in the final dataset.

5 Results

5.1 Media corpus and screening process

Figure 1 presents the workflow of the media selection process adopted in this study, illustrating the stages through which the initial dataset was progressively refined to define the final analytical corpus. The procedure followed a two-step screening strategy to ensure that only news articles substantively related to water and sanitation themes at COP30 were included in the analysis.

The first screening stage (Screening 1) consisted of a preliminary assessment based on the titles of the retrieved news articles. At this stage, all items identified through the automated data collection process were examined to verify whether the title indicated a direct or indirect connection with COP30 and with issues related to water or sanitation. Articles whose titles clearly referred to unrelated topics, such as general political coverage, economic news, or climate discussions without any reference to water or sanitation, were excluded from further analysis. This initial filtering step removed 21 articles that were clearly irrelevant, while maintaining a broad and inclusive corpus of 181 media articles for subsequent evaluation.

The second screening stage (Screening 2) involved a full-text reading of the remaining news articles. In this phase, each article was examined in full to determine whether water or sanitation constituted a substantive component of the news narrative. Articles were retained when these themes appeared in the main argument, contextual discussion, or analytical framing related to COP30. Conversely, articles in which water or sanitation were mentioned only incidentally or in passing were excluded from the final dataset. In this stage, 38 media articles were removed from the dataset.

After the two-stage screening process, a total of 143 media articles were retained for the final analysis. The final corpus, therefore, comprises publications that meaningfully address water and sanitation at COP30, forming the empirical basis for the thematic and framing analyses presented in this study.

According to the four analytical objectives outlined in this study, the results are presented along four complementary axes. First, we examine the thematic distribution of media coverage related to water and sanitation in the context of COP30. Second, we analyze how different categories of media outlets construct distinct narrative framings of these issues. Third, we identify the presence and distribution of the normative dimensions of the HRtWS within the analyzed corpus. Finally, we explore the intersection between media categories and HRtWS principles, highlighting how different segments of the media landscape emphasize specific rights-based dimensions. Together, these analytical axes provide a structured overview of how water and sanitation were framed in media narratives surrounding COP30.

5.2 Thematic distribution of media coverage

Table 2 presents the thematic categories identified in the analyzed corpus of media articles and their respective frequencies of occurrence. The classification resulted from the thematic coding of the 143 media articles retained after the screening stages described in the Methods section. Each article was assigned to a thematic category based on the primary focus of its narrative: water, sanitation, and COP30.

Table 2. Thematic categories identified in media coverage of water and sanitation related to COP30.

Agência Nacional de Águas e Saneamento Básico (Brazilian National Water and Basic Sanitation Agency).

Ministério da Integração e do Desenvolvimento Regional (Ministry of Integration and Regional Development).

Fundação Nacional de Saúde (Brazilian National Health Foundation).

Aegea Saneamento e Participações S.A., a major private Brazilian company operating water supply and sanitation services.

The results indicate that the most frequent theme in the dataset was “Infrastructure Works, Macrodrainage, and Urban Legacy in Belém,” accounting for 37 articles. This category includes media coverage focusing on large-scale urban infrastructure projects associated with the preparation of the host city for COP30, particularly works involving canal rehabilitation, drainage systems, and broader expectations for the event's long-term urban legacy.

The second most frequent category was “Public Policy, Water Governance, and Climate Resilience,” with 25 articles. These articles primarily addressed institutional initiatives and policy discussions related to water management, climate adaptation, and governance strategies linked to the conference.

A third prominent category, “Historical Sanitation Deficit and Regional Sanitary Realities,” comprised 16 articles highlighting longstanding infrastructure gaps in water supply and sanitation services in Belém and across Brazil's Northern region. The same number of articles (16) was identified under the theme “Water and Sanitation as Climate Adaptation Strategies,” including reports that discuss the role of resilient hydrological systems and urban water management in addressing climate-related risks.

Additional categories appeared with lower frequencies but still represented distinct narrative strands within the media coverage. These included “Environmental Racism, Inequality, and Socioeconomic Impacts” (11 articles), “Bottled Water Inflation and Organizational Expenditures” (9 articles), and “Privatization and Expansion through Private Concessions” (7 articles). Other themes identified in the corpus were “Operational Failures and On-site Water Scarcity” (6 articles), “Corporate Sustainability Initiatives and Social Entrepreneurship” (5 articles), and “International Climate Agenda and General Conference Coverage” (4 articles).

Less frequent themes included “Management of Water Resources, Springs, and Fluvial Levels” (3 articles), “The Technological Nexus: AI Development and Hydrological Footprint” (2 articles), and “Critique of Public Expenditure Priorities” (2 articles).

Overall, the thematic distribution in Table 1 illustrates the diversity of narrative angles through which water and sanitation issues were addressed in media coverage of COP30, ranging from infrastructure and public policy debates to socioeconomic critiques and the event's logistical aspects.

5.3 Media categories and narrative framing patterns

Table 3 summarizes the classification of the analyzed media articles by the institutional profiles of the source outlets and the predominant narrative framing observed in their coverage of water and sanitation issues related to COP30. Based on the qualitative content analysis, the identified media outlets were grouped into four broad categories: institutional and governmental media, sponsored or private-sector content, major commercial media, and investigative or independent media. The table also presents the primary sources within each category, the dominant narrative framing observed in the articles, and brief observations describing the characteristics of the coverage.

Table 3. Media categories and narrative framing patterns in COP30 coverage related to water and sanitation.

Secretaria de Comunicação Social da Presidência da República (Secretariat of Social Communication of the Presidency of Brazil).

Assembleia Legislativa do Estado do Pará (Legislative Assembly of the State of Pará).

Sponsored editorial content produced by or in partnership with private companies, typically designed to resemble journalistic reporting while promoting specific products, services, or institutional narratives.

Media sources are not mutually exclusive and may appear in more than one media category, depending on the nature of the content analyzed. Categories reflect the predominant framing identified in each article rather than the outlets' fixed classifications.

The institutional and governmental media category includes outlets such as Portal Gov.br, Agência Brasil, and legislative communication platforms. Articles in this category primarily focus on official narratives emphasizing the conference as a catalyst for infrastructure investments, urban transformation, and the strengthening of Brazil's role in global water governance. Coverage in this group frequently highlighted institutional initiatives and government-led development strategies associated with the event.

The sponsored and private-sector content category includes articles linked to corporate communication, advertorials, or business-oriented outlets such as Valor Econômico, Migalhas, and Revista O Empreiteiro. In these cases, the coverage emphasized market-based solutions, particularly the expansion of sanitation services through private concessions and investment opportunities associated with COP30-related infrastructure projects.

The major commercial media category encompasses large national news organizations, including CNN Brasil, G1 News, CBN, Terra, and BandNews. Coverage in these outlets generally presented factual reporting on the event's organization, logistical challenges, and broader climate discussions, frequently highlighting operational issues observed during the conference, including infrastructure constraints and service limitations.

Finally, the investigative and independent media category includes outlets such as Agência Pública, Outras Palavras, O Joio e o Trigo, Brasil de Fato, and O Eco. Articles in this group addressed the social and environmental implications of the event, including themes such as inequality, displacement risks, and the impacts of urban infrastructure interventions on vulnerable communities.

Overall, Table 3 illustrates the diversity of media actors involved in reporting on COP30 and the variety of narrative approaches adopted regarding water and sanitation issues within the broader climate conference context.

5.4 Normative dimensions of the human rights to water and sanitation in media coverage

Figure 2 presents the distribution of the normative content and principles of the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation (HRtWS) identified in the analyzed media corpus. The frequencies represent the total number of coded occurrences of each HRtWS dimension across the 143 news articles included in the study. Because a single article could address more than one normative dimension, multiple HRtWS codes could be assigned to the same article.

Availability was the most frequently identified normative dimension, accounting for 57 coded occurrences. Media coverage in this category primarily addressed chronic deficiencies in water supply and sanitation infrastructure, including the lack of sewage networks in large areas of Belém, interruptions in water services, and the expansion of household connections as part of the infrastructure legacy associated with COP30.

The second most frequent dimension was sustainability, with 49 coded occurrences. Coverage emphasized climate resilience, nature-based sanitation solutions, urban adaptation to extreme weather events, and debates on the environmental impacts of technological development, particularly the water demands associated with artificial intelligence infrastructure.

Equity and non-discrimination and quality and safety each accounted for 32 coded occurrences. Articles coded under equity and non-discrimination highlighted environmental racism, territorial inequalities, and the unequal distribution of sanitation infrastructure affecting Black, Indigenous, and other historically marginalized communities. Quality and safety focused on risks associated with contaminated water sources, untreated sewage, and initiatives aimed at improving drinking water quality and environmental health.

Affordability appeared in 27 coded occurrences, encompassing discussions on the financial accessibility of water and sanitation services, tariff burdens associated with privatized systems, and allegations of excessive pricing for bottled water during COP30.

Other HRtWS dimensions were identified less frequently but remained relevant to the media discourse. Acceptability, privacy and dignity accounted for 19 coded occurrences, addressing issues such as inadequate sanitation facilities, open defecation, visible sewage in urban neighborhoods, and culturally appropriate water solutions. Accountability appeared in 18 coded occurrences, reflecting media attention to the oversight of public investments, procurement processes, and regulatory enforcement. Participation (17 occurrences), accessibility (16 occurrences), and access to information (11 occurrences) were the least represented dimensions, referring respectively to the involvement of communities and subnational actors in decision-making, geographical barriers faced by remote and riverside populations, and the dissemination of official sanitation indicators and socio-environmental information.

Overall, Figure 2 demonstrates that media coverage of COP30 incorporated multiple normative dimensions of the HRtWS, although the distribution was uneven. The predominance of availability and sustainability suggests that media narratives primarily framed water and sanitation through infrastructure and climate adaptation perspectives, while governance-related dimensions—such as participation, accountability, and access to information—received comparatively less attention.

6 Intersection between media categories and HRtWS normative principles

Table 3 presents a cross-analysis of media outlet categories and the normative principles of the HRtWS identified in the analyzed corpus. The table illustrates how different segments of the media landscape emphasized distinct rights-based dimensions when addressing water and sanitation issues in the context of COP30.

Across all media categories, availability and sustainability emerged as the most recurrent normative dimensions. Availability accounted for 57 coded occurrences (20.5% of the total), while sustainability appeared in 49 occurrences (17.6%). These principles were present across all media categories, indicating that discussions of infrastructure expansion, service provision, and long-term water management were the most transversal themes in the coverage.

Institutional and governmental media outlets showed a strong concentration of references to sustainability (17 occurrences) and availability (14 occurrences). In this category, narratives frequently emphasized public investments, infrastructure expansion, and institutional initiatives to strengthen water governance and climate resilience.

Sponsored and private-sector content also highlighted sustainability and availability, although with lower frequencies. These articles often associate sanitation expansion and infrastructure investments with broader narratives of modernization and climate adaptation.

The major commercial media category concentrated the highest number of references to availability (22 occurrences), reflecting a strong focus on infrastructure works, service provision, and operational conditions related to the event. This category also accounted for the highest number of references to affordability (14 occurrences), particularly in reports addressing the cost of bottled water and the economic implications of the event for residents and visitors. In contrast, the investigative and independent media category showed a stronger presence of the principle of equity and non-discrimination (11 occurrences). Articles in this group frequently addressed inequalities in sanitation infrastructure and highlighted disparities affecting peripheral communities and socially vulnerable populations.

The political and fiscal analytical outlets exhibited a distinctive distribution pattern, with notable concentrations of references to accountability (7 occurrences) and affordability (6 occurrences). Coverage in this category frequently addressed issues related to public expenditure, transparency in infrastructure investments, and the economic implications of COP30-related projects.

Other HRtWS dimensions appeared with lower but still significant frequencies across the media landscape. References to quality and safety (32 occurrences) and acceptability, privacy, and dignity (19 occurrences) appeared mainly in reports discussing sanitation conditions, water safety, and the adequacy of infrastructure available during the event.

Overall, the distribution shown in Table 3 indicates that different media categories emphasized distinct normative aspects of the HRtWS framework, revealing a heterogeneous pattern in how water and sanitation issues were framed across the Brazilian media ecosystem during COP30.

7 Discussion

7.1 Visibility and silences of the human rights to water and sanitation in climate media narratives

The analysis of the Google News-indexed media corpus revealed that the normative dimensions of the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation (HRtWS) were incorporated into COP30 coverage in an uneven manner. As demonstrated in Figure 2, media narratives predominantly emphasized availability and sustainability, whereas participation, access to information, and accountability received considerably less attention. This distribution suggests that water and sanitation were primarily framed as technical and infrastructural challenges associated with climate adaptation rather than as rights-based governance issues. Such an imbalance is particularly relevant because the HRtWS framework was developed precisely to broaden the understanding of water and sanitation beyond infrastructure provision by incorporating principles of equity, participation, accountability, and human dignity (Heller, 2018).

The predominance of availability and sustainability reflects the thematic emphasis identified throughout the analyzed corpus, in which infrastructure works, urban drainage projects, sanitation expansion, and climate adaptation strategies emerged as the most frequent topics (Table 2). Much of this coverage framed investments in water and sanitation as part of the expected legacy of COP30, highlighting infrastructure modernization and service expansion as key responses to climate-related challenges. Consequently, media narratives tended to privilege technical and engineering-oriented solutions while giving comparatively less attention to governance dimensions such as participation, accountability, and access to information. This pattern is consistent with previous studies showing that climate adaptation is frequently communicated through infrastructural and technological responses, whereas the broader social and rights-based implications of water and sanitation receive comparatively less visibility in public discourse (Satterthwaite et al., 2020). In the context of Belém, a city characterized by persistent sanitation inequalities, this framing suggests that infrastructure investments associated with COP30 were predominantly portrayed as symbols of urban modernization and climate resilience rather than as opportunities to advance the full realization of the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation.

The cross-analysis of media categories and HRtWS dimensions (Table 4) further demonstrates that the incorporation of rights-based perspectives was not homogeneous across the analyzed media landscape. Institutional and governmental media predominantly emphasized availability and sustainability, framing water and sanitation in terms of infrastructure delivery, public investment, and climate resilience. In contrast, investigative and independent media devoted greater attention to equity and non-discrimination, highlighting environmental injustice, territorial inequalities, and the unequal impacts of sanitation deficits on historically marginalized communities. Political and fiscal analytical outlets, in turn, more frequently addressed accountability and affordability, focusing on public expenditure, pricing, and transparency in infrastructure investments. These contrasting patterns indicate that the visibility of specific HRtWS dimensions depended not only on the issues being covered but also on the editorial orientation and communicative priorities of different media segments. Similar dynamics have been identified in studies of environmental communication, which show that media organizations frame climate-related issues through distinct interpretive lenses shaped by their institutional roles, target audiences, and editorial agendas (Bullard, 2000). Rather than presenting a unified narrative, the analyzed corpus reveals a fragmented representation of the HRtWS, in which different dimensions of the rights framework become visible, or remain marginalized, depending on the type of media outlet producing the coverage.

Table 4. Cross-distribution of HRtWS principles and normative content across media categories in COP30 coverage.

This pattern is consistent with previous studies showing that mega-events frequently privilege narratives of urban transformation while giving less visibility to persistent social inequalities (Gaffney, 2013). As a result, the presence of HRtWS principles in media discourse may coexist with the marginalization of those dimensions that most directly challenge the official narrative of progress.

Taken together, these findings reinforce the central argument proposed in the introduction: that the visibility, or silence, of essential urban services in climate-related media narratives provides important insights into how cities and their inequalities are positioned within the politics of climate transition. Although water and sanitation were present in the media coverage of COP30, their representation often remained fragmented, emphasizing technical or infrastructural aspects while only partially incorporating the broader normative framework of the HRtWS.

Although these findings derive from a Google News-indexed corpus rather than from the entirety of Brazilian media coverage, they suggest that rights-based dimensions of water and sanitation remained secondary within dominant narratives surrounding COP30.

7.2 Challenges and media shortcomings in the coverage of COP30

The thematic distribution of the analyzed corpus demonstrates that media attention during COP30 extended well beyond climate governance and environmental policy. As shown in Table 2, the most frequent topics concerned infrastructure works, urban drainage projects, public investments, operational challenges, and the expected legacy of the conference, while issues directly related to the normative dimensions of the HRtWS occupied a comparatively smaller share of the coverage. This distribution helps explain why governance-related principles such as participation, accountability, and access to information appeared less frequently than dimensions associated with infrastructure provision and climate adaptation.

The predominance of event-centered narratives is consistent with previous research on media coverage of major international environmental conferences. Studies have shown that journalistic attention during climate summits frequently prioritizes immediate events, political negotiations, infrastructure projects, and operational challenges over broader structural discussions concerning environmental justice and public policy (Girardi et al., 2013a,b). The findings of the present study suggest that a similar pattern occurred during COP30, where much of the media attention focused on the organization of the event and its expected urban legacy rather than on the structural sanitation inequalities that characterize the host city.

The differences observed across media categories further reinforce this interpretation. Institutional and governmental media predominantly portrayed sanitation infrastructure as evidence of climate adaptation and urban modernization, whereas investigative and independent outlets more frequently highlighted territorial inequalities, environmental injustice, and the unequal distribution of sanitation services. Meanwhile, political and fiscal analytical outlets emphasized issues of public expenditure, transparency, and affordability. These contrasting narrative orientations illustrate how different segments of the media ecosystem selectively emphasized particular aspects of water and sanitation, producing complementary, but also fragmented, representations of the relationship between climate change, urban infrastructure, and human rights.

Although this study did not directly examine editorial decision-making processes or digital news distribution mechanisms, the observed patterns are compatible with broader discussions in environmental communication. Previous studies have argued that climate news is often shaped by journalistic values that privilege conflict, immediacy, and highly visible events, potentially limiting the visibility of long-term structural issues (Chambers, 2017; Habermas, 2006; Maia, 2018). Rather than demonstrating these mechanisms directly, the present findings suggest that they may have contributed to the comparatively limited visibility of governance-related HRtWS dimensions in the analyzed corpus.

These findings should also be interpreted considering the methodological scope of the study. The analyzed corpus represents media coverage indexed by Google News after the conclusion of COP30 and therefore reflects a representative sample of indexed news rather than the entirety of Brazilian media production. Nevertheless, the consistency of the thematic and normative patterns observed across different media categories suggests that the results provide valuable insights into how water and sanitation were incorporated into public communication surrounding one of the world's most important climate conferences.

Overall, the findings indicate that water and sanitation were not absent from media coverage of COP30; rather, they were predominantly framed through infrastructure delivery, urban development, and climate adaptation narratives. As a consequence, the broader governance dimensions of the HRtWS, including participation, accountability, and access to information, received comparatively limited attention, reinforcing a partial integration of rights-based perspectives into climate communication.

8 Conclusion

This study examined how water and sanitation were represented in Google News-indexed media coverage of COP30 through the analytical lens of the HRtWS. By combining thematic content analysis with a rights-based analytical framework, the study demonstrated that water and sanitation occupied a visible, yet uneven, place within media narratives surrounding one of the world's most significant climate governance events.

The findings indicate that media coverage predominantly framed water and sanitation through infrastructure delivery, urban modernization, and climate adaptation. Normative dimensions closely associated with physical service provision, particularly availability and sustainability, were considerably more visible than governance-oriented principles such as participation, accountability, and access to information. Moreover, the analysis revealed that these patterns were not homogeneous across the media landscape. Institutional and governmental outlets primarily emphasized infrastructure and resilience, whereas investigative and independent media more frequently highlighted environmental injustice and territorial inequalities. These differences suggest that the visibility of the HRtWS depended not only on the issues being reported but also on the editorial orientation of different media actors.

Taken together, these findings contribute to the growing literature on climate communication by demonstrating that the normative dimensions of the HRtWS remain only partially integrated into media narratives surrounding international climate conferences. Although water and sanitation were consistently present in the analyzed corpus, they were most often discussed as technical or infrastructural challenges rather than as fundamental human rights closely connected to equity, governance, and social justice. This selective framing may limit public understanding of the broader role that essential urban services play in advancing climate justice and sustainable urban development.

The study also contributes methodologically by demonstrating the applicability of the HRtWS framework as a systematic tool for analyzing media narratives on climate governance. The integration of thematic media analysis with rights-based coding offers a replicable approach that can be adapted to other climate events, urban contexts, or communication environments, enabling comparative investigations into how essential public services are represented across different media systems.

The findings should be interpreted in light of the study's methodological scope. The analyzed corpus represents a sample of media coverage indexed by Google News after the conclusion of COP30 rather than an exhaustive archive of all Brazilian news coverage. Consequently, the results should be understood as reflecting patterns within this indexed corpus and not as definitive evidence of the entirety of the Brazilian media landscape. Future studies may expand this approach by incorporating additional news databases, longitudinal analyses, international comparisons, or social media platforms to explore how different communication environments shape the visibility of the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation in climate governance debates.

Ultimately, the study argues that the ways in which water and sanitation are represented in climate communication influence how urban inequalities themselves become visible—or remain obscured—within public debate. Strengthening the presence of the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation in media narratives may therefore contribute not only to more informed public communication but also to more equitable and rights-based approaches to climate governance and urban sustainability.

Generative AI statement

The author(s) declared that Generative AI was used in the creation of this manuscript. Quantitative analyses of the dataset were conducted using NotebookLM. In this study, NotebookLM was used as an auxiliary analytical tool to support the systematic organization of the dataset, particularly for counting the frequency of thematic categories and identifying the distribution of media sources across the analyzed corpus. The tool facilitated the structured examination of the coded dataset and the aggregation of descriptive statistics related to the number of articles associated with each theme and media category. The use of NotebookLM did not replace the conceptual coding procedures defined in the analytical framework but served as a complementary instrument to assist in the quantitative consolidation and verification of the categorized data.

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Footnotes

Edited by: Estela Macedo Alves, University of São Paulo, Brazil

Reviewed by: Yumelda Sari, Universitas Esa Unggul, Indonesia

Dhoni Zustiyantoro, Universitas negeri semarang, Indonesia