What Now For Climate Reporting?
Covering Climate Now
A global journalism initiative committed to more urgent and informed coverage of climate change.
The United States’s political tumult has not changed the physics of climate change. Average global temperatures, already the highest in likely 120,000 years, will keep increasing until humanity stops burning oil, gas, and coal. Which means that deadly heat waves, storms, and other climate impacts will also keep getting more severe and frequent. As Zoë Schlanger wrote in The Atlantic in September, the next US president, whoever he or she was, is destined to be “a climate-disaster president.”
What Trump’s victory means for climate journalism is a huge, vital question that will take time to answer. Covering Climate Now invites fellow journalists, everywhere, to join us in thinking through how all of us should go about our work going forward. Please share your ideas here.
One of CCNow’s core goals since our founding five years ago has been to nurture a sense of community on the climate beat, a place where colleagues from all over the world can meet, talk, learn from, and support one another as we try to tell the defining story of our time. Having this community of like-minded colleagues feels especially precious today.
Meanwhile, a few things are clear.
First, the climate story is only going to get bigger. As the effects of global warming become ever more evident and costly, it’s our job to help audiences understand why that is happening and, crucially, that it doesn’t have to be this way: Humanity has all the tools needed to avoid global warming’s worst impacts; what’s been lacking are political leaders who will implement those solutions — a dynamic poised to become more acute with Trump’s return to power.
Second, Trump’s victory by no means represents a rejection of climate action. The unfortunate fact is that climate change was never treated as a priority during the 2024 campaign — not by the candidates, not by most voters, not by most news coverage. The silver lining of that shortcoming is that US voters did not repudiate climate action; they simply cared more about other issues, notably the economy. Indeed, this election fits a recent global trend of incumbent governments getting voted out of power by working and middle classes angry about ballooning inequality and economic insecurity.
Which perhaps hints at how to tell the climate story going forward. CCNow has long said that climate coverage shouldn’t be confined to the weather and science desks: It’s a story that touches every beat in the newsroom. Maybe the best way to tell that story is not to treat it as a stand-alone subject but to thread it throughout your coverage of the economy, migration, or whatever the news of the day is.
“Good climate journalism has just become twice as important,” wrote CCNow’s close colleague Wolfgang Blau , the co-founder of the Oxford Climate Journalism Network, the morning after Donald Trump won the US presidential election. We agree.
From Us
COP29 Reporting Guide. Check out CCNow’s “How to Cover COP29” reporting guide for guidance on key issues, thematics days, and practical tips to help you make the most of your time covering the UN climate summit that runs from November 11–22 in Baku, Azerbaijan.
CCNow Basics. Watch a recording of our first-ever CCNow Basics training webinar, “The Three Pillars,” in which we helped fellow journalists brush up on how to humanize the climate story for audiences and frame climate change through the lenses of justice and solutions. We plan to hold trainings like this quarterly, and they’re open to journalists of all stripes — so keep an eye out for another iteration of this training early next year.
Noteworthy Stories
Global experts react. While acknowledging the enormous challenges Trump’s victory will likely entrail, climate experts and diplomats from around the world have expressed resolve to keep up progress. “The fundamental facts remain unchanged,” said Simon Steill, the Grenadian head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, adding, “Unless all countries can cut emissions and build more resilience into global supply chains, no economy, including the G20, will survive unchecked global heating, and no household will be spared its severe inflationary impacts.” By Joe Lo for Climate Home News…
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COP29 key issues. The annual UN climate summit begins next week in Baku, Azerbaijan. Issues that will be in the spotlight include climate finance, meaning what wealthy, developed countries owe developing peers to support their energy transitions and climate adaptation efforts; the transition away from fossil fuels, which countries agreed on at last year’s COP28 (though, since then, fossil fuel use and exports have risen worldwide); and much-needed rules and regulations pertaining to carbon markets. Trump’s election will all but certainly complicate proceedings. By Valerie Volcovici for Reuters…
COP16 recap. The UN’s global summit on protecting nature, held recently in Cali, Colombia, ended in “disarray and indecision.” Despite their agreement on important goals — such as protecting 30% of Earth’s natural environments, a target set at 2022’s COP15 — leaders could not reach consensus on how to fund their goals or track progress. Negotiations meant to end Friday spilled into Saturday, with many leaders cutting out to catch flights. By Patrick Greenfield and Phoebe Weston for the Guardian…
Valencia, after the storm. A week after devastating floods in Valencia, Spain — which took hundreds of lives, displaced many more, and wrought billions of Euros in damage — recovery efforts are proceeding, but slowly. “The volunteers get a grade of 10. But I give a 0 to the [government] coordination effort,” one resident said. By Manuel Jabois for El País…
Washington state carbon tax. Evergreen State voters defeated, by a wide margin, a Republican effort to repeal the state’s tax on carbon emissions, which has raised billions to facilitate energy transition and climate adaptation efforts since its passage in 2021. By Kate Yoder for Grist…
Dated NC flood maps. FEMA’s standing flood maps for North Carolina severely underestimate flood risk in the state, experts say, contributing to communities that were blindsided by the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. One research group finds that seven to nine times as many properties are at risk of flooding than FEMA’s maps indicate. By Liz McLaughlin for WRAL News in Raleigh…
Resources
The Global Investigative Journalism Network has a guide to finding and chasing down scoops on the fossil fuel industry, “Fossil Fuel Investigations: How to Find Stories Using Oil and Gas Supply Chains.” “The energy transition might be taking shape, and in some places renewables are growing rapidly, but sadly for the planet, oil, gas, and coal still dominate the global energy system,” the guide begins. “Despite all this, hydrocarbons can be extremely difficult to track.” Drawing on GIJN’s own investigations, the guide shares tools and tips for journalists everywhere.
The Solutions Project has launched a new resource for journalists to spur coverage of community-led climate solutions. Called Storybank, it features stories of grassroots organizations working at the intersection of climate justice and other social challenges. Each entry includes a video, written summary, and more. The Solutions Project says they hope the resource “will help journalists better find and elevate stories from the frontlines of the climate crisis where communities are already experiencing devastating impacts.”
Jobs, Etc.
Inside Climate News is hiring a Texas-based Clean Energy Reporter. CNN is hiring an Extreme Weather Editor in Hong Kong. The New York Times is hiring a Climate Writer for its Climate Forward newsletter. The Environmental Reporting Collective is hiring a Managing Editor.
Calling on journalists in South Africa: Oxpeckers Investigative Environmental Journalism , which bills as “Africa’s first investigative environmental journalism unit,” is seeking pitches on the energy transition in South Africa. Email thabo.molelekwa98[at]gmail[dot]com.