Find a resource

Search our curated database of articles, guides, training programs, conferences, fellowships, and more.

The text search and filters will all narrow your results at the same time. If you aren’t seeing many results for a search, try clicking “Clear Filters” to see more options.

Find more tips for using this database at the Starter Guide page.

Library

Topic: Climate
Article

9 local story ideas from the 2024 Lancet Countdown report on climate change and health

"Health threats from climate change are reaching record-breaking levels, affecting people in every country, according to the eighth annual Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change report, which provides an up-to-date assessment of the links between health and climate change." This explainer from The Journalist's Resource highlights major findings from the report and offers nine story ideas for local journalists based on its research.
Resource Database / Guide

The Climate Blueprint

Covering Climate Now, Solutions Journalism Network

This collection of articles includes reflections from leading climate journalists about how to better cover the all-encompassing climate crisis. It includes connecting climate to every beat, engagement, visualization, disinformation, local journalism, identifying impact, collaborations, and more. The project was led by Solutions Journalism Network and Covering Climate Now, following discussions from a conference in fall 2023.
Fellowships & Grants

Seed grants for climate and environmental journalism

Earth Journalism Network

"EJN is offering seed grants of approximately $8,000 each to three immigrant, Black, Indigenous and/or people of color-serving newsrooms and media collectives in the United States and Canada, with support from the Wikimedia Foundation. These grants are intended to fund the initial production of new journalistic tools or resources (such as open-source databases) and/or the publication of multi-part, longform journalistic work (such as an investigative series or a podcast). Along with funding, selected grantees will benefit from mentorship from media trainers, facilitated connections to relevant experts and assistance with media sustainability." The deadline is October 31, 2024.
Video

Writing about climate change for kids

The Highlights Foundation

In this virtual event from The Highlights Foundation, authors Pam Courtney, Andrea Loney, and Crystal Allen discussed writing about climate change for children. The conversation identifies ways that "children’s books can offer a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness between social justice, racial equity, and caring for our planet."
Awards

Reed Environmental Writing Award

The Southern Environmental Law Center's annual Reed Environmental Writing Award "seeks to enhance public awareness of the value and vulnerability of the South’s natural treasures by giving special recognition to writers who most effectively tell the stories about the region’s environment." There are two categories: Book, for works of nonfiction (not self-published), and Journalism, for newspaper, magazine, and online writing that is published by a recognized institution such as a newspaper, university, or nonprofit organization. Entries must relate to the natural treasures or environmental challenges in at least one of SELC’s states: Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, or Virginia. Winners will be invited to read from their winning entry at a special SELC event during the Virginia Festival of the Book, held every March in Charlottesville,Va. The deadline for the 2025 awards is October 1.
Resource Database / Guide

GIJN Guide to Investigating Extreme Heat

"The negative effects of higher temperatures can be seen everywhere, offering many opportunities for investigative journalism." This guide from the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) provides potential topics to cover, story angles, many story examples, resources, and more.
Fellowships & Grants

MIT Environmental Solutions Journalism Fellowships

MIT

"The MIT Environmental Solutions Journalism Fellowship supports freelance and staff journalists associated with U.S. local/regional newsrooms in developing a high-impact news project that reports on how climate change and/or the shift to a low-carbon economy relates to local communities and regions, in a way that centers local messengers, values, and priorities." For 2025, "special consideration will be given to news projects centered on climate solutions within the food and waste systems, including food waste and methane emissions in waste management." "Starting in January 2025, Fellows will participate in a four-month nonresident program that includes a multi-day virtual workshop where fellows will connect with MIT climate scientists, earth modeling researchers, political scientists, energy economists, and others; access to an editor to support project structure and packaging; training on using MIT’s extensive library databases, socioeconomic climate analyses, and other resources as requested; twice a month virtual cohort meetings; republication of the project through MIT and partner channels; and stipends of $10,000 plus up to $5,000 for qualified expenses. Applications are due October 14, 2024.
Training program

Oxford Climate Journalism Network

University of Oxford, Reuters Institute

"The Oxford Climate Journalism Network (OCJN) is a programme that supports a global community of reporters and editors across beats and platforms to improve the quality, understanding and impact of climate coverage around the world. We are a programme of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford." Applications are open through October 13, 2024, for the 2025 cohorts. The first cohort will include 100 journalists for the first semester of 2025 and 100 more for the second semester.
Article

Repetition makes climate misinformation feel more true — even for those who back climate science

"Climate misinformation may be more effective than we’d like to think because of a phenomenon called the illusory truth effect. In short, we are more likely to believe a lie if we encounter it repeatedly. Worse, the effect works immediately — a lie seems to be more true even after just one repetition." This article in Nieman Lab summarizes a recent paper by the same authors (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0307294) in which the researchers put the illusory truth effect to the test among people with strongly held existing beliefs.
Article

What journalists need to know when covering extreme weather and climate change

The NPR Climate Desk put together this bulleted list of ready-to-use, sourced (to NPR articles) bullet points about climate change, organized by topic. Many are from the latest National Climate Assessment.
Video

Talking shop: When debunking climate disinformation gets labeled “censorship”

Covering Climate Now

"Increasingly, disinformation peddlers are protecting their lies by accusing anyone who fact-checks or debunks climate disinformation of censorship, bias, or being anti–free speech and debate. How can journalists preempt such charges, or deal with them, as we continue to tackle climate disinformation on the beat? In this press briefing, co-sponsored by Covering Climate Now and Climate Action Against Disinformation, experts detailed strategies used by disinformers to discredit journalists and how you can protect your reporting and serve your audiences. Kendra Pierre-Louis of Bloomberg; Marco Silva of BBC News; and Wudan Yan, freelance journalist, fact-checker, and entrepreneur, joined moderator Amy Westervelt, executive editor of Drilled, for a one-hour conversation."
Resource Database / Guide

A freelancer’s guide to reporting on climate change

"For freelance journalists, reporting on environmental issues and climate change is a chance to cover a diverse range of stories, places, and characters with an opportunity to build data, multimedia, and storytelling skills to better engage audiences... In this guide you will learn to help audiences connect with the subject of climate change; learn how environmental issues overlap with everyday events or trending topics; and learn to connect the dots globally." The guide, published by the European Journalism Centre, is available in English, Arabic, French, and Spanish.
Newsletter

Climate on the Ballot newsletter

Covering Climate Now

The Climate on the Ballot newsletter, from Covering Climate Now, is delivered every Monday and covers a topic to help journalists integrate climate into their newsroom’s campaign reporting. It is also available in Spanish here: https://coveringclimatenow.org/from-us/el-clima-en-la-boleta/
Newsletter

Locally Sourced — Covering Climate Now

Covering Climate Now

Locally Sourced is a biweekly newsletter from Covering Climate Now. It's for journalists working on local angles of the climate story. Each edition includes story idea suggestions, reporting tips, and examples to serve as inspiration. It's also available in Spanish as “Fuentes Locales.”
Conference

News Impact Summit: Fighting climate misinformation

European Journalism Centre

"The News Impact Summit in Copenhagen, organized in partnership with the Google News Initiative, will address how climate misinformation undermines public trust in climate policies and stalls progress toward a green transition." Journalists and media professionals who attend the summit will attend talks, panels, workshops, and interactive discussions that "explore innovative storytelling techniques to highlight the urgency of climate action, debunk falsehoods, and empower communities to demand accountability from policymakers and industry stakeholders."
Article

Five tips for better coverage of the climate crisis

"There is consensus that climate journalism should be accurate, well-sourced, and reflect complexity and uncertainty as appropriate... But what about the huge range of audiences around the world? And the plethora of different platforms, types of reporting (issue-driven or event-driven), and varieties of media organization?" This article goes over five criteria that the authors suggest as a starting point for identifying quality climate journalism. These are: "1) relevance to audiences; 2) out of the environment box; 3) potential solutions; 4) multimodal reporting; and 5) from global to local."
Article

Seven lessons for journalism in the age of extreme heat

"Extreme heat is harming our societies. From children forced to stay away from school and agricultural workers struggling out in the field, to increased demand for electricity and health services, countries are not set up to deal with extreme heat in a warming world. ... "For journalists and newsrooms, this regular rhythm of extreme heat means that we can also prepare our coverage, in the same way we plan the coverage of elections, Olympic Games or the awards season. This idea ... was at the heart of our 2024 Oxford Climate Journalism Network Annual Event: Journalism in the Age of Extreme Heat. ... This is some of what we learned."
Video

Press briefing: War and climate change

Covering Climate Now

"War and climate change are intertwined in ways that journalists need to understand. Violent conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine, and elsewhere are not only causing terrible human suffering, they are fueling the climate crisis." This press briefing from Covering Climate Now discusses the carbon footprints of military operations, how extreme weather can "kindle armed conflict," and how to talk about the climate crisis when war is ongoing. Panelists include Neta C. Crawford from the University of Oxford, Rawan Damen from Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, and Ellie Kinney, from the Conflict and Environment Observatory.
Video

How to pre-bunk climate disinformation

Covering Climate Now

"Researchers studying climate disinformation agree: 'Inoculation' is one of the most effective options for countering it, and the first step toward inoculation is 'pre-bunking,' or warning audiences in advance. In this webinar, co-sponsored by Covering Climate Now and Climate Action Against Disinformation, panelists will discuss ways journalists can get ahead of climate disinformation and 'pre-bunk' it in a way that doesn’t amplify the disinfo or cause unnecessary alarm." Amy Westervelt, investigative climate journalist and executive editor of Drilled Media, moderated the panel. The panelists were Ketan Joshi, communications consultant & author, Phil Newell, Director of Science Defense, Climate Nexus, and Dharna Noor, Fossil Fuels and Climate Reporter, The Guardian.
Video

How to effectively cover climate change and reach an avoidant audience

International Journalism Festival

This panel at the 2024 International Journalism Festival discusses the challenge of engaging audiences in climate change coverage. It explored the questions: "How can we change our formats to meet the audience where they are? Can we be playful and entertaining in the delivery, and serious on the facts? What can we learn from successful social media narratives?" Panelists included: Juan Manuel Benitez (Columbia University), Anna Bressanin (US editor, BBC Reel), Adam Levy (journalist and climate communicator), and Amy Westervelt (founder, Critical Frequency).
Article

Climate coverage that engages audiences without overwhelming them

"Climate change remains one of the most challenging stories for media to cover well. The sheer magnitude of the problem, and its unrelenting slow burn of destruction, makes it difficult to engage readers in a personal way." This article highlights stories by journalists around the world that are "distinctive and engaging" in their coverage of the climate crisis. The stories use multimedia and interactive tools to "immerse readers in the enormity of the issue while at the same time personalizing it to each reader, viewer, or user."
Video

Battling disinformation, fending off despair and staying relevant: What’s the future for environmental journalism?

SEJ

"Environmental journalism — much like the news business more broadly — is in a state of flux. An increasingly urgent climate crisis combined with an evolving media landscape have raised big questions that linger over our profession and our beat." In this session at the 2024 Society of Environmental Journalists conference, panelists grappled with these issues. They discussed how to combat climate disinformation, coping with the feeling of despair, new business models for journalism, and more.
Resource Database / Guide

The Debunking Handbook 2020

The Debunking Handbook 2020 is a guide to debunking misinformation. While it was developed by climate scientists, the tactics described apply to a variety of scientific topics. The Handbook was written by 22 scientists through a consensus process and has been translated into about 20 languages.
Resource Database / Guide

The Drilled 2024 Guide to Climate Disinformation

This guide, from climate accountability newsroom Drilled, unpacks the fossil fuel industry's key misleading messages. It covers gas prices, offshore wind and whales, development in Global South countries, misleading terms, and more. Drilled plans to keep the guide updated as messaging changes.
Fellowships & Grants

Caribbean Climate Justice Journalism Fellowship

Climate Tracker, Open Society Foundation

This fellowship offers "a unique opportunity for Caribbean journalists to hone their skills, tell important stories, and make a real impact in their communities." Over the course of five months, fellows will receive training, support to produce five stories, and engagement opportunities. The fellowship stipend is $200 per month. The 2024 application deadline was April 22.