“Protecting the climate and protecting our democracy are inextricably linked,” veteran climate reporter and activist Bill McKibben said last week at a Covering Climate Now press briefing on climate journalism in 2026. US president Donald Trump “is in many ways operating as a political arm of the oil industry,” McKibben added, “and coming to grips with his authoritarian impulse is going to be crucial to ever getting any climate action.”
The struggle for democracy — in the streets of Minneapolis, Teheran, and beyond — is but one high-profile issue with a strong climate change connection. Internationally, Greenland, Venezuela, and Iran possess sizable amounts of oil whose burning could push Earth’s climate past catastrophic tipping points. In the US, the surging cost of electricity produced by coal and gas is shaping up as an issue in congressional elections this November that could either counter or reinforce Trump’s authoritarianism. Yet, climate change is still missing from most news coverage.
McKibben cited Trump’s obsession with Greenland as a perfect example of a story in which climate change should be a critical aspect of the story but isn’t. While most Greenland coverage has focused on the geo-political and military implications of Trump’s aggression, McKibben said, “the actual strategic asset in play here is a two-mile-thick sheet of ice that, if it melts, will change the lives of every person on planet Earth” by raising sea levels catastrophically.
Meanwhile, developments in Africa contrast sharply with the US’s U-turn on climate action, Mohamed Adow, director of the Nairobi-based NGO Power Shift Africa, said during the briefing. Africa has become “one of the world’s most important laboratories for climate solutions,” Adow said, though the speed at which change is happening is “often missed” by journalists. (This Bloomberg Green article offers an excellent exception.) “Kenya now generates 95% of our electricity from renewables,” Adow added. “Solar capacity has expanded rapidly in countries such as South Africa, Morocco, and Egypt…. Solar mini-grids in rural Nigeria, Tanzania, and Senegal are bringing reliable electricity to [rural] communities that fossil fuel-based grids have failed to reach for decades.”
In Europe, too, there are urgent climate stories to tell. The EU’s imposition of climate tariffs on January 1, 2026, for example, is an “incredibly important” development, said Guardian reporter Fiona Harvey, whose own reporting showed that, under the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), “companies selling steel, cement, and other high-carbon goods into the EU will have to prove that they comply with low-carbon regulations or face fines.” The tariff is aimed at companies that might “shift their manufacture of those high-carbon goods or services to another [country] that has more lax regulation,” Harvey said, “so you don’t actually get any carbon saving.”
Noting that editors like stories about unexpected developments, McKibben highlighted “the dramatic reduction in the price of clean energy, which is shaking up all of our assumptions.”
“With solar and wind now providing 90% of new generating capacity around the world,” McKibben said, “there’s nothing alternative about them anymore, and one of the stories [journalists] need to tell is that we’re breaking into a new paradigm.”
Editors also need to hear that polls repeatedly show that “people really do care about this stuff,” Harvey said. Our job as journalists, she added, is “to show them that there are constructive ways out of the mess, as well as presenting them with the reality of the mess.”
From Us
CCNow Academy. Join our free three-month training program, comprising 12 live, interactive sessions from March to June. As part of a cohort of 40 journalists from around the world, you’ll learn about climate science, solutions journalism, how to spot disinformation, and much more. Apply by February 16.
CCNow Basics: Covering Climate Across Beats Though climate change intersects with every beat — from sports to health, from crime to agriculture — the connection is often unreported. Join us on February 19 for a free training — part of our CCNow Basics series — on how to identify and report climate angles in your coverage, no matter your beat. We’re hosting two sessions, open to journalists worldwide, to accommodate different schedules: 6am US Eastern Time (11am UTC) and 1pm US Eastern Time (6pm UTC).
Radar Clima: la escasez de agua. La última edición de Radar Clima, nuestro boletín en español para periodistas de todas las áreas, está dedicada a cómo cubrir la escasez de agua. Incluye datos clave, contactos de expertos y ángulos de cobertura para abordar una crisis que ya está transformando territorios y comunidades en América Latina y España. Échale un ojo a las ediciones anteriores y suscríbete para recibir el boletín cada dos miércoles.
WATCH: Venezuela, Oil, and Climate Change. Last week, CCNow hosted a discussion in the aftermath of the US seizure of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, about what could happen to Venezuela’s oil reserves — and what that might mean for climate change. Watch the recording.
Noteworthy Stories
“Water bankruptcy.” The global water crisis is entering a new era, according to a UN report, which notes that terms like “crisis” and “stressed” fail to capture the severity and scale of the situation. Humanity is “spending” its water budget faster than water sources, including rivers and lakes, can replenish; the cycle is made worse by climate change–fueled drought and heat. By Laura Paddison for CNN…
Climate at Davos? At the World Economic Forum, which kicked off this week in Davos, Switzerland, climate change has fallen down the priorities list for world leaders, with discussion focused instead on energy supplies, minerals, and rapidly shifting geopolitics. By Joe Lo, Megan Rowling, and Matteo Civillini for Climate Home News…
Unequal heat. To understand how extreme heat, worsened by climate change, impacts residents of Rio de Janeiro, researchers at the Netherlands’ Utrecht University have installed in-home thermometers in two favelas, asking residents to record temperatures. By Bruna Cabral for Reuters…
Trump, Venezuela, and the climate. Venezuela is home to 17% of the world’s known remaining oil reserves, which, though unlikely, if fully developed and used, would eat up the world’s remaining carbon budget to preserve a 1.5-degree-Celsius future. Heavy crude, the type found in Venezuela, is particularly emissions-intensive to process. By María Mónica Monsalve S. for El País…
Quote of the Week
“We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. There is such a thing as being too late.”
– Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Resources & Events
Flooding in southern Africa. Did climate change impact the recent heavy rains in Mozambique, South Africa, Eswatini, and Zimbabwe? Join World Weather Attribution’s journalists-only press briefing on January 28, at 9am UTC to learn how climate change might have played a role. Journalists may email wwamedia@imperial.ac.uk to register.
Stories to watch. Join the World Resource Institute on January 29, at 2pm UTC, for a look ahead at the most important climate stories of 2026, including the clean energy transition and how climate solutions are affecting housing and jobs. Learn more and RSVP.
Journalism award. The Poynter Institute has added a new category for excellence in climate change reporting, with a cash prize of $10,000; apply by February 13, at 6pm US Eastern Time (11pm UTC). Learn more and apply.
Jobs, Etc.
Jobs. Resilience.org is hiring a managing editor (remote, contract). Sentient is hiring a project coordinator for its Iowa Reporting Project (remote in Iowa). The Plumas Sun is hiring a disaster-recovery reporter (Plumas County, Calif.). The New York Times is hiring an assistant editor, climate (New York, N.Y.).
Fellowship. The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute is accepting applications for its Science Communication Fellowships; apply by February 10. Report for America is hiring 70 fellows for their two-year program; apply by February 16. The University of Colorado at Boulder is accepting applications for its Ted Scripps Fellowship in Environmental Journalism; apply by March 1. The Arthur F. Burns Fellowship, which promotes cross-cultural exchange between German and North American journalists, is accepting applications for their 2026 fellowship; apply by February 1 for German fellows and March 1 for North American fellows.
Workshop. The Climate Journalism Network Austria is organizing an investigative workshop, “Follow the Carbon, the Money and the Data,” in Vienna, for journalists based in Europe. In a two-day workshop, on April 24 and 25, participants will learn how to trace emissions, examine lobbying at the EU level, and follow financial flows. Apply by January 31.