A holiday gift from Covering Climate Now: some reasons to be grateful as we round out this year and head into the next.
We read the headlines like everyone else, and we know that this year has been rough for climate progress – in the US, around the world, and in hundreds of devastated local communities. It’s also been a trying time for journalism, which is struggling to cover this massive, interconnected story with fewer resources and, at times, less resolve. And yet from our vantage point, working with hundreds of newsrooms from around the world, we see reasons for hope. Here are a few:
As bad as things are in the US for climate policy, the rest of the world is pressing on. Donald Trump is doing everything he can to fulfill a campaign pledge to wreck the planet and roll back what’s needed to slow the worst effects of climate change. But he’s not the king of the world. Markets everywhere are embracing solar and wind power, and many governments and companies are continuing to work to wean themselves off of fossil fuels. Our reporter colleagues from outside the US tell us that some of the chilling effects hitting climate coverage in the US are not being felt outside its borders.
The public cares about climate change and wants to hear more about it. Our 89 Percent Project, launched in April, used social science research to show that the overwhelming majority of the world’s people want their governments to take stronger climate action, but these same people don’t realize they are the majority. For newsrooms, telling that story, and letting the public see themselves reflected in it, is both journalistically responsible and commercially shrewd. In the new year, CCNow will announce the next stages of the 89 Percent Project, so stay tuned.
Journalists want to tell the climate story even if their bosses are backing away. While some mainstream newsrooms are retreating from climate coverage, many individual reporters are not. We continue to see great work from freelancers, podcasters, newsletter writers, and many more. This year, CCNow rolled out a training program, the Covering Climate Now Academy, which was vastly oversubscribed, indicating journalists’ eagerness to hone their climate skills. You’ll see more training opportunities from us in the new year. Meanwhile, we are heartened by the newsrooms that are stepping up: ProPublica, the US-based investigative outlet, and France Televisions, the public broadcaster, were among the new partners to join the CCNow collaborative in 2025, modeling for others a robust commitment to telling the climate story.
Pockets of innovation and commitment are everywhere. At COP30 in Belem, we worked with a group of Brazilian journalists, many of them from the Amazon region, to cover the conference and make their work available to global newsrooms. For the 89 Percent Project, a collective of motivated high school reporters, in the US and UK, contributed stories alongside their professional peers. Along the southern US border, reporters from the US and Mexico convened to find ways to cover climate and immigration. And for a fifth consecutive year, the winners of the CCNow Journalism Awards established standards of excellence that our colleagues around the world can learn from and emulate.
All of this is why we do the work we do. From all of us at CCNow, we thank you for supporting great climate journalism, and for translating your hope for a better future into concrete action. If you’re able to help us continue CCNow’s work, you can make a tax-deductible contribution here. Happy holidays, and see you in 2026!