Stories connect us, and who tells them matters – this is especially true when it comes to the story of our heating planet. This is why philanthropy’s support of climate research and journalism is such an important tool for climate action.

In a global conversation, Alliance brought together expert journalists covering climate change, as well as the funders who make supporting climate research and media a core part of their strategy.

Moderated by our Digital Editor, Elika Roohi, the panel included:

  • Sven Egenter, Editor-in-Chief and Executive Director, Clean Energy Wire
  • Mikaela Weisse, Deputy Director, Global Forest Watch, World Resources Institute (WRI)
  • Aarti Khosla, Founder and Director, Climate Trends

A few highlights from the event:

Sven said: For the energy transition and the move to climate neutrality, fifty per cent of the road ahead hinges on communication, because there are so many stakeholders involved. Journalism is clearly in that category.. so what have we achieved so far?

  • [Clean Energy Wire] has created a baseline on climate and energy reporting on the subjects we cover, to help journalists get faster into the story
  • We created this community through the capacity building of now over 1,500 journalists from across the globe
  • We are now in talks with other media about how to do it properly – a very welcome side effect from our work!

We’ve been immensely fortunate in that we have two core funders: the Mercator Foundation out of Germany, and the European Climate Foundation. Mercator funds 80% of our 1.3 million euro annual budget. What has been really unique is the long-term commitment those two have put into our project right from the start – with a starting grant of 3.5 years. That has given us space to build our brand, our reputation, to test and to dismiss things. That has been really important.

Mikaela: WRI is a global research organisation working at the intersection of climate, nature and people. Data is really at the heart of what we do; our model is:

  • Count it: Really recognising that we need to understand the extent of the problem before we can even get started – and data and research is really at the heart of that
  • Change it: Making use of that information to move the needle in the way that we want to see in the world
  • Scale it: Not just have impact in individual locations, but to actually be able to replicate that around the world

Read the full article about climate research by Amy McGoldrick at Alliance Magazine.