Editor’s note: this article is the first part of The Fix’s series of guides on environmental journalism. Make sure you’re subscribed to our weekly newsletter so you don’t miss the next instalments.

Environmental journalism is, without a doubt, one of the most important strands of contemporary journalism.

As the climate crisis progresses, more and more people suffer the consequences; politicians struggle to find global governance and solutions. Furthermore, oil and fossil companies are historically bearers of significant international economic interests and, as if that weren’t enough, they have long supported journalism with advertising investment.

The CEO of one of the world’s largest oil companies will lead the climate talks at COP28, which will take place in Dubai from 30 November to 12 December 2023. The United Arab Emirates, which is hosting the next edition of the main event to address the issue of climate change, has chosen Sultan Al Jaber, who, in addition to being the country’s minister of industry and advanced technologies, is the managing director of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), the oil company of the UAE.

In this global context, it should be self-evident how important environmental journalism is. 

Mais Katt, investigative journalist who has covered environmental crimes in Syria, said climate change “is the most important cross-border topic that we can all work on together. If we have that in our mind as an organisation, newsroom, and individual freelancers, then we can do something about it”.

Environmental journalists should be able to tell stories involving their audiences from a local perspective without losing the global context. They must be able not to exaggerate consequences, avoiding catastrophic tone of voice, but at the same time, they must be able not to minimise what’s happening.  

To adequately cover environmental-related topics, it’s essential to strengthen knowledge on the subject. There are several free courses online perfect to start with:

There are also several journalistic organisations listed by the IJNET, to get training and stay up-to-date:

  • Climate Tracker, an international non-profit organisation, aiming to support, train and incentivise better climate journalism globally
  • Society of Environmental Journalists, a North American membership association of professional journalists dedicated to more and better coverage of environment-related issues
  • Environmental Reporting Collective, network of journalists and newsrooms from over a dozen countries, all dedicated to investigating environmental crimes collaboratively. All their production is available under a Creative Common 4.0 licence and can be translated and re-used
  • Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organisation dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future
  • The Uproot Project, a network for journalists of colour who cover environmental issues, as well as students and others aspiring to cover this beat
  • Earth Journalism Network, from Internews, is a global network working with reporters and media outlets in virtually every region of the world. It trains journalists to cover a wide variety of issues, develops innovative online environmental news sites and produces content for local media
  • Cover Climate Now, from the Columbia Journalism Review

A personal recommendation is an inspiring newsletter called Heated, run by Emily Atkin and Arielle Samuelson.

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Knowledge is needed. But we also need data 

Once you have a solid theoretical basis, it’s time to understand where you can find data.

Primary sources are, for example, government reports. Thanks to digitalisation and open government initiatives, it’s possible to find a lot of interesting materials to start telling stories. 

Let’s see some examples to understand what an impressive amount of databases are at our disposal.

  • Data.gov – a portal that provides access to a wide range of US government datasets, including environmental data from agencies such as the EPA, NOAA, and the US Geological Survey. It has a specific section about climate.
  • World Bank’s Open Data – a collection of datasets on global development, including environmental indicators such as greenhouse gas emissions, forest cover, and air pollution.
  • European Environment Agency (EEA) – the EEA provides a range of environmental data, information, and maps for the European Union, including air and water quality, climate change, and biodiversity data.
  • Eurostat – the statistical office of the EU, which provides a wide range of data on environmental issues such as energy consumption, waste management, and greenhouse gas emissions in a specific session.
  • Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) – a service provided by the EU’s Copernicus programme that provides data on past, present, and future climate conditions and impacts in Europe and worldwide.
  • Joint Research Centre (JRC) – the JRC is the European Commission’s in-house science service, which provides research and analysis on various environmental issues such as climate change, air quality, and energy.
  • European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) – an independent intergovernmental organisation that provides data and forecasts on weather and climate, including seasonal forecasts and extreme weather events.
  • European Forest Institute (EFI) – the EFI provides research and information on forests and forest management in Europe, including data on forest cover, biodiversity, and carbon sequestration.
  • European Environment Information and Observation Network (Eionet) – a network of environmental information providers and experts across Europe that provides data and information on a range of environmental issues.
  • BirdLife Europe – a conservation organisation that provides data and information on birds and European biodiversity, including trends in bird populations and habitats.
  • Clean Energy Wire – a media platform that provides news, analysis, and data on Europe’s energy transition and climate policy, focusing on Germany.
  • Earth System Science Data (ESSD) – an international journal that publishes data sets and studies on Earth system science, including climate change, atmospheric chemistry, and biogeochemistry.
  • Our World in Data – a platform that provides a range of data visualisations and articles on global development, including environmental issues such as climate change and air pollution.

Search to dig

If these starting points are not enough, it’s time to dig. 

First, you can use specific search engines for data, like Dataset Search by Google. You can use it as any other engine, but you’ll expect to receive a list of datasets as an answer to your query.

As you can see in the example, once you’ve searched what you are looking for (in my case, “mm of rain per day in EU”), you can filter, among other things, by free access datasets, by formats of download, and by date of last update. 

The results show you a description of the dataset, sources (that you always need to verify), licences, and the possibility of downloading the dataset.

Dataset Search is linked to Google Scholar, too. 

When you find a dataset, you can see how many scholarly articles cite it, and you can see them in Google Scholar.

Google Scholar is another powerful search engine that allows you to browse among scientific papers. If you select Review article, you will browse only peer-reviewed papers to be sure that you are not dealing with pre-print publications, for example.

Advanced search is always an option

If you need more than this, you can dig through the world wide web using advanced search techniques.

For example, let’s assume you are looking for data about hydrogeological instability in your country. You can google the keywords in your language followed by filetype:xls (xls is a format we suppose to find datasets ready to use). 

This search will provide you with a series of xls files you can download and examine. 

For more ideas related to advanced search, you can follow our guide. 

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