Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and climate science reporter Bob Berwyn as they explain the key issues setting the agenda at this year’s U.N. climate change conference.
COP30 is underway in Belém, Brazil, where nearly 200 countries have gathered for high-stakes global climate negotiations.
Notably absent is the United States. President Donald Trump, who called climate change the “greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” in a September address to the U.N. General Assembly, sent no federal delegation.
From his reporting space in Belém, Bob shares an update on the conference so far: America’s absence and China’s influence, what California Gov. Gavin Newsom is doing at COP, and what can come of this year’s discussions, from adaptation indicators to financing and a possible action plan.
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Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and New York City reporter Lauren Dalban as they discuss what Mamdani’s election signals for climate issues in the Big Apple.
Climate activists celebrated Tuesday night as assemblymember Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City.
Mamdani, a previously obscure politician who rose to power through an unrelenting campaign for affordability, has vowed to address climate issues while in office — enforcing the city’s building decarbonization law, enacting his green school policy and handling the climate change-related issues residents often face, like flooding and extreme heat.
Lauren explains Mamdani’s record on climate issues to date, how climate activists played a role in his campaign and what they’ll be watching for as soon as he takes office.
Read the story: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05...
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Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and reporter Katie Surma as they discuss how scientists are using AI to understand sperm whale communications, a discovery that could upend the way we interact with them.
What separates humans from other species? The answer to that question may no longer be language. With the help of artificial intelligence, robotics and new recording technologies, scientists are edging closer to understanding whale communications and to perhaps one day even holding a conversation.
The advances could strengthen legal protections for these animals, including the most powerful safeguard of all: rights. Katie, who covers international environmental justice and the rights of nature, explains how scientists are using AI to cross the language barrier with whales, how close they are to actually conversing, and what new research says about the “immense new legal world” that could emerge from it.
Read the story: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29...
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Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and renewables reporter Dan Gearino as they discuss how Virginia has become the data center capital of the world.
Virginia, especially Northern Virginia, leads the world in data center development, far outpacing other top markets like Beijing. How did this come to be?
Watch as Dan explains the history of this top data center boom town, the risk of an impending AI bubble, and what residents and regulators think of these very big buildings with very small parking lots.
Read the story: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26...
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In October 2007, ICN opened its doors with a two-person team and a little bit of pilot funding. The day the website launched, it had 102 visitors: the second day, just 53.
Today, the newsroom looks different: ICN has grown from a staff of two people to 40, and from only 100 readers to reaching many millions. Once just a small office in Brooklyn, ICN has opened reporting hubs in regions across the country and established bureaus coast to coast.
In honor of ICN’s 18th anniversary, Vernon and David sit down to reflect on the newsroom’s defining moments, the pivotal moves to cover climate locally and globally, and what’s ahead for the team, the media landscape, and the climate crisis.
Read our reporting: https://insideclimatenews.org
Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and North Carolina reporter Lisa Sorg as they discuss a never-ending fight over forever chemicals in NC drinking water.
Environmentalists have been fighting for over a decade to get PFAS out of the Cape Fear River in eastern North Carolina. The insidious chemicals have eluded traditional water treatment systems and flowed through the taps of hundreds of thousands of people.
Advocates scored a brief victory last year when the EPA announced new regulations to reduce PFAS in drinking water. Now the Trump administration plans to rescind them — leaving residents who fought for the standards devastated and enraged.
Lisa explains how pervasive PFAS contamination is in North Carolina, where the chemicals come from, and what comes next for communities locked in this “forever war.”
Explore more of Lisa’s reporting: https://insideclimatenews.org/profile...
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Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and reporter Katie Surma as they discuss the violent crackdown on environmental and human rights activists in Ecuador.
Last year, an average of three environmental defenders were killed a week around the world. Last week, Efraín Fueres became one of the slain.The Indigenous land defender was shot and killed in Ecuador amid protests against the high costs of living and government crackdowns on Indigenous and environmental activists.
The country’s government sent troops into communities, declared a state of emergency, and cut internet and phone service. Ecuador’s President, Daniel Noboa, is now seeking to rewrite the country’s constitution – putting its strong protections for the environment and for Indigenous peoples at risk.
Katie explains what precipitated this crisis in Ecuador, the prevalence of such killings around the world, and what it all means for the expanding rights of nature movement.
Read the story:https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29...
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Did you hear the one about the space lasers starting forest fires? Fringe conspiracy theories like this still swirl in certain parts of the internet. But some climate change disinformation is harder to spot – it’s subtle, sophisticated, and circulated by trusted sources.
Executive editor Vernon Loeb sits down with Washington bureau chief Marianne Lavelle and ICN’s chief science writer Bob Berwyn to break down the facts and fiction in climate discourse today.
They start with a report recently issued by the U.S. Department of Energy – a document commissioned to help set the stage for getting rid of federal regulations on greenhouse gas emissions.
Watch as Marianne and Bob explain what mainstream climate scientists think of this report, what climate change disinformation has in common with Big Tobacco, whether climate skepticism is a uniquely American phenomenon, and much more.
Some 640 million acres of the United States are owned by the federal government for the benefit of the people. These public lands, widely loved by Americans, are being pulled in multiple directions over questions of who gets access, how the land is used and managed, and what values should guide those choices.
Managing editor Jamie Smith Hopkins sits down with three ICN journalists who’ve been tracking these questions closely: Wyatt Myskow, who covers the Southwest; Jake Bolster, who covers Wyoming and the West; and senior editor Michael Kodas, who has deep expertise about both public lands and wildfires, subjects that frequently intersect.
Watch as they explain what’s happening with public lands right now under the Trump administration, what role these lands play in climate change, and whose voices are being heard in the debates, from tribal nations to businesses and the American public.
Most of the meat we eat in the United States isn’t raised on small farms or fenced fields, as it was decades ago. Today, it comes from large concentrated animal feeding operations, also known as CAFOs.
These industrial facilities house thousands of animals in close quarters – generating tremendous amounts of manure, climate-polluting methane, and a host of issues for neighbors.
Managing editor Jamie Smith Hopkins sits down with four ICN journalists who have reported on CAFOs: Georgina Gustin, who covers agriculture and the many ways that farming, food systems and the environment intersect; Lisa Sorg, who covers North Carolina, one of the nation’s top hog producers; Phil McKenna, who reports on climate superpollutants like methane; and Anika Jane Beamer, who covers Iowa, where manure from CAFOs contributes to a long-running and far-reaching water contamination problem.
Watch as they explain what we know – and don’t know – about CAFOs, the scale of the pollution they cause, what it’s like to live near one of these facilities, and whether elected officials and policymakers are doing anything about them.
China has invested more than $1 trillion in overseas infrastructure projects through its massive Belt and Road Initiative.
Chinese corporations are building roads and railways, dams and ports, in developing countries around the world – an initiative marked by both its enormity and opacity.
Executive editor Vernon Loeb sits down with reporters Katie Surma, Nicholas Kusnetz, and Georgina Gustin, who are investigating the Belt and Road Initiative for ICN’s “Planet China” series, and have been reporting on projects in Zambia, Indonesia, Peru and Argentina.
Watch as they assess China’s claims to be “greening” the Belt and Road Initiative, discuss why China’s overseas investments may be more important than any other country’s, and explore what Chinese-led development means for the environment and for people living near projects around the world.
Spoiler alert: Yes, AI is bad for the climate. AI’s computing power relies on massive data centers that use enormous amounts of electricity and water.
The Trump administration wants that energy to come from burning fossil fuels, rather than renewable sources. Where does that leave the climate and communities caught in the crosshairs?
Executive editor Vernon Loeb sits down with Dan Gearino, ICN’s clean energy reporter; Arcelia Martin, who covers renewable energy in Texas; and Alabama reporter Lee Hedgepeth, who has been writing about a controversial data center planned in his state.
Watch as they discuss the prospects for big tech and clean energy under the Trump administration, how Texas has become a leading renewables state, what communities think when data centers move in next door, and how the commitments of tech giants could change what’s ahead.
Go behind the scenes with Inside Climate News' executive editor Vernon Loeb and Washington bureau chief Marianne Lavelle as they discuss the future of the environmental justice movement amid Trump cutbacks.
The environmental justice movement suffered a striking blow this year when the Trump administration rescinded $3 billion in grants to support EJ initiatives. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin terminated the grant programs and eliminated the EPA’s environmental justice office after the president tried to rebrand EJ as a “radical and wasteful” form of reverse discrimination and racial preferencing, lumping it together with DEI.
The announcement hit Charles Lee particularly hard. Lee spent 26 years advancing EJ initiatives at the EPA, fighting to help communities that bear a disproportionate burden of pollution and climate risks. He put in his notice to retire, rather than stay through a second Trump administration.
Marianne—who wrote a poignant profile on Lee’s life and work—explains what’s happened to environmental justice programs since the rescissions, the real distinction between DEI and special preferences, and what comes next for the environmental justice movement.
Read the story: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/21072025/trump-administration-dismantles-epa-office-of-research-and-development/
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Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and reporters Martha Pskowski and Liza Gross as they discuss new reporting on the climate super-pollutant methane.
The Trump administration says that drilling in the U.S. is cleaner than in other countries due to tighter environmental oversight. But Texas, the heart of America’s oil and gas industry, tells a different story. The state’s regulator grants nearly every request to burn or vent gas into the atmosphere. When this happens, the release also sends out toxic air contaminants that have escaped notice, until now.
A new tool from an independent science research institute is revealing the harms these emissions may cause to human health.
Martha and Liza share more of their findings, explaining how the Trump administration is putting the brakes on efforts to reduce methane emissions, what’s included in the “chemical soup” that makes up natural gas, and whether there’s any truth to the president’s claim of “clean” oil and gas production.
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Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and clean energy reporter Dan Gearino as they discuss the mounting demand for electricity to power AI.
The data centers that power artificial intelligence require huge amounts of electricity. Some experts estimate we’ll need as much as 25% more electricity by 2030, and 78% by 2050, to meet this demand alone. Whether that electricity comes from renewable energy or fossil fuels has big implications for climate change.
Dan explains why we should care about all this data center growth, what the current trajectory looks like, and ideas for a better path forward — for consumers and the climate.
Read the story:https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28...
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Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and conservation reporter Kiley Price as they explain why everyone’s talking about the Endangered Species List.
More than 2,370 species have received protections from the federal government under the Endangered Species Act, from schoolbus-sized North Atlantic right whales off the East Coast to tiny Oahu tree snails in Hawaii.
But only a fraction of that number has ever come off the law’s endangered-species list.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum recently compared it to “Hotel California: once a species enters, they never leave.” Kiley explains the effectiveness of one of the country’s most central conservation laws, why it’s under attack, and the most famous species to ever come off the list.
Read the story:https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24...
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Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and reporter Bob Berwyn as they explain why global talks on plastics pollution reached a disappointing end.
Global talks on plastics fell apart this week as participating countries failed to agree on next steps for curbing harmful plastic pollution.
Several countries, including the United States, opposed provisions that would put a cap on production – a red line that ultimately doomed the chance of consensus. Bob, who was on the scene in Geneva, explains what happened among the delegates, how countries might break the deadlock, and what’s to come in this escalating crisis.
Read the story:https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15...
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Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and senior editor Michael Kodas as they discuss the many factors – both natural and political – fueling this year’s intense fire season.
Nearly 40 large wildfires are burning across the country, covering hundreds of thousands of acres. The largest among them is the raging Dragon Bravo fire, which closed the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park for the rest of the season.
The fires come as the National Park Service and other federal agencies face large cuts to their workforces, including among personnel who help fight wildfires.
Michael, a noted wildfire expert, gives an in-depth look at wildland firefighting practices, what makes the Grand Canyon megafire so difficult to control, and how the Trump administration’s cutbacks are affecting our ability to cope with a growing wildfire problem.
Read the story:https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04...
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Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and reporter Katie Surma as they discuss the tumultuous international gathering to protect the world’s wetlands.
Representatives of more than 170 countries gathered in Zimbabwe last week for the Convention on Wetlands, a global environmental protection treaty aimed at saving Earth’s fastest-disappearing ecosystem.
Geopolitics quickly took over. Disputes broke out between Russia, China, and other nations about a resolution to preserve Ukraine’s wetlands. The U.S. delegation was a no-show until the final days of the summit, when one American representative came to demand that conference documents include no mention of climate change, DEI, gender, the U.N.’s sustainable development goals, or “zero growth.”
Katie, likely the only U.S. reporter attending the convention, breaks down the political maneuvers on display, why the world should care about wetlands, and one thing that gave her hope.
Read the story:https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29...
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Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and Washington bureau chief Marianne Lavelle as they discuss the dismantling of EPA’s scientific research office.
Last week the Trump administration quietly took a hugely consequential action affecting environmental protections in America: beginning to shutter the EPA Office of Research and Development.
The decision follows a long pressure campaign from industry lobbyists to limit EPA’s ability to assess the health risks of chemicals like formaldehyde, ethylene oxide, arsenic and hexavalent chromium, and mitigate the harms they can cause.
Marianne takes us inside the office, explaining its critical role in protecting the public, the politics at play, and why shutting the office down is such a devastating loss to the country.
Read the story:https://insideclimatenews.org/news/21...
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