Covering Climate Now Journalism Awards 2024

Now in its fourth year, the CCNow Awards program has become an industry standard for excellence. Last year, the awards team received nearly 1,100 entries, from 29 countries on six continents. Winners and finalists came from outlets big and small, and together their work represented the leading edge of climate storytelling.

CCNow has identified 14 subject based categories, whereas in previous years categories were defined by medium. This change will help elevate work on specific and important aspects of the climate story — for example, solutions, justice, and health.

In addition to the subject-based categories, our judges will honor several “Emerging journalists of the year” — early-career journalists whose work shows exceptional promise — as well as work in a new “Large projects & collaborations” category.

Winners will be announced in June. Promotion in the months following the announcement will lift up winning journalists and their work.

Award Categories

• Solutions
  • Science is unequivocal that solutions are urgently needed to confront the climate crisis — and audiences are hungry to learn about them. Great journalism doesn’t just explain potential solutions, it interrogates them: Do they achieve what they promise, do they measure up to what science demands, and are they just? While solutions are mentioned in many climate stories, winning work in this category will feature one or more solutions as its primary subject.
• Justice
  • Climate change often hits first and hardest marginalized countries and communities which have contributed the least to the problem. While justice is mentioned in many climate stories, winning work in this category will feature a justice angle — among others, peril and hope on the frontlines of the climate crisis, unexpected intersections of climate change with other systems of injustice, and the marginalized groups pioneering solutions to show the world a path forward — as its primary subject.
• Fossil fuels
  • Journalism investigating the power and machinations of the fossil fuel industry remains as critical as ever. Winning work in this category might cover new fossil fuel development, greenwashing, government lobbying, dubious schemes to offset emissions, and disinformation, among other industry-related subjects.
• Extreme weather and its impacts
  • This category will reward stories that make clear the connection between weather disasters and human-caused climate change. Strong explanations of how climate factors into extreme weather — hurricanes, floods, wildfires, and extreme heat and cold, and more — as well as human-centered stories of disasters and their aftermath told with a climate lens, can help inform the public about the bigger picture.
• Politics, policy, and climate action
  • This category is for work that covers government action and inaction; policies that hold promise and ones that don’t promise enough; and the leaders who’ve fought to deliver solutions, as well as those who’ve thwarted them. Also pertinent to this category: elections, the global democracy crisis, and the roles of diverse government agencies.
• Activism & movements
  • Activists are newsmakers, as much as the politicians and corporate leaders that journalists tend to cover more often. This category is for work on every facet of climate activism and movements, from well-known groups and individuals to small, local groups and leaders making change in their communities. they’re looking for coverage that engages with the substance and efficacy of activists’ agendas, examining people power in all its complexity.‎
• Business & economics
  • In the race towards a clean energy economy, what businesses are thriving and faltering? What policies and banks are helping spur the transition, and who’s doubling down on fossil fuels? And critically, amid such rapid change, who’s gaining work and who’s losing it? This category is for all things related to business and economics, from the financial burden of climate disasters to the opportunities of climate action.
• Global negotiations, including COP28
  • Fodder for this category might include the ongoing debate over “loss and damage” (what wealthy countries owe developing ones bearing the brunt of the climate crisis), the role in the climate fight of various international bodies, like the G7, ASEAN, and the African Union, and how climate factors in relations between countries like the US and China. How is climate change pushing countries apart or bringing them closer together? And what stands in the way of countries making good on global climate commitments?
• Conflict & climate change
  • From Gaza to Russia’s war in Ukraine, conflict dominated headlines in 2023. Thoughtful journalism helped audiences explore the climate implications of these and other conflicts — current and past. This category will award work that shines a light on the intersections of climate change and violent conflict, including militaries’ carbon footprints, wartime damage to ecosystems, and the potential of climate change to fuel future confict by driving instability.
• Displacement & migration
  • As the climate emergency intensifies, harrowing flights for safety and shelter are increasingly common, especially in the regions most vulnerable to climate impacts. This category is for work that thoughtfully examines internal displacement and cross-border migration driven or made more likely by climate change, as well as government efforts to cope. Work might also explore the intersection of climate change with the complex web of other factors that prompt displacement, including poverty, violence, resource scarcity, and more.
• Forests, oceans, and the natural world
  • The natural world is fundamental to the world’s climate future. From whole ecosystems — at-risk forests, warming seas, melting ice, and more — to crises facing individual plant and animal species, this category is for work that explores nature’s many roles in the climate story, as well as threats to and efforts to protect it.
• Health
  • The health implications of climate change and extreme weather — including their effects on mental health — are staggering. In this category, they’re looking for work that sits at this critical intersection. What health conditions have been made worse by climate change? Who is affected uniquely or disproportionately? And are healthcare systems adapting to meet new challenges?
• Food & agriculture
  • Climate change is taking a harsh toll on the world’s food systems. And across the world, communities are changing their food production and consumption habits — think: regenerative agriculture, meat alternatives, and the tried-and-tested agricultural practices of Indigenous peoples — to both reduce their carbon output and improve their health and quality of life. This category is for work on those subjects and more, from Big Ag to small meals whipped up at home.
• Climate in every beat
  • Given the enormity of the climate crisis, there are intersections with virtually every subject journalists cover. This category is for work that creatively connects climate change to subjects less commonly associated with it: sports, arts, culture, gender, and education, to name just a few examples. If you’re looking at the other awards categories and don’t see any other place for your work, this might be the category for you.
• Emerging journalists of the year
  • This award will go to early-career journalists — meaning five or fewer years of professional journalism experience — or students, whose work on climate change shows exceptional promise. A nominee may self-submit or be submitted by an editor, supervisor, instructor, or other professional colleague. For this entry, you’ll be asked to provide five stories — including articles, visuals, broadcast segments, and/or major media appearances — that are demonstrative of the nominee’s work; at least three of these must be from 2023.
• Large projects & collaborations
  • Big stories call for ambitious and innovative coverage. This category is for work that constituted a major, dedicated undertaking for the newsroom(s) and journalist(s) involved — work executed at a scale well beyond the one or several stories that they’re considering in other categories.

What are you looking for?

• Exceptional climate storytelling that upholds the highest standards of journalism. Great work might be marked by any of the following qualities:
  • Makes climate change accessible for audiences, with stories rooted in science but not bogged down by it.
  • Demonstrates the human dimensions of the climate story.
  • Holds power to account and calls out disinformation and unethical behavior.
  • Emphasizes the disproportionate impacts of climate change on communities of color, Indigenous peoples, the poor, women, children, and other marginalized people.
  • Examines solutions emerging from all sectors of public life, including policy solutions and solutions stemming from community initiatives.
  • Breaks climate news out of the rut of partisan framing and demonstrates how the climate emergency is a collective problem that transcends partisan politics and other social fault lines.

Eligibility Criteria

• Submissions are accepted from journalists everywhere, representing news outlets big and small, as well as freelancers. Outlets may also submit several entries by different journalists.
• Journalistic work in all mediums is eligible, including but not limited to writing, audio, video, photography, multimedia, editorial cartoons, and data. All journalistic styles are also eligible, including but not limited to breaking news, feature reporting, opinion/commentary, investigations, newsletters, and documentaries. They cannot accept books or academic work.
• Submission entry information must be provided in English. If the original work is not in English, please provide English-language translations in addition to the original work as an attachment.
• Finally, stories must be about climate change, not just the environment. While all climate stories are environmental stories, not all environmental stories are climate stories. Stories that primarily focus on environmental issues such as toxic pollution or endangered species where the impacts or root causes are not climate change–related are typically not considered climate stories, even if the stories might briefly mention climate change. Environmental stories that do significantly consider climate implications, such as the effects of deforestation on carbon storage, are eligible for submission.

For more information, visit Covering Climate Now.