After a successful first installment, Climate Home News is extending its “Clean Energy Frontier” series on supply chains for clean energy technologies for a second year and is seeking pitches.
Delivering the solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and other clean technologies the world needs to meet its climate goals requires a massive expansion of the supply chains responsible for producing them.
From mining and processing critical minerals, to assembling, transporting and installing these technologies across the world, the transition away from a fossil fuel-powered society requires a huge shift, which could help support the creation of thriving economies and millions of jobs.
At the same time, the transition away from coal, oil and gas requires a multitude of new resources, the extraction and processing of which can cause social and environmental harms if improperly managed.
Delivering a fast and fair energy transition means avoiding the pitfalls of the extractive fossil-fuel economy and building new industries which can benefit workers and communities everywhere.
What we are looking for
Our “Clean Energy Frontier” series aims to produce hard-hitting accountability journalism on these issues.
In our first series, we reported on lithium mining booms in Zimbabwe and Argentina; explored India’s dream of building its own solar supply chain; uncovered accusations of rights abuses linked to an Indonesian nickel park; delved into efforts to recycle rare earths in Canada; and examined Swedish company Northvolt’s sodium-ion battery plans.
In our second series, we are looking for longform stories (1,500-1,700 words) that explore how the energy transition can help support sustainable development, address inequalities and create jobs.
We are interested in stories that illustrate the opportunities and challenges of the transition and how it can be funded (especially in developing countries), spotlight geopolitical and trade tensions and efforts to address them, expose harms, and examine how technologies are transferred from wealthy to poorer countries.
Each story should blend on-the-ground reporting with investigative or explanatory journalism.
We particularly welcome strong character-driven stories and the use of data or satellite images to unveil new trends. The ideal story will have an original angle that captures the attention of our international audience.
We plan to publish six deeply reported articles between November 2024 and June 2025. We are seeking stories from around the world and we encourage journalists from developing countries to send us their ideas. We are accepting pitches on a rolling basis until the start of 2025.
Stories should be accompanied by visual elements, including high-quality photos and video, and we encourage partnerships between journalists and photographers.
How to pitch
Join us for an hour webinar at 12pm GMT on August 20 2024 to find out what we expect from your pitches. Sign up here.
We welcome pitches from journalists with at least three years’ experience. You must have fluent spoken and written English. Journalists from all countries are welcome to apply. It helps if you have worked with international media before and have awareness of climate change issues.
Your pitch should include:
- The top line of the story and essential context in no more than 250 words. If we like the idea, we will ask for more detail
- The sources you would interview
- Any travel requirements
- A short summary of your journalism experience, including links to three recent stories you are proud of
- A link to the portfolio of the photographer you are planning to work with.
We can offer a competitive reporting fee, as well as an additional budget to commission photographers and cover travel and accommodation expenses. Travel costs will be negotiated in advance and reimbursed subject to valid receipts.
Please send your pitches with the word ‘Pitch’ in the subject line to project editor Chloé Farand by emailing chloe.farand [at] outlook.com.