South East Asian Media Enhance Climate Change and Environmental Reporting [Video]

South East Asia is among the most vulnerable regions to the effects of climate change, where rising sea levels and intensifying natural hazards affect millions of people in densely populated areas and coastal zones. As the extreme weather events increasingly impact livelihoods and cause displacement in the region, information for making decisions on climate change mitigation and adaptation is becoming all the more important.

UNESCO implemented the “Climate Change in News Media” training programme to enhance the capacity of 14 media organisations in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Timor-Leste. The programme, which ran from March to September 2023, reinforced the climate change and environmental reporting by broadcast and online media outlets. This was achieved particularly by strengthening the use of open-source intelligence, geospatial data, fact-checking tools, and data visualization etc. in news gathering and production, and by enhancing media’s investigative reporting skills.

The beneficiary media developed their own institutional strategy for climate change and environment coverage, produced and broadcast/published investigative stories and constructive journalism reports, as well as undertook collaborative projects where groups of media are working together on cross-border climate stories.

The project was made possible thanks to the support of the MDP, and in cooperation with the Danish media development organization, International Media Support.

For more information about UNESCO’s work on media and climate change, please visit: https://www.unesco.org/en/climate-change/news-media