Beyond COP30: Telling Climate Stories in East and Southeast Asia
As the UN climate summit, COP30, approaches in Brazil, reports warn that current national commitments remain far from sufficient to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C. Accelerating climate actions will require powerful storytelling — and journalism has a critical role to play. This is particularly true in East and Southeast Asia, where communities face some of the most severe and disproportionate impacts of the climate crisis. How can journalists, researchers and civil society work together to expose these challenges, hold decision-makers accountable and highlight solutions?
This event brings together environmental journalists to explore what makes an impactful climate and sustainability story in the region. Panellists will offer insights on how to pitch compelling stories and build a career in covering what is arguably the most important story of our time.
Join Dialogue Earth Assistant Editor Regina Lam in conversation with environmental journalist Jhesset O Enano and documentary filmmaker Ivan Ogilvie at our Nov. 18 panel discussing what makes an impactful climate and sustainability story in the region. Panellists will offer insights on how to pitch compelling stories and build a career in covering what is arguably the most important story of our time.
After the event, we will head to The Marquis Cornwallis for drinks and chats.
Speakers:
Regina Lam is a founding director at New Tide Media Network. She is an ocean and special projects assistant editor at Dialogue Earth. Her reporting on the societies of Hong Kong and mainland China is also regularly featured on the BBC World Service. Before relocating to the UK, she worked in several major Hong Kong newsrooms.
Jhesset O. Enano is an environment and climate journalist from the Philippines. Her reporting work examines the intersections of climate change and environmental stories with human rights, policy, gender, and culture. Her text and visual work have been published in The Guardian, The Washington Post, National Geographic, Mongabay and Rest of World. She recently completed her MSc in Climate Change: Environment, Science and Policy at King's College London under the Chevening Awards scholarship. She currently works as a research assistant for the Plumbing Poverty project, which investigates and examines insecure water access in Europe and the United States.
Ivan Ogilvie is a multimedia journalist based in London with a focus on Myanmar and its ethnic civil conflicts. He first moved to Myanmar in 2015 to work for the ground-breaking international charity Videre. His work focused on training and equipping Rohingya activists to document human rights abuses using hidden cameras, in areas closed off to international NGO’s and journalists. He has since gone on to cover a wide range of social and environmental issues in Myanmar and further beyond. He returned in 2023 following the military coup and subsequent civil war. Over the last couple of years Ivan has extensively documented revolutionary groups across Myanmar fighting against the military regime. His written, photographic and video work has featured in major international media organisations such as The BBC, The Times, Al Jazeera and the Guardian.
Mission statement
East and Southeast Asia is a vast and complex region of huge importance on the global stage, yet journalists from ESEA and experts who specialise in the area are highly underrepresented in anglophone newsrooms and organisations, particularly in the United Kingdom. Unlike in other parts of the world, the British media ecosystem has few infrastructures specifically supporting ESEA journalists. We hope to change that.
New Tide Media is a network that aims to strengthen ESEA voices and perspectives in journalism and bring them into mainstream media. We aim to create spaces that connect journalists and editors from the West with those from the global majority—with a focus on ESEA journalists and topics—and programming that address the gaps we see in the current media landscape. Our mission is to bring nuance and context into anglophone reporting on ESEA and push back on western-centric storytelling that flattens this rich and diverse region.
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*All proceeds will go towards the venue hire from Camden Chinese Community Centre, which services community members, and to support future New Tide workshops and events.
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