Climate Arena 2024

From logging to agricultural land conversion, human activities on land significantly impact the global cycles of greenhouse gases. As a result, not only does it affect the climate, but also plants, mammals, birds, lichens and fungi.  

But these complex "cause and effect" relationships are difficult to grasp, making it challenging to get a big picture and report on them effectively. More than ever before, we need a "systems" way of looking at the complex relationships between climate, land use and biodiversity to dissect how they are influenced by human actions and driven by factors like the international trade.

This session will feature scientists working on these issues and -interactively- unfold some of this complexity using systems thinking tools, and discuss how journalists can report on these pressing matters.

In collaboration with CLEVER and DETECT projects.

Without looking it up, would you know if the "Clean Resource Innovation Network” is an oil and gas lobbying organisation? Lobbyists often hide under unintuitive or misleading affiliations that obscure their origins. The work of uncovering their identities can be time-consuming and challenging.  

This workshop will outline an approach to using web scraping and Large Language Models (LLMs), like those powering ChatGPT, to systematically identify organisations that are affiliated with the fossil fuel industry. These techniques could also be adapted to other climate projects, such as identifying climate misinformation.

The workshop will:

- Describe some of the challenges of web scraping at scale and the technical tools that can be used to address those challenges
- Describe how to design and test a successful LLM prompt
- How to identify the right LLM for the project you want to do
- How to test your approach and validate the results

ps. You should have a Google account to open the link that'll be shared during the session. 

The impact of the fossil industry on our climate is undisputed. Yet, the industry is finding ways to stay on top of the discourse and climate action. We knew they lied about what they knew. Now they’re changing narratives and use different tactics. And there is no shortage of their enablers.  

Come to this session to hear from three journalists who will tell you how to investigate the players behind the scenes. Sam Bright will talk about social media influencers and how to spot them; Leonie Sontheimer will discuss the role of PR agencies and how they operate; Elena Kolb will tell you all about insurance companies. The reporters will share their tips on how to find information, how to report on enablers, and how to identify a good story.

This session is a practical introduction to LobbyFacts - the EU lobbying database. LobbyFacts enables journalists, activists, and researchers to analyse data from the official EU Transparency Register, tracking lobbyists, their networks, the topics they lobby about, and their influence at the EU level over time. Join lobby watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory's Vicky Cann for a detailed look at the Brussels lobby scene and how the available data can help you to nail your climate stories.