Climate Arena 2024

The EU has been pedalling back on the Green Deal and now the Parliament has shifted more to the right. What’s next? Come hear from two experienced journalists and a lobby expert about what to watch out for in the next EU legislative term in the context of chemicals.  

Where will the EU be focusing on after indefinitely shelving the REACH revision that would regulate companies on toxic chemicals? How does the legislative process work on climate regulations at the EU level? What will be the lobbyists to watch out for and how do they operate? What is the corporate playbook and what should journalist be aware of?

Beef, soy and palm oil are just a few examples of agricultural commodities that put global forests and native species at risk during production, processing, and transportation. There are valuable investigations done tying forest loss to produce sold in European markets. But tracing supply chains remains notoriously difficult, especially when commodities end up hidden in non-food products like paper, furniture, and animal feeds.  

This practical tools session will explore Trase (https://www.trase.earth/), a supply chain monitoring tool developed by the Stockholm Environmental Institute and a non-profit called Global Canopy, along with Selo Verde, to trace the livestock production chain throughout the state of Pará in Brazil. The tools are widely used by researchers, policymakers, practitioners and investigative journalists who revealed, e.g. a large volume of beef imported from deforestation-linked giants in Brazil ended up in Germany.

In collaboration with CLEVER project.

Intensive animal farming is a huge climate matter. Its mass scale contributes heavily on emissions and its impact destroys groundwater resources and soil. At the same time, animals themselves are suffering both human actions and the effects of climate crisis. The majority of Europeans are in full support of stringent regulations on animal welfare but there is intensive lobbying effort that succeeds in shutting down any efforts.  

Animals are an alarmingly underreported topic in the media. In this panel, two journalists with extensive experience on writing on these issues will explain how the system works, where the stories are, and the best practices on reporting on animal-related issues in Europe.

Come join us for a dive into the murky world of plastics. There is a lot of misunderstanding and misinformation around plastics recycling among the public, but even among journalists too. In this session, you’ll hear two journalists who worked on this topic discussing the inner workings of the plastics industry, the lobbying against regulations, and how plastics offsetting became the new license for the industry to pollute even more. They will share their work, their methods and what to look out for if you want to investigate this big topic.