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Climate Investigations Course: Investigating Climate Finance

Billions are committed every year as part of the global reaction to the climate crisis. Whether invested in renewable energy, traded as carbon credits or assigned to mitigation or loss and damage funds, huge sums are involved. The potential for corruption and fraud are equally huge. This module provides tools for deep financial research and guides participants through investigations that follow the climate money trail.

Sometimes this means identifying who is profiting from environmentally harmful practices, highlighting motives for spreading disinformation or undermining legislation; at other times it might require looking into political donations and lobbying. Still other stories may need to map out and explain the supply chains behind industries to show where regulation is being circumvented or public promises are not being kept.

The modules of this course provide the skills and techniques to follow the money wherever it leads.

 

There is an urgent need for greater public understanding of the looming climate crisis, and journalism has an integral role to play in this.

However, while environmental and climate reporting is crucial, there is an equally critical need for investigative journalism around these topics. While the public needs to know what is happening to our planet, they also need to understand why it is happening.

Why, despite decades of warnings and research into mitigation and solutions, is the situation worsening?

Where are promises and commitments being broken?

What is hindering the process of building new systems to avert the worst of the coming crisis?

And who, ultimately, is profiting from this situation?

This course will help you dig into the people, organisations, governments and companies that can provide you and your audience answers to these questions.

Technical Requirements

This course will need you to have the following software/apps/tools on your computer:

  • Zoom app
  • Camera and audio

This course will be hosted on Zoom. To find out more about how we use Zoom, please check out our Zoom InfoSec page.

Course Structure

Exercises and additional resources will be provided to supplement the training between sessions.

Important

Our training is not recorded: if you miss a session, it is lost – you cannot watch a recording of it, nor will you be allowed to attend that session at a later date.

Ready to dive into Investigating Climate Finance? Please see the booking form below.

Note that you can get a 20% discount on the total applicable fees by booking the full ‘Climate Investigations Course’ instead here which ‘Investigating Climate Finance’ is a part of.

12 May 2025 – Investigating Corporations

15:00–16:30
The opening session will take participants through the steps required to pursue climate investigations with corporations as the focus. It will set out several methods for finding stories in data, reports and from specific sources. It will then use case studies to explain the major techniques for digging into these leads, through analysing financial documents, sustainability reports, and using OSINT tools to map elements of your investigation. Exercises will be provided to ensure participants understand how to access and understand information from free sources such as stock exchange terminals, SEC filings and EDGAR. Finally, it will give tips on bringing your investigation to publication, including insights into drafting an organised right of reply process.

13 May 2025 – Investigating Governments

15:00–16:30
This session will shift the focus to investigating governments. The session covers three major angles: lack of regulation; lack of enforcement; and broken promises. Across these areas, the session will identify a range of methods to uncover and evidence corruption in government decisions and actions. Participants will access guidance on finding stories and sources as well as learn how to identify red flags by critically analysing documents and legislation for vested interests, influence and misconduct. Alongside this the session will provide advice on coping with a lack of access or data in contexts where transparency is sparse and for ensuring that your stories include the human impacts and resonate with your audience.

14 May 2025 – Investigating the Offsetting Industry

15:00–16:30
One of the most lauded solutions to the climate crisis of recent times, carbon offsetting, has now been shown to be, in reality, one of the most flawed. The voluntary carbon offset market in particular is open to speculation and fraud on a huge scale, making profits for companies involved, providing PR copy for greenwashing to multinational corporations, but doing little if anything to mitigate the climate crisis. Investigative journalism has been an essential element in uncovering this, and despite the revelations there is still an urgent need for independent journalists to act as watchdogs over the industry. The module will take participants through the processes involved in several recent investigations into contentious carbon offsetting projects and provide insight into navigating the data on others.

15 May 2025 – Investigating the Enablers

15:00–16:30
Sitting alongside the corporate and governmental actors who are having detrimental impacts on climate change mitigation and the environment more generally, is an entire ecosystem of enablers. This includes lobbying firms and PR consultancies, but also research institutions and academic researchers susceptible to influence, and co-opted campaign groups and opaquely funded ‘grassroots’ movements. This module will provide guidance on identifying the different elements of this ecosystem and uncovering the influence they have on public debate and policy decisions.

Trainer Biographies:

Nimra Shahid

Nimra Shahid is an award-winning freelance journalist. Her recent work has focused on climate change, greenwashing and how money flows into the fossil fuel industry. She has worked with Bloomberg, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Global Witness and the Guardian.

Scilla Alecci

Scilla Alecci is an investigative reporter and video journalist for ICIJ. She is also the partnership coordinator for Asia and Europe. A native of Italy, before joining ICIJ, Scilla was based in Tokyo where she worked for Bloomberg News and other news organisations.

Amy Westervelt

Amy Westervelt is an award-winning investigative climate journalist. She is the founder of the podcast network Critical Frequency and of the multimedia climate reporting project Drilled, which includes a popular podcast by the same name as well as multiple cross-border investigations in collaboration with a wide range of print media partners.

Leigh Baldwin

Leigh Baldwin is the editor of the non-profit investigative journalism organisation SourceMaterial. He was previously a corruption investigator for Global Witness and a reporter for Bloomberg News.

Luke Barratt

Luke Barratt is an investigative reporter at SourceMaterial. He joined in 2020 from Unearthed, where he published investigations on climate change and the environment.
  • 12 May 2025 15.00–16.30 BST (UK time)
  • 13 May 2025 15.00–16.30 BST (UK time)
  • 14 May 2025 15.00–16.30 BST (UK time)
  • 15 May 2025 15.00–16.30 BST (UK time)
BST (UK time)
Location: Zoom meeting
This event is now fully booked.
Goldsmiths students (full time)*
£100
Students (full time)*
£119
Freelancers**
£199
Small Media/Education/NonProfit Organisations (<10 staff)
£330
Large Media/Education/NonProfit Organisations (10+ staff)
£489
Other Organisations
£915

One ticket per person.

In line with our non-profit mission, our pricing operates on a sliding scale, ensuring large organisations pay more to subsidise places for smaller newsrooms, freelancers and students.

*Students places for this course are capped, due to limited capacity. Anyone registering as a student will be asked for a photo/scan of their student ID ahead of the course.

**Employed individuals who cannot have their employers pay for the course are entitled to the freelancer rate. Note that we are a small charity and rely on your honesty so please do not register as a freelancer if your employer is reimbursing you for the course.

We have a strict policy of No Refund and No Transfer of bookings.

27 March – 6 June 2025

Climate Investigations Course: All Modules

A comprehensive programme of training, providing all the expertise, skills and tools required to conduct thorough investigative research into the climate crisis. Book here for a 20% discount on all modules.

27–28 March 2025

Climate Investigations Course: Climate Investigation Fundamentals

This introductory module provides participants with a holistic background about climate change as one of the major issues confronting the world. Participants will access specialist knowledge to better understand the context from a science, policy, and politics perspective.

14–17 April 2025

Climate Investigations Course: Data-Driven Climate Investigations

With so much climate data across many different countries and regions, it's essential to know where to find the relevant information and how to dig deeper when you're in the midst of a big climate project.

3–6 June 2025

Climate Investigations Course: ECOSINT

ECOSINT: Environmental and Climate Open-Source Intelligence Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) is now a fixture in many newsrooms and can be applied to a wide range of investigative objectives. However, in many ways it is particularly useful when researching climate and environmental stories.