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.
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?
Over the past three years, through developing and delivering the Open Climate Reporting Initiative, the Centre for Investigative Journalism has built a comprehensive curriculum to provide all the skills required to dig into the people, organisations, governments and companies that will uncover answers to these questions for you and your audience. Our experience of providing training in more than 50 countries across the Global South, means we have been able to ensure that both the content and the training team for this new curriculum has a broad international perspective.
The programme brings together a truly stellar line-up of expert trainers from a wide range of disciplines and specialisms, to empower participants with access to everything they need to find, pursue and publish impactful climate investigations of their own. The course is deliberately structured to ensure participants come away with new projects and stories that they have already begun to apply their new skillsets to, and that are ready for follow-up and pitching.
Through curating 23 hours of hands-on online teaching, we have built something unique – there is no equivalent at this level of expertise that is so accessible or affordable in terms of either fees or time commitment, nor as rigidly focused on practical investigative skills.
The Climate Investigations Course represents an ambitious, in-depth programme of work, bringing together a wealth of rigorous, industry-leading training – a proportionate, urgent response to the scale of the crisis we currently face.
Signing up here gives access to the full course with a 20% discount applied to the fees.
This covers:
- Climate Investigation Fundamentals – 5 hours of training
- Data-Driven Climate Investigations – 6 hours of training
- Investigating Climate Finance – 6 hours of training
- ECOSINT: Environmental and Climate Open Source Intelligence – 6 hours of training
If you have a specific interest in only one or two of the modules, you can book them individually, through the links above.
Complete all four modules and earn a CIJ Climate Investigations Certificate for your CV.
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.
Some modules have more specific technical requirements:
Data Driven Climate Investigations
MS Excel 2016 or newer (If do not have access to Excel, there is a free trial version available). We encourage the use of MS Excel (that is, the desktop “app”: the online version of Office 365 lacks some of the features you will need). If necessary, you can use Google Sheets, which has slightly different menus and instructions – these are documented in the online materials, but the trainer doesn’t always have the opportunity to demonstrate both systems in the session: he will certainly try, but you may find you need to do some extra work outside the session to catch up.
ECOSINT
Introduction to ECOSINT
Recommended resources to set up or install ahead of the session:
- X (formerly Twitter) Account
- Instagram Account
- Linkedin Account
- Invid Chrome Browser extension – https://www.invid-project.eu/tools-and-services/invid-verification-plugin/
- Register with Open Screening https://resources.linkurious.com/openscreening
Satellite Imagery and Mapping
Recommended resources to set up or install ahead of the session:
- Sentinel Hub EO Browser (free, web-based & sign in optional) – https://apps.sentinel-hub.com/eo-browser/
- NASA FIRMS Active Fire Data (free, web-based & sign in not required) – https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/active_fire/
- Google Spreadsheet download link for Active Fire Data India (May 1-31, 2024). Participants will follow the same process to access data – https://t.ly/DpFSV
- Global Forest Watch (free, web-based & sign in optional) – https://www.globalforestwatch.org/
- Google Earth Pro (free & desktop version that requires installation on the PC) – https://www.google.com/earth/about/versions/
- Google Sheets (free, web-based and requires Gmail sign-in) – https://sheets.new/
- Google Earth Engine (free, web-based & sign in not required) – https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse/
- Jimpl (free, web-based & sign in not required) – https://jimpl.com/
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.
All session timings listed are UK timezone.
Trainer Biographies:
Lina Yassin
Akintunde Babatunde
Leila Haddou
Jonathan Stoneman
Nimra Shahid
Scilla Alecci
Amy Westervelt
Leigh Baldwin
Luke Barratt
Guy Porter
Arun Karki
Aditi Tandon
Sam Leon
- Climate Investigation Fundamentals
- 27 March 2025 09.00–11.30 GMT/BST (UK time)
- 28 March 2025 09.00–11.30 GMT/BST (UK time)
- Data-Driven Climate Investigations
- 14 April 2025 10.00–11.30 GMT/BST (UK time)
- 15 April 2025 10.00–11.30 GMT/BST (UK time)
- 16 April 2025 10.00–11.30 GMT/BST (UK time)
- 17 April 2025 10.00–11.30 GMT/BST (UK time)
- Investigating Climate Finance
- 12 May 2025 15.00–16.30 GMT/BST (UK time)
- 13 May 2025 15.00–16.30 GMT/BST (UK time)
- 14 May 2025 15.00–16.30 GMT/BST (UK time)
- 15 May 2025 15.00–16.30 GMT/BST (UK time)
- ECOSINT: Environmental and Climate OSINT
- 3 June 2025 10.00–11.30 GMT/BST (UK time)
- 4 June 2025 10.00–11.30 GMT/BST (UK time)
- 5 June 2025 10.00–11.30 GMT/BST (UK time)
- 6 June 2025 10.00–11.30 GMT/BST (UK time)
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.