Inside Climate News Audio

Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and reporter Dan Gearino as they discuss the good, the bad and the ugly in climate news from 2025.

What a year: policy fiascos, natural disasters and a steady march toward a future that is too hot.

The Trump administration’s dismantling of environmental protection rules exceeded expectations, and on the world stage, the United States largely ceded its leadership role in climate p...

Go behind the scenes with managing editor Jamie Smith Hopkins and reporter Kiley Bense as they discuss how Pennsylvania is failing to track toxic oil and gas waste, while the amount sitting in landfills grows every year.

Pennsylvania is ground zero for the fracking boom. It’s increased natural gas production there 37-fold since 2008. That production generates a lot of waste, but the state’s ability to track it has failed to keep up.

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Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and reporter Georgina Gustin as they describe how a new Chinese-backed megaport in Peru could push the Amazon rainforest past its breaking point.

When a massive Chinese-backed port opened in Chancay, Peru, it was the realization, nearly two decades in the making, of a dream to revolutionize global trade by connecting South America to Asia with a straight-shot shipping route acro...

Go behind the scenes with managing editor Jamie Smith Hopkins and reporter Anika Jane Beamer as they explain why no one knows what happens to 110 billion pounds of manure produced in Iowa every year.

Iowa raises about 23 million hogs each year. That many animals produce a lot of manure — some 110 billion pounds of it — but no one keeps track of where it goes.

That’s a problem. Most manure from Iowa’s concentrated animal feeding opera...

Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and climate science reporter Bob Berwyn as they break down the key outcomes of COP30.

COP30 has wound down in Belém, Brazil – the U.N. climate change conference marked this year by Indigenous rights demonstrations, an actual fire, and not a lot of movement on global climate action.

Before leaving Belém, Bob explains what happened at COP30, both within the formal proceedings and...

Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and climate science reporter Bob Berwyn as they explain the key issues setting the agenda at this year’s U.N. climate change conference.

COP30 is underway in Belém, Brazil, where nearly 200 countries have gathered for high-stakes global climate negotiations.

Notably absent is the United States. President Donald Trump, who called climate change the “greatest con job ever perpetra...

Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and New York City reporter Lauren Dalban as they discuss what Mamdani’s election signals for climate issues in the Big Apple.

Climate activists celebrated Tuesday night as assemblymember Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City.

Mamdani, a previously obscure politician who rose to power through an unrelenting campaign for affordability, has vowed to address climate ...

Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and reporter Katie Surma as they discuss how scientists are using AI to understand sperm whale communications, a discovery that could upend the way we interact with them.

What separates humans from other species? The answer to that question may no longer be language. With the help of artificial intelligence, robotics and new recording technologies, scientists are edging clos...

Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and renewables reporter Dan Gearino as they discuss how Virginia has become the data center capital of the world.

Virginia, especially Northern Virginia, leads the world in data center development, far outpacing other top markets like Beijing. How did this come to be?

Watch as Dan explains the history of this top data center boom town, the risk of an impending AI bubble,...

In October 2007, ICN opened its doors with a two-person team and a little bit of pilot funding. The day the website launched, it had 102 visitors: the second day, just 53.

Today, the newsroom looks different: ICN has grown from a staff of two people to 40, and from only 100 readers to reaching many millions. Once just a small office in Brooklyn, ICN has opened reporting hubs in regions across the country and established bureaus...

Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and North Carolina reporter Lisa Sorg as they discuss a never-ending fight over forever chemicals in NC drinking water.

Environmentalists have been fighting for over a decade to get PFAS out of the Cape Fear River in eastern North Carolina. The insidious chemicals have eluded traditional water treatment systems and flowed through the taps of hundreds of thousands of people.

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Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and reporter Katie Surma as they discuss the violent crackdown on environmental and human rights activists in Ecuador.

Last year, an average of three environmental defenders were killed a week around the world. Last week, Efraín Fueres became one of the slain.The Indigenous land defender was shot and killed in Ecuador amid protests against the high costs of living and govern...

Did you hear the one about the space lasers starting forest fires? Fringe conspiracy theories like this still swirl in certain parts of the internet. But some climate change disinformation is harder to spot – it’s subtle, sophisticated, and circulated by trusted sources.

Executive editor Vernon Loeb sits down with Washington bureau chief Marianne Lavelle and ICN’s chief science writer Bob Berwyn to break down the facts and fict...

Some 640 million acres of the United States are owned by the federal government for the benefit of the people. These public lands, widely loved by Americans, are being pulled in multiple directions over questions of who gets access, how the land is used and managed, and what values should guide those choices.

Managing editor Jamie Smith Hopkins sits down with three ICN journalists who’ve been tracking these questions closely: W...

Most of the meat we eat in the United States isn’t raised on small farms or fenced fields, as it was decades ago. Today, it comes from large concentrated animal feeding operations, also known as CAFOs.

These industrial facilities house thousands of animals in close quarters – generating tremendous amounts of manure, climate-polluting methane, and a host of issues for neighbors.

Managing editor Jamie Smith Hopkins sits down ...

China has invested more than $1 trillion in overseas infrastructure projects through its massive Belt and Road Initiative.

Chinese corporations are building roads and railways, dams and ports, in developing countries around the world – an initiative marked by both its enormity and opacity.

Executive editor Vernon Loeb sits down with reporters Katie Surma, Nicholas Kusnetz, and Georgina Gustin, who are investigating the Belt...

Spoiler alert: Yes, AI is bad for the climate. AI’s computing power relies on massive data centers that use enormous amounts of electricity and water.

The Trump administration wants that energy to come from burning fossil fuels, rather than renewable sources. Where does that leave the climate and communities caught in the crosshairs?

Executive editor Vernon Loeb sits down with Dan Gearino, ICN’s clean energy reporter; Arcel...

Go behind the scenes with Inside Climate News' executive editor Vernon Loeb and Washington bureau chief Marianne Lavelle as they discuss the future of the environmental justice movement amid Trump cutbacks.

The environmental justice movement suffered a striking blow this year when the Trump administration rescinded $3 billion in grants to support EJ initiatives. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin terminated the grant programs and ...

Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and reporters Martha Pskowski and Liza Gross as they discuss new reporting on the climate super-pollutant methane.

The Trump administration says that drilling in the U.S. is cleaner than in other countries due to tighter environmental oversight. But Texas, the heart of America’s oil and gas industry, tells a different story. The state’s regulator grants nearly every request...