27 Mar 2019, 10:32

Rose-Anne
Clermont
Rose-Anne Clermont is an award-winning freelance journalist writing on migration and environmentalism. Her work has been published by German newspapers Der Tagesspiegel, Berliner Zeitung, Die Zeit, and U.S.-based media including The New York Times, NPR and USA Today. Rose-Anne is currently a freelance editor and trainer for media development projects focused on environmental conservation in East Africa.

Jury picks ambitious cross-border projects from three continents to pitch for top-prize

After a first successful run, CLEW invited journalists from around the world to pitch their best ideas to Go Collaborate – Energy transition story grant for a second time. This year's three finalist teams will receive working grants to collaborate across borders and realise investigative reporting projects that focus on the relationship between business and the energy transition.

How are businesses adapting in response to the climate crisis? What are companies actively doing to fight climate change? How do governments hold businesses to account? These are just a few questions the winning teams might pose in their investigations across the borders of:

Bolivia and Argentina
Russia, Poland and Germany
India, Pakistan, Nepal and China

This year, entries came from 48 journalists in 26 countries from nearly every continent - from across Africa, Europe, South America, North America and Asia.

Climate change is having profound impacts up and downstream in business supply chains and on business models. All three of these stories seek to illuminate these effects"

Isabel Hilton

The finalists were selected by a jury of three distinguished journalists

Pilita Clark, associate editor and columnist at the Financial Times

Isabel Hilton, founder and editor-in-chief of the independent, non-profit news website chinadialogue.net

Clara Navío, an environmental journalist and chair of the Association of Environmental Information for Journalists.

Pilita Clark said: "Judging this year’s entries was not an easy task. We faced an extremely impressive list of highly ambitious story ideas. Together they covered a rich mix of industries in all corners of the world, from Latin American battery production to Moroccan green buildings and Indian solar lamps. It was a striking illustration of how fast and far the global energy transition is advancing".

Isabel Hilton commented on what the winning teams' story pitches had in common: "One characteristic that stood out for me in the three proposals selected — in addition to the essential requirement that they all have a strong cross border narrative — was the strong focus on exploring and analysing energy transitions from a business perspective. Climate change, and imperative of the energy transition, is having profound impacts up and downstream in business supply chains and on business models. All three of these stories seek to illuminate these effects in ways that traditional business coverage has been slow to grasp. Apart from being important stories in themselves, the approach illuminates the direction in which business coverage needs to move in our new climate context".

Next up: Audience vote at #GETJO19 conference will decide which team wins top grant

The three finalist teams will present their winning pitches at the award dinner, held at the opening night of the Global Energy Transition Journalism conference #GETJO19 in Berlin on 7 April, 2019. Audience members at the conference will decide which story pitch should be awarded the top grant of EUR 5,000, offered by Stiftung Mercator foundation. No team will walk away empty-handed, though, as two more money prizes of EUR 4,000 and EUR 3,000 are available.

At the Global Energy Transition Journalism conference, journalists, business representatives and researchers will come together to discuss how the business sector is adjusting to the climate crisis and shaping the energy transition, and how these transformations are reflected in journalism.