How can journalists help citizens understand what net-zero entails? What it means for them, given their values and livelihoods?

This event will gather journalists from various backgrounds to discuss the challenges they face in informing and promoting balanced public discussions about decarbonisation, particularly in the context of looming local and general elections. Media coverage of climate change has long centered on alerting the public about, as well as debating and contesting, the dangers of climate change. Today, history has moved on. The UK public understands this issue is real and urgent; by and large, Britons supports decarbonisation of the economy. Yet, decarbonisation is at once a grand political project – offering the possibility of revamping and redesigning the make-up of infrastructure, technological networks, and land-use, in ways that will increase well-being, health, and possibly the vitality of many local economies – but also a slow process, difficult to understand for the lay person, full of trade offs and uncertainties.

Meet our speakers and chair

Roger Harrabin (@RHarrabin) worked as the Energy & Environment Analyst at the BBC from 2004 to 2022. Roger has succeeded in popularising complex aspects of climate change that do not generally fit in the usual events-driven news cycle. Harrabin was founder presenter of BBC Radio 4's environment magazine Costing the Earth, bringing a lighter touch to environmental issues and to question environmental goals.

Fiona Harvey (@fionaharvey) is an award-winning journalist who has covered the environment since 2004, at the Financial Times and then for the Guardian. She has attended almost every UNFCCC Cop since 2004, and interviewed many world leaders. She has twice won the Foreign Press Association award for Environment Story of the Year, the British Environment and Media Awards journalist of the year, and in 2020 she was named in the Woman’s Hour Power List of 30 top UK women, focusing on Our Planet.

James Painter is a research associate at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, a senior teaching associate at the School of Geography and the Environment, and an external collaborator on the LEAP project at the Oxford Martin School, all at Oxford University. His main research interests and publications center on the portrayals of climate change in legacy, digital-born, and social media around the world, and environmental communication in general.

Adam Vaughan (@adamvaughan_uk) is the environment editor at The Times. He covers everything from climate change and biodiversity to farming and pollution. Working as a digital and print journalist for more than two decades, he was formerly chief reporter at New Scientist, where he covered the Covid-19 pandemic, the environment and the latest science stories. Previously he was the energy correspondent at The Guardian and worked on the newspaper's environment desk for eight years, reporting and editing. 

David Stainforth (@climatehat) is a Professorial Research Fellow in the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and an Honorary Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Warwick. He studied physics at Oxford University and was later awarded a Doctorate on climate predictions from that same University. In between, he obtained a Masters in Energy Systems and Environmental Management from Glasgow Caledonian University and worked for a number of years as a renewable energy consultant. His research experience spans climate modelling, uncertainty quantification, climate economics, the philosophy of climate science, climate data processing, and approaches to providing robust climate information for societal and policy decisions. He has published over 80 influential academic papers. His new book, Predicting Our Climate Future discusses how to separate robust conclusions from more speculative research on climate change, and how to link physical understanding of climate with economic assessments and policy development.

More about this event

This event will be available to watch on LSE Live. LSE Live is the new home for our live streams, allowing you to tune in and join the global debate at LSE, wherever you are in the world. If you can't attend live, a video will be made available shortly afterwards on LSE's YouTube channel.

The Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment (@gri_lse) is a world-leading centre for policy-relevant research and training on climate change and the environment.

Explore LSE’s dedicated hub Understanding the UK Economy, showcasing research and expertise on the state of the UK economy, its global context and its future.

Twitter Hashtag for this event: #LSENetZeroNews

Featured image (used in source code with watermark added): Photo by Ivan Bandura on Unsplash 

Podcast & Video

A podcast of this event is available to download from It's in the news: we're decarbonising!

A video of this event is available to watch at It's in the news: we're decarbonising!

Podcasts and videos of many LSE events can be found at the LSE Public Lectures and Events: podcasts and videos channel.