L.A. Times Wins Covering Climate Now Journalism Award

Today the Los Angeles Times won a 2024 Covering Climate Now journalism award. The CCNow awards program recognizes the best in climate journalism worldwide and work that represents the leading edge of climate storytelling. Three winners were selected in each of the 17 categories.

Times Climate Columnist Sammy Roth, Staff Photographer Robert Gauthier, former Times videographers Jessica Q. Chen, Maggie Beidelman and Jackeline Luna, and former data and graphics journalist Paul Duginski received the honor in the solutions category for an installment of Repowering the West. The winning entry, Want to solve climate change? This California farm kingdom holds a key, explores the conflict between agriculture, renewable power and water supply in the Imperial Valley.

“California’s sunny Imperial Valley would seem a perfect spot for solar development: Amid heat waves that have scorched the region’s vegetable produce, farmers have the opportunity to turn a profit on their land, and, amid endemic Western drought, fewer farms means more water to go around. But where many see an elegant solution to climate-induced woes, others, including farmers still making the most of the Valley, see a threat,” wrote the competition judges.

“With transportive on-the-ground reporting and stunning visuals, Sammy Roth and fellow L.A. Times journalists deliver a thoughtful portrait of both change that is here already and the swirling questions about change that is still to come,” the judges commented. “The story is part of an ongoing series from the L.A. Times examining how big shifts — prompted by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act — are playing out in western states, with focus on the tension between urban and rural communities, the potential environmental consequences of large-scale renewable projects, and the need for these changes to also address harm and inequities wrought by the energy status quo.”

For more on the CCNow awards, visit coveringclimatenow.org.