Justin Rowlatt
Justin Rowlatt is the BBC’s climate editor, focusing on how global warming and the shift to new energy systems are changing everyday life and public policy. His coverage stands out for connecting climate science and global diplomacy to concrete experience of weather, wildlife and energy costs, often using reported features anchored in British stories to illuminate worldwide trends. He works across digital, TV and radio, filing explanatory pieces, field reports and high-profile interviews on what he treats as the defining story of this century.
Extreme weather is the UK's new normal
Rowlatt returns repeatedly to how rising temperatures are reshaping weather patterns in the UK, treating “extreme” conditions as a new baseline rather than one-off anomalies. He has reported on record-breaking summers and the expectation that summer 2026 will be declared the hottest on record, tying official data to lived realities of heatwaves and their strain on infrastructure.
His coverage of drought, including pieces on more than two-thirds of England being in drought, takes the story beyond rainfall charts to the effects on agriculture, water supply and local environments.
Marine and atmospheric changes are a recurring thread: he has written about an “extreme” marine heatwave expected around parts of the UK and asked whether unusual Atlantic conditions could make Britain’s weather even more volatile after record heat. In these articles he blends Met Office analysis, ocean observations and historical context to show how individual hot spells, storms or floods fit into a longer-term shift in the climate system. The emphasis is less on isolated events and more on how official forecasters now describe extreme weather as the country’s “new normal,” reinforcing his focus on system-level change rather than spectacle.
The clues that hint our planet might be heating faster than we realised
Another defining strand in Rowlatt’s work is close engagement with climate science, especially evidence about the pace of warming and the role of air pollution in masking underlying trends. In a major feature on clues that the planet might be heating faster than previously understood, he explains how cleaning up sulphur pollution removes a cooling effect that had partially offset greenhouse gas warming, revealing a sharper rise in temperatures. He uses a public argument on social media over the causes of heatwaves as a starting point, then carefully distinguishes distorted claims from the scientific findings they misrepresent, showing a habit of entering debates where climate science is being misused and redirecting readers to peer-reviewed evidence.
That same story and its adapted version for an international audience set out how aerosols, clouds and radiation balance interact, translating technical concepts into accessible language without stripping away nuance. Rowlatt often frames these explanations around practical consequences, such as what faster warming implies for future extremes and policy timelines, rather than treating them as abstract curiosities. In doing so he positions climate science as a live, evolving field that underpins everything from forecasts to political negotiations, a connection that distinguishes his work from more narrowly event-led environment reporting.
Why cheap power could matter more than clean power
Rowlatt’s coverage of the energy transition is grounded in the tension between affordability, reliability and decarbonisation, with a strong focus on how policy decisions land in households and industries. In an article asking why cheap power could matter more than clean power in the push for net zero, he explores the political and economic pressure to keep energy bills down even as governments commit to cutting emissions. His reporting on stalled heat pump growth, warnings from climate advisers, and targets for fitting heat pumps in roughly half of homes by 2040 shows how he traces the gap between ambitious targets and the practical rollout of technology and support.
Infrastructure and materials are recurring interests: he has covered breakthroughs that could slash the carbon footprint of cement, battles over “monstrous” pylons and solar farm “wastelands,” and new funding packages for solar and green tech to help cut household energy bills.
These stories treat pylons, power stations and building materials not as technical footnotes but as political flashpoints and levers for emissions cuts, highlighting how local opposition and planning decisions feed into national climate outcomes. He also brings individual voices into the energy story, such as conversations with homeowners about electric-powered houses and the lived realities of running low-carbon homes, reinforcing his pattern of combining system-level analysis with granular case studies.
Climate summit in an oil state
Rowlatt regularly covers global climate diplomacy, particularly United Nations climate summits, linking them back to domestic policy and public expectations. His pieces on COP28 and subsequent summits ask whether meetings hosted in major fossil fuel-producing states can drive real commitments to cutting emissions and phasing down or out fossil fuels. He examines fault lines over fossil fuel language in summit texts, the politics of host countries, and the credibility of pledges, presenting these events as moments where scientific urgency collides with geopolitical and economic interests.
Beyond written coverage, his role involves reporting from major summits, producing field pieces and offering live commentary for flagship BBC news programmes, as well as conducting in-depth interviews with figures such as the UN secretary-general. He also fronts the BBC’s regular climate newsletter, bringing together environment and climate stories for a broad audience and providing continuity between summit cycles and the everyday climate and energy stories he reports. This combination of on-the-ground summit reporting, high-level interviews and ongoing explanatory coverage across formats reinforces his position as a lead journalist on the climate story rather than a beat reporter focused only on one slice of the environment agenda.
4 more environment journalists.
Abby Wallace
Abby Wallace covers where energy, climate and politics meet, with a focus on how net zero, power markets and extreme weather affect people and institutions. She is an energy and climate reporter at POLITICO, covering U.K. energy policy, climate targets and the transition from fossil fuels. Her subjects include government and opposition debates over net zero, decarbonization, support schemes, infrastructure, public spending and climate adaptation. She also reports on energy companies, household bills, labor standards, supply chains and corporate accountability. Her work connects technical policy choices to jobs, competitiveness, public services and voter sentiment. She uses polling, expert voices and political analysis to examine public attitudes and government response to extreme weather. Before POLITICO, she worked on the companies desk at the Financial Times and the business news desk at Insider. She has also freelanced on politics, business and climate.
Adam Fulton
Adam Fulton is a digital news producer focused on fast-moving global stories where environment, conflict and politics meet. He works on the Guardian’s Australian operation, using rolling live blogs to cover geopolitical crises, climate-linked disasters and wars with clear structure and context. His Middle East coverage, including the Gaza peace plan, tracks tension between political messaging and on-the-ground realities, tying leaders’ statements to military movements, diplomatic reactions and humanitarian reports. His disaster reporting, such as on Nepal–Tibet floods, links rising tolls and missing people to infrastructure damage, rescue strain and cascading environmental threats. His Ukraine war blogs treat resource scarcity, especially water and energy, as strategic factors and track how infrastructure damage shapes the conflict. A former entertainment and arts reporter and senior editor at major Australian newspapers, he applies careful pacing and narrative arcs to collaborative, time-stamped live coverage.
Alec Luhn
Alec Luhn is an environment reporter whose work follows climate change at its extremes, frontiers and human consequences, often reporting directly from places where warming, instability and displacement intersect. He covers climate, conflict and migration, showing how abstract climate trends turn into risks for communities, infrastructure, health and preparedness. He reports for New Scientist on climate breakdown, extreme events, El Niño, limits of models, melting glaciers, warming seas and adaptation to heat, mixing scientific explanation with lived experience. A defining strand of his work is reporting from remote icy and mountainous regions on Arctic sea ice loss, permafrost, polar bears, pollution and fragile ecosystems. He has a long record on conflict and security, including the Skripal poisoning case. His reporting appears in New Scientist and major international outlets, with work across print, digital, audio and television and recognition from climate and journalism awards.
Amy Lyall
Amy Lyall is a regular contributor to The Connexion, and her work stands out for turning French rules, services and the built environment into clear, usable advice for everyday readers. She covers housing, energy use, resident obligations and the practical steps behind things like getting air-conditioning approved for flats. Her beat also includes national and local schemes, insurance and legal conditions for lending a car, mobile network coverage, mosquito-borne diseases, water filters, fruit harvests and emergency drones with defibrillators. She writes news, practical guides and magazine-style features, using plain language to explain technical topics and official systems. She also writes explainers on French words and phrases and occasional culture pieces on unusual sites such as Maison Picassiette.