ABU News Senior Editor Ahmed Afruh Rasheed facilitated a session on communicating climate change policies at a workshop held by Lensa Iklim recently on 25th May.

The workshop, comprising four sessions, is organised to update journalists on the evolving climate change and Malaysia’s energy transition (JET). 

Transitioning to renewable energy has various consequences, especially for marginalised groups such as Indigenous Peoples, women, the urban poor and farmers, and therefore a just transition requires that the rights of these people are looked after. This concept is called JET.

In an information-packed three-hour session called ‘Beyond the Data: Humanising Climate Change Stories’, Afruh went through communication essentials, such as effective storytelling, interviewing techniques, and ways to gather the right sources. The session also included role-plays involving participants acting as reporters and interviewees.

In March 2022, Klima Action Malaysia (KAMY), a feminist environmental organisation funded by the European Climate Foundation (ECF), launched Lensa Iklim, a climate and energy journalism program in Peninsula Malaysia to upskill and empower Malaysian journalists and mainstream news media to improve climate change and energy transition reporting. Climate change in Malaysia is often under-examined, and its reporting is also repetitive and over-emphasises the financial angle of climate change without examining the human implications.

The fourth and final session of the workshop series is expected to prepare journalists to cover COP29, the international climate meeting that will be held later this year by the United Nations (UN).