Beyond COP30: Why ESEA Climate Stories Matter More Than Ever
Last week, the New Tide Media Network brought together environmental journalists and filmmakers for "Beyond COP30: Telling Climate Stories in East and Southeast Asia," a panel that illuminated both the power and the peril of climate storytelling in one of the world's most climate-vulnerable regions.
As a creative agency rooted in responsible storytelling, the event reminded us why the stories we choose to tell—and who gets to tell them—matters so profoundly.
Because what became clear across the evening wasn't just that East and Southeast Asia (ESEA) faces disproportionate climate impacts- it's that the region's voices remain dangerously underrepresented in how those stories reach the world.
Climate Change Isn't "The Story", It's the Umbrella
Regina Lam, founding director at New Tide Media Network and assistant editor at Dialogue Earth, opened with a provocation that reframes everything: climate change isn't a single story. It's an umbrella under which countless human stories unfold—stories of justice, conflict, migration, health, culture, and survival.
This matters because the pedantic nature of COP storytelling often reduces complex lived experiences to carbon metrics and policy jargon. The real stories, meanwhile, are happening in communities facing super typhoons in the Philippines, in villages navigating resource scarcity in Myanmar, and in courtrooms where David takes on Goliath.
Jhesset O. Enano, an environmental and climate journalist from the Philippines, emphasised the critical importance of localising climate stories for communities.
When covering COP or broader climate discussions, the key is connecting global frameworks to local realities. How does climate finance affect a fishing village? What does a 1.5°C target mean for someone whose home has been destroyed by the third super typhoon in five years?
As Jhesset put it, extreme climate events in the Philippines aren't anomalies—they're ongoing human rights violations.
This reframing is essential. Climate impacts aren't unfortunate natural disasters; they're injustices exacerbated by systemic failures and historical inequities.
The Human Rights-Environment Nexus
Documentary filmmaker Ivan Ogilvie, whose work extensively covers Myanmar and its ethnic civil conflicts, brought the human rights-environment nexus into sharp focus. His reporting reveals how environmental preservation and social justice are inseparable in conflict zones.
Take the Karen people in Myanmar's Salween Basin, home to the last major undammed river in Asia.
For these communities, the struggle for land preservation isn't separate from cultural survival. It's the same fight. The Salween Basin boasts a healthy tiger population, yet faces severe poaching and mining threats. Resource competition, already intense, becomes catastrophic when compounded by armed conflict.
Ivan shared a fact that stops you cold: Myanmar is one of the top five ocean polluters globally, with virtually no waste disposal or sewage infrastructure.
Conflict doesn't merely displace people; it dismantles the already fragile systems meant to protect the environment.
When you're fighting for survival, waste management becomes an impossible luxury.
This is why we must resist siloed storytelling. Environmental journalism that ignores human rights misses the point. Human rights reporting that overlooks environmental degradation is incomplete.
The stories are one.
From Victims to Fighters: Climate Litigation in the Global South
Perhaps the most galvanising discussion centred on climate litigation, and the communities increasingly seeking justice through legal channels, refusing to accept their fate as passive victims.
Jhesset highlighted a groundbreaking case: Filipino claimants taking Shell to a Dutch court, with the case expected to be filed in December.
Eighty claimants are seeking damages for losses from Super Typhoon Odette (known internationally as Rai), which devastated the Philippines in 2021. What makes this unprecedented is that they're suing Shell UK—the company's domicile—for accountability.
Unlike the landmark 2021 Dutch Shell case, which focused on future damages, this lawsuit addresses harm already inflicted. According to the Grantham Research Institute, over 2,300 climate litigation cases have been filed against governments or corporations globally, with an increasing number emerging from Global South courts—often seen as avenues of last resort when political systems fail to act.
Beyond legal battles, these are significant narrative shifts. Jhesset spoke passionately about moving beyond victim narratives to centre these communities as fighters—David versus Goliath stories where courage meets accountability.
Seeing regions disproportionately impacted by climate change demand justice for their children and grandchildren carries profound intergenerational weight.
This courage comes at immense cost.
The Price of Truth: Safety and Censorship
The conversation took a sobering turn when discussing the risks journalists face covering climate and environmental issues in ESEA.
Ivan, speaking from his position as a Western journalist, acknowledged his relative safety—a privilege starkly absent for local reporters.
In Myanmar, where he's extensively documented revolutionary groups fighting the military regime, the threats are existential. A Burmese journalist covering earthquake impacts was sentenced to six years in prison for treason. A reporter describing typhoon devastation faced the same fate.
The message is clear: tell our story, and pay the price.
The statistics are chilling. UNESCO reports that 17% of journalists globally are attacked for their work. Forty-four journalists were murdered in recent years, with only five convictions. In Myanmar alone, 107 environmentalists have been killed. Brazil ranks third to fifth globally for journalist murders. This isn't abstract danger, it's systematic silencing.
Jhesset reflected on her own privilege: reporting from Manila and London, with access to resources that local, boots-on-the-ground journalists lack. Many are paid "peanuts" whilst facing extraordinary risks. Women journalists face an additional layer of threat—gender-based violence and harassment compound the dangers of their work.
Her message was urgent: solidarity matters. Networks like New Tide Media create critical spaces to amplify challenges around safety, access, and representation. But beyond networks, journalists must prioritise mental health and maintain clarity about why they're in this space. Without that grounding, the work becomes unsustainable.
Own Voice Storytelling: Who Gets to Tell These Stories?
Throughout the evening, a central theme emerged: own voice storytelling is not merely ethically important, but essential for accuracy and nuance.
New Tide Media Network's mission addresses a glaring gap: East and Southeast Asia is vast, complex, and globally significant, yet ESEA journalists and regional experts remain severely underrepresented in anglophone newsrooms, particularly in the UK. Unlike other regions, there are few infrastructure systems specifically supporting ESEA journalists in British media.
Western-centric storytelling flattens a rich, diverse region into simplistic narratives. It extracts stories without context, often parachuting in for dramatic moments before moving on. ESEA journalists don't just have better access—they have lived understanding of cultural nuance, historical context, and community trust that outside reporters cannot replicate.
This matters acutely for climate storytelling. When 1,600 fossil fuel lobbyists outnumber nearly all national delegations at COP (except Brazil), when carbon markets and climate finance dominate headlines, the human stories risk being drowned out. ESEA journalists are best positioned to ensure that doesn't happen.
What This Means for Responsible Storytelling
As a creative agency specialising in travel and sustainability, this panel reinforced principles we hold sacred: responsible storytelling recognises how people and planet intersect. It centres affected communities. It resists simplistic narratives. It acknowledges power dynamics in who gets to tell stories and who profits from them.
The climate crisis in ESEA isn't distant or abstract. It's immediate, it's unjust, and it's escalating. The region faces some of the most severe climate impacts globally whilst contributing least to historical emissions. Super typhoons, rising seas, resource conflicts, and environmental degradation aren't future threats—they're present realities.
Yet hope persists, not in naive optimism but in the courage of communities demanding justice, journalists risking everything to document truth, and networks like New Tide creating space for ESEA voices to be heard.
How We Move Forward
The stories emerging from East and Southeast Asia aren't niche. They're canaries in the coal mine for what climate breakdown looks like when systems fail to act. They're blueprints for resistance, resilience, and accountability. They're human stories that deserve to be told with nuance, respect, and urgency.
For those of us in storytelling—whether as agencies, brands, media organisations, or individuals—we have responsibilities:
Amplify ESEA voices. Don't just report on the region; platform journalists and storytellers from it. Invest in their work. Pay fairly. Credit appropriately.
Connect the dots. Climate stories are human rights stories are conflict stories are justice stories. Resist the urge to compartmentalise what communities experience as interconnected crises.
Move beyond victimhood. Communities aren't waiting to be saved. They're fighting, organising, litigating, innovating. Tell those stories.
Acknowledge privilege and power. Who benefits from the story being told? Who might be harmed? What responsibilities come with amplification?
Support journalist safety. Covering climate and environmental issues in authoritarian contexts is life-threatening work. Support networks, legal funds, and mental health resources for journalists at risk.
The conversation continues—about safety protocols, story ideas, solidarity networks, and what accountability looks like in practice.
As we navigate the road beyond COP30, the question isn't whether climate storytelling matters. It's whether we're brave enough to tell the stories that need telling, in the voices that need amplifying, with the honesty that the moment demands.
At our agency, we believe storytelling is a tool for change. But only when it's rooted in respect, context, and genuine partnership with the communities whose stories we're privileged to help share.
If you're working on climate storytelling, sustainability communications, or campaigns that require deep cultural understanding and ethical storytelling practices, we'd love to talk. Because the stories emerging from ESEA and the Global South aren't just important—they're essential. And they deserve to be told with the care, nuance, and courage they demand.
Interested in responsible storytelling that centres people and planet? Get in touch to explore how we can support your work.
We want to highlight New Tide Media Network for creating this vital space. Their work strengthening ESEA voices and perspectives in journalism, connecting journalists from the West with those from the global majority, and pushing back on Western-centric storytelling is exactly what the media landscape needs. If you're an ESEA journalist or want to support their mission, we encourage you to connect with them.
