From California wildfires and Gulf Coast hurricanes to flooding in China and Pakistan, the impacts of climate change have grown increasingly evident this year. And whether it is agricultural workers, low-income and minority communities, or the world’s poorest in the Global South, the severe inequities in who bears the burden of climate change as well as in air and water pollution is also receiving growing recognition. Journalists play a critical role in telling the stories that help illuminate how climate change affects families and workers around the world. 

In this edition of Columbia Energy Exchange, host Jason Bordoff is joined by one of the leading reporters today writing about the links between a warming planet and such issues as race, conflict, natural disasters, and big tech: Somini Sengupta at The New York Times. 

Somini is the international climate reporter for The New York Times. A George Polk Award-winning foreign correspondent, she previously worked in other capacities at The New York Times as its United Nations correspondent, West Africa bureau chief, and South Asia bureau chief. Somini has covered nine conflicts, including Darfur, Iraq, Syria and Sri Lanka. In 2016, she wrote a book called The End Of Karma about the exploding youth population in India and what that might mean for the future of India and the world. She grew up in India, Canada and the United States, graduating from the University of California at Berkeley.