CNBC launching climate change coverage initiative

CNBC.com managing editor Jeffrey McCracken sent out the following email on Friday:

I am excited to announce a new editorial initiative that will be led by Senior Editor Matt Rosoff, and staffed by a few familiar faces at CNBC.

Matt will lead a reporting team focused on how corporations and investors are navigating a changing climate. Cat Clifford, Emma Newburger, and Lora Kolodny will be a part of this team reporting into Matt. He will continue to helm our technology coverage while building up this new beat.

Matt pitched this concept with a simple premise: Coverage of climate today, is a lot like coverage of technology 30 years ago. It’s mostly covered by niche, trade publications and small teams at a handful of mainstream outlets. Yet, climate, like technology, is getting built into the business plans of nearly every company. It deserves a fuller examination.

This will take CNBC into topics such as new technology being used to reduce carbon emissions and adapt to an increasingly hostile environment, the billions of dollars being poured into clean energy, the changing scope of business planning and practices, the political and regulatory impacts, and personal strategies for preserving wealth and livelihood.

Cat Clifford, who has been covering climate change and entrepreneurship for CNBC Make It, will focus primarily on technologies such as clean energy, battery technology, carbon capture, mitigation, adaptation, and far-future tech, as well as business planning.

Emma Newburger, who has covered climate politics over the last two years for CNBC.com, will focus on policy. From her new home base in Los Angeles, she will tell the stories of the people and businesses most affected by the changing climate of the U.S. West. She will move over from our politics team.

Lora Kolodny will continue to cover Tesla from the technology team, leading our reporting on the most influential business in climate tech to date. She will now also focus her non-Tesla reporting on influential players in renewable energy, sustainable transportation, food and agriculture, and solutions that enable businesses, communities or individuals to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

In addition, Pippa Stevens, who will continue to cover climate and energy for the markets team, will contribute to our climate reporting on areas such as investment opportunities for CNBC PRO, ESG investing, corporate sustainability pledges, business planning, and disruptions to the traditional energy industry.

In other internal moves, Weekend Editor Spencer Kimball will shift over to the CNBC.com politics team and help manage the reporting and coverage there. He joined CNBC in 2017 as a breaking news editor, helping with dotcom’s corporate earnings coverage.

As Spencer makes his move to the politics section, News Editor Terri Cullen is taking charge of weekend duty; and News Editor Melodie Warner is moving into the early morning hotseat shift fondly known as zero dark thirty.

Also moving to the politics team is Tom Franck, who had spent the past four years on CNBC.com markets team under Senior Editor John Melloy. His coverage on markets began with the team’s usual dose of equities and investment in the first few years of CNBC Pro and grew to include activist investors and their targets, hedge funds and proxy advisors.

At the start of the 2020 election cycle, Tom began contributing to Senior Editor Mike Calia‘s politics team and has since covered federal economic policy for the website. He will continue to write about labor and economic policy but will add a focus on proposed or pending legislation and how it will impact business and markets.

Please join me in congratulating the reporters and editors on the wonderful news.