Guardian Australia has won the 2022 Lowy Institute media award for coverage of climate change with its podcast series An Impossible Choice, which mapped the challenges of living on the frontline of the climate crisis.
The three-part series was produced for Guardian Australia’s Pacific Project by Pacific editor Kate Lyons, Jessica Bineth, Laura Brierley Newton and Jon Tjhia. It was hosted by Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson.
It explored the devastating choices many across the Pacific Islands face: stay on the land of their ancestors, or leave as the islands become increasingly uninhabitable due to climate change.
As the climate crisis threatens their homes these communities have everything to lose, but their voices are often left out of the global discussion.
The series took listeners inside the struggles of these communities, interviewing Papua New Guineans leaving their homes because the rising sea is swallowing the land, families who have lost everything in cyclones, and politicians wrestling with large, wealthier countries to help them fight this crisis before it’s too late.
The project involved on-the-ground reporting from the remote Saposa Islands in Papua New Guinea – the first time the story of these islands has been told in international media – as well as Tuvalu, and interviews from Fiji, Marshall Islands, Vanuatu and Samoa.
An Impossible Choice is now part of the syllabus taught by the Oxford Climate Journalism Network, a programme at the University of Oxford; the series is also being used by the International Law Commission of the UN as anecdotal evidence of the experiences of people undergoing climate migration. It won best podcast series in the Covering Climate Now awards 2021.
The award was announced in Sydney on Wednesday at an event hosted by Lowy Institute executive director Michael Fullilove, who said it had been “a remarkable year in international affairs”.
“This brilliant podcast takes us to the frontline of the world’s climate challenge,” Fullilove said.
“It demands that we engage with our neighbours in the Pacific Islands region, who are already dealing with the reality of climate change.”
Lyons said the project was “one of the most moving and meaningful” that she had worked on.
“I’m so thrilled to see it recognised through this award,” she said.
“The story of the climate crisis in the Pacific is about as urgent and as serious as they come and I’m so grateful to those who trusted us to tell their stories.”
The award has been presented each year since 2013 to recognise Australian journalists and media outlets that have enhanced Australians’ knowledge of and understanding of international affairs.
This year’s winners receive a distinctive trophy from Dinosaur Designs, and share a cash prize of $20,000.
