NBC News Climate Unit Journalist Carlos P. Beltran on Humanizing the Climate Change Story

Path to Zero
Path to Zero
5.04 - NBC News Climate Unit Journalist Carlos P. Beltran on Humanizing the Climate Change Story
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Path to Zero continues its series of episodes recorded from the Reuters Global Energy Transition Summit in New York with a special guest, Carlos P. Beltran, a producer with the climate unit at NBC News.

Beltran is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, producer and journalist originally from Caracas, Venezuela. Before transitioning to reporting on the climate crisis, his documentary work focused on socio-political issues, civil rights, migration, LGTBQ+ and human-interest stories in Latin America and the U.S.

In this interview, Tucker talks to Carlos P. Beltran about:

  • How Beltran transitioned from covering socio-political issues to the climate crisis.
  • His role as a journalist to pinpoint and call out inconsistencies.
  • The day-to-day operation of the NBC News Climate Unit and how the team determines what stories to cover.
  • Why NBC takes a hyper-local focus on how individual communities are dealing with and adapting to climate change.
  • One of the biggest challenges he faces is the tendency for the public to get desensitized with data. He sees his role as a journalist to humanize the story and identify people who are directly impacted by the climate crisis.
  • His thoughts on the need for a greater sense of urgency on addressing climate change.

In addition to his work at NBC News, Beltran shared with Tucker his passion project, an art book and experimental biography about the humanitarian emergency in Venezuela called It Suddenly Occurred To Me. The project explores the life and work of Yadira Silva, a woman who found peace and redemption writing from within some of the worst prisons in Latin America.

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