Web Story Desk
Samaan Lateef, a journalist from Kashmir, received a coveted climate change prize from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for his thorough coverage of climate change.
Samaan was awarded Bronze Medal, a citation, and cash prize for The Prince Albert II of Monaco and UNCA Global Prize for Coverage of Climate Change, as per United Nations Correspondent Association,
This is the second award received by Samaan this year. Earlier in September, Samaan was nominated by the Society of Editors UK for the prestigious Freelancer of the year award.
The Kashmir journalist reports about the climate crisis in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India for the Telegraph UK, DW Germany and other major outlets.
As per the reports, Samaan was invited to the award ceremony in London on November 12. He has been working for Daily Telegraph London and covering south Asia for the past four years.
His work has appeared in Haaretz, Independent UK, DW Germany, and many other international and national newspapers.
He was also selected as a finalist along with Joe Wallen, Daily Telegraph’s south correspondent, in the Best Investigative Journalist Award by the Asian Media Awards in London.
The award-winning stories!
Samaan received the coveted climate change prize for three of his reports, two of them published in Telegraph and one in German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW).
In the story titled ‘Climate change imperils Kashmiri apples’ for DW, Samaan reports how the sharp temperature variations across Kashmir led to unseasonal snowfalls or early summers, resulting in heavy damage to apple orchards.
The other story chosen for the award was about climate change-induced heatwave in large parts of northern and central India, leading to greater number of hospital admissions.
The third story of Lateef, which was awarded, pertained to monsoon ‘superfloods’ in Pakistan that killed at least 900 people, and swept buildings away in the neigbouring country, as it battled a ‘climate-induced humanitarian disaster of epic proportions’.
