Skip to content
  • Science
  • Politics
  • Justice & Health
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Clean Energy
  • ICN Local
  • Projects
  • About Us
Inside Climate News
Pulitzer Prize-winning, nonpartisan reporting on the biggest crisis facing our planet.
Donate
Trump 2.0: The Reckoning
Inside Climate News
Donate

Search

  • Science
  • Politics
  • Justice & Health
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Clean Energy
  • ICN Local
  • Projects
  • About Us
  • Newsletters
  • ICN Sunday Morning
  • Contact Us

Topics

  • A.I. & Data Centers
  • Activism
  • Arctic
  • Biodiversity & Conservation
  • Business & Finance
  • Climate Law & Liability
  • Climate Treaties
  • Denial & Misinformation
  • Environment & Health
  • Extreme Weather
  • Food & Agriculture
  • Fracking
  • Nuclear
  • Pipelines
  • Plastics
  • Public Lands
  • Regulation
  • Super-Pollutants
  • Water/Drought
  • Wildfires

Information

  • About
  • Job Openings
  • Reporting Network
  • Whistleblowers
  • Memberships
  • Ways to Give
  • Fellows & Fellowships

Publications

  • E-Books
  • Documents

Katie Surma

Reporter, Pittsburgh

Katie Surma is a reporter at Inside Climate News covering the rights of nature movement and international environmental justice. Her work has a strong focus on the intersection of human rights and the environment. Before joining ICN, she practiced law, specializing in commercial litigation. Her journalism work has been recognized by the Overseas Press Club, the Society of International Journalists, the Society of American Business Editors and Writers and others. Katie has a master’s degree in investigative journalism from Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, an LLM in international rule of law and security from ASU’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, a J.D. from Duquesne University, and was a History of Art and Architecture major at the University of Pittsburgh. Katie lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
  • @katiesurma.bsky.social
  • @Katie_Surma
  • [email protected]
A landscape in Zambia 12 weeks after a Chinese copper mine spilled toxic waste laced with heavy metals, including lead, arsenic and uranium. Credit: Katie Surma/Inside Climate News

Chinese Mining Firm Downplays Toxic Waste Spill as Residents Reel From Impacts

By Katie Surma

Near Moku, Haut-Uélé province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, an Indigenous Mbuti woman points to a flooded, abandoned mine where her young relative drowned. Credit: Courtesy of PAX

Chinese Miners Accused of Gold Pillage, Environmental Destruction in DRC

By Katie Surma

People gather for a protest against the disappearance of Mapuche leader and environmental defender Julia Chuñil in front of La Moneda Palace on April 8 in Santiago, Chile. Credit: Lucas Aguayo Araos/Anadolu via Getty Images

An Average Week in 2024: Three Environmental Defenders Murdered or Disappeared

By Katie Surma

A Wayana Indigenous man sits on the embankment of the Maroni River in Southern French Guiana. Credit: Benoit Virginie

Deforestation Threatens Public Health. Securing Indigenous Land Rights Can Help, Researchers Find

By Katie Surma

A landscape in Zambia 12 weeks after Sino-Metals spilled toxic waste laced with heavy metals including lead, arsenic and uranium. Credit: Katie Surma/Inside Climate News

Zambia Ordered a Mining Company to Pay Villagers After a Toxic Waste Spill. The Firm Made Them Sign Away Their Rights First

By Katie Surma

An officer of the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources takes part in an operation against Amazon deforestation at an illegal mining camp known in the Yanomami of Brazil on Feb. 24, 2023. Credit: Alan Chaves/AFP via Getty Images

How Trump’s Anti-Environment Crusade Enriches Drug Traffickers

By Katie Surma

Jingjing Zhang meets with community members in Kalusale, Zambia. Credit: Katie Surma/Inside Climate News

The Woman Holding Chinese Mining Giants Accountable

By Katie Surma

Waorani people protest against the oil tenders opened by the Ecuadorian Government on May 13 in Quito, Ecuador. Credit: Franklin Jacome/Agencia Press South via Getty Images

US Guts Criticism of Indigenous Rights Abuses, Mentions of Climate Change From Annual Human Rights Reports

By Katie Surma, Peter Aldhous

An aerial view of the former Woodhouse Colliery site and the location of West Cumbria Mining’s proposed coal project in Whitehaven, England. Credit: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Coal Company Sues UK After Environmentalists Win Major Climate Case in British Court

By Katie Surma

Musonda Mumba, secretary general of the Convention on Wetlands, speaks to a crowd of delegates from around the world on July 24 at COP15 in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. Credit: Convention on Wetlands

Earth’s Wetlands Are Disappearing and Global Efforts to Save Them Are Unraveling

By Katie Surma

Spanish firefighters stand next to a burning tree during a wildfire in Concepcion, Boliva, on Sept. 24, 2024. Credit: Rodrigo Urzagasti/AFP via Getty Images

Lessons From a Climate Disaster

By Katie Surma

Yuji Iwasawa (center), president of the International Court of Justice, issues the first advisory opinion on States’ legal obligations to address climate change in The Hague on Wednesday. Credit: John Thys/AFP via Getty Images

Governments Are Legally Required to Address Climate Change, Top Global Court Says

By Bob Berwyn, Katie Surma

Members of the Afro-descendant community in mangrove roots in Colombia. Credit: Conservation International

Want To Fight Climate Change? Give Afro-Descendant Communities Land Rights, New Report Says

By Katie Surma

A view of Honduras' capital city, Tegucigalpa. Credit: Nicholas Kusnetz/Inside Climate News

One Small Country, Nearly $20 Billion in Corporate Claims

By Nicholas Kusnetz, Katie Surma

Two birds are visible, long beaks in the water beside plants

Humans Are Wiping Out Water Bodies That Life Depends On, New Report Says

By Katie Surma

Pablo Saavedra Alessandri, secretary of the Inter-American Court Human Right, speaks during a presentation of the court’s advisory opinion on July 2 in San José, Costa Rica. Credit: Inter-American Court of Human Rights

Nations Must Act to Face Climate Crisis, Top Regional Court Says

By Bob Berwyn, Katie Surma

Ayshka Najib (second from right), a climate activist based in the United Arab Emirates, protests at the United Nations climate summit in Dubai, UAE, in 2023. Credit: Courtesy of Ayshka Najib

The Ecofeminist Movement Is Surging. Here’s What Its Advocates Want

By Katie Surma

Princess Angelika Lātūfuipeka Tukuʻaho from the Kingdom of Tonga speaks at the One Ocean Science Congress on June 4 ahead of the U.N. Ocean Conference in Nice, France. Credit: Stephane Lesbats/Ifremer

Tonga Poised to Be the First Country to Recognize Rights of Whales

By Katie Surma

Posts pagination

1 2 … 8 Next

Newsletters

We deliver climate news to your inbox like nobody else. Every day or once a week, our original stories and digest of the web's top headlines deliver the full story, for free.

Keep Environmental Journalism Alive

ICN provides award-winning climate coverage free of charge and advertising. We rely on donations from readers like you to keep going.

Donate Now
Inside Climate News
  • Science
  • Politics
  • Justice & Health
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Clean Energy
  • Home
  • About
  • Contact Us
  • Whistleblowers
  • Privacy Policy
  • Charity Navigator
Inside Climate News uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you accept this policy. Learn More