Julia Simon
Julia Simon is the Climate Solutions reporter on NPR's Climate Desk. She covers the ways governments, businesses, scientists and everyday people are working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. She also works to hold corporations, and others, accountable for greenwashing.
Simon is a longtime contributor to NPR News and programming, including the Science, International and Business desks, as well as NPR's climate coverage. She has also reported for several NPR podcasts, including Planet Money, The Indicator, Rough Translation, Short Wave, Life Kit and Code Switch, and has done investigations for CIR's Reveal. She began her career at the BBC Cairo bureau and has worked as an energy reporter at Reuters.
Simon lived in and reported from Egypt, Indonesia and Nigeria, where she was a Fulbright Fellow covering the oil sector. She has reported for NPR on the tree math of carbon offsets and how misinformation is derailing renewable energy projects across the U.S., and has traveled deep into the Sumatran rainforest in search of climate solutions.
As a guest host for Planet Money, she's taken listeners on adventures to explain key parts of the global economy. Simon followed stolen oil from Nigeria to Togo to Long Island, found gold and staked a claim to explain America's 150-year-old mining law and, along with Planet Money's Kenny Malone, visited an old oil boom town to explain the history of antitrust. The antitrust series was a 2020 finalist for the Gerald Loeb award.
Simon is a graduate of the University of Chicago and studied international energy and climate change as a KSP scholar at the Sciences Po in Paris. She speaks and reports in Egyptian Arabic, Spanish, French and Indonesian. [Copyright 2025 NPR]
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Federal tax credits for rooftop solar, heat pumps and other energy-efficient technologies are going away at the end of the year. Here's what consumers should know. -
Much of the Midwest and the East Coast are under a heat advisory or warning this week as dangerous heat continues. Here's how to stay cool. -
Vienna has a way to make affordable housing and combat climate change all at the same time. Now U.S. cities want in, and they're building their own green housing. -
Sometimes reducing your home's energy use can be as simple as opening a window or buying tape. Here are five easy ways to have a more climate-friendly home and save on energy bills at the same time. -
As many federal governments slow — or reverse — climate action, Austria's capital, Vienna, wants to show how cities can take the lead. -
President Trump signed an order Thursday aimed at making it easier for companies to mine the ocean floor. Scientists and environmental groups say it could harm a fragile ecosystem. -
The Trump administration halted the construction of a New York offshore wind project. Legal analysts say it has implications far beyond the wind industry. -
The Trump administration may end leases for some of NOAA's offices while the agency terminates several advisory committees at the important weather and climate agency. -
Clearing land for cattle and cows is the single biggest driver of rainforest loss in the Amazon. This "hotel for cows" in Colombia offers a solution. -
President Trump has nominated Neil Jacobs to head NOAA. Some former NOAA employees are concerned about Jacobs' scientific integrity after his prior involvement in "Sharpiegate."
