Bill Weir

Chief Climate Correspondent

Bill Weir is a CNN anchor, Chief Climate Correspondent, and host and executive producer of the acclaimed CNN Original Series "The Wonder List with Bill Weir."
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CNN Digital Expansion 2018, Bill Weir
CNN Digital Expansion 2018, Bill Weir
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Torrential rainfall flooded farms, homes and businesses in California's Central Valley in 2023, with water as far as the eye could see.
CNN/Julian Quinones
What’s at stake on Tuesday? The planet.
Nov 1, 2024
“Everybody complains about the weather, but no one does anything about it,” Mark Twain used to quip, back when humans had only just begun digging fossil fuel out of the ground and burning it for energy.
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Julian Quinones, CNN
A polluting, coal-fired power plant found the key to solving America’s biggest clean energy challenge
Sep 16, 2024
Xcel Energy is short-circuiting what could have been seven years of bureaucracy and red tape to solar energy to its customers.
The IceNode robot, designed to study ice and ocean properties in a changing Arctic environment, deployed at Ice Camp Whale during Operation Ice Camp (ICE CAMP) 2024. ICE CAMP is a three-week operation run by the Navy's Arctic Submarine Laboratory (ASL) that allows the Navy to assess its operational readiness in the Arctic, increase experience in the region, advance understanding of the Arctic environment, and continue to develop relationships with other services, allies, and partner organizations. Capable of sustained operations below the ice, IceNode can support tasks for Navy operations and gather data to improve predictions for sea-ice extent in a warming environment (see: climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/arctic-sea-ice). This work was funded by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed for the agency by Caltech. This work was supported by the U.S. Navy’s Arctic Submarine Lab (ASL), with acknowledgement to the field team who assisted deployment and recovery of the robot
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NASA
Video Meet NASA’s newest tool to fight climate change 2:31
Sep 3, 2024
A team of NASA rocket scientists is developing autonomous underwater robots that are able to go where humans cannot, deep beneath Antarctica’s giant ice shelves. The robots’ task is to better understand how rapidly ice is melting — and how quickly that could cause catastrophic sea level rise. CNN’s Bill Weir has the latest. 
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Julian Quinones/CNN
Icy body bags and mobile coolers: Here’s what it takes now to survive outside in America’s hottest city
Aug 1, 2024
Phoenix has become a real-time experiment in adaptation as first responders, health care workers and city planners scramble to keep their city survivable.
<p>Bill Weir speaks with survivors of the Camp Fire who are trying to rebuild and are facing skyrocketing premiums as insurance companies pull out of disaster-prone California.</p>
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Clipped From Video
Video 5 years ago this town burned to the ground. Some new homes are stronger than ever 3:57
Jun 7, 2024
Bill Weir speaks with survivors of the Camp Fire who are trying to rebuild and are facing skyrocketing premiums as insurance companies pull out of disaster-prone California.
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Courtesy of Bill Weir
To my son, born in the climate crisis: These helpers changed the fate of the titi
Apr 22, 2024
When disasters strike, I remember the advice of Mister Rogers: “Look for the helpers. There are always helpers.”
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Julian Quinones/CNN
Camels evolved from a cold-weather ancestor. We could learn from their remarkable transformation
Apr 16, 2024
Since I became a climate reporter — and then a new dad — bedtime stories are different now.
fish spinning florida keys
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Gregg Furstenwerth
Video ‘Quite terrifying’: Lifelong diver spots frightening phenomenon in the water 2:55
Mar 29, 2024
Bizarre actions, including spinning around upside-down and then dying, have been observed in dozens of fish species in the Florida Keys. Wildlife officials have logged nearly 200 incidents – with over 30 species acting this way – mostly in the lower Keys but as far north as Miami. CNN’s Bill Weir meets with the scientists scrambling to figure out the cause.
Salisbury Beach, Massachusetts
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Julian Quinones/CNN
Video This $600k defense against sea level rise could have lasted 3 years. It was destroyed in less than a day 3:02
Mar 13, 2024
CNN’s Bill Weir speaks to homeowners on a disappearing beach in Salisbury, Massachusetts, where a protective sand dune was destroyed during a strong winter storm at high tide.
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CNN/Adobe Stock
Nearly 30,000 objects are hurtling through near-Earth orbit. That’s not just a problem for space
Feb 21, 2024
In low-earth orbit, objects can collide at around 23,000 miles an hour, enough for even the tiniest debris to crack the windows on the International Space Station.
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Getty Images
Video This is what 100 million pieces of space debris looks like 3:05
Feb 21, 2024
In the next 10 years, space will hold more than three times the amount of trash than what it currently has had in the last 70 years. CNN’s Bill Weir talks to NOAA and researchers who are looking for solutions to solve the space junk problem.
NORTHWICH, ENGLAND - JANUARY 18: An aerial view of the Lostock Sustainable Energy Plant which is under construction on January 18, 2024 in Northwich, England. The 480 million GBP project is being built next to the Tata Chemicals Europe brine purification plant and will recover energy from residual waste after reusable and recyclable material has been removed, diverting up to 600,000 tonnes of residual waste from landfill. The energy plant is being constructed by the CNIM Group and will produce 69 mega watts of electricity. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
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Christopher Furlong/Getty Images Europe/Getty Images
Video Clean industrial revolution kicks into high gear to fight climate change 2:34
Feb 5, 2024
Out with the old, in with the new: CNN Chief Climate Correspondent Bill Weir on the race to replace dirty fossil fuel with renewable energy.
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Julian Quinones/CNN
‘Save the Whales’ was a shining success. Now can humpbacks save us from ourselves?
Feb 4, 2024
The comeback of the humpback is arguably the greatest success story in the history of conservation. New science is putting a value on the life of a whale — and finding they provide much more than blubber and song.
whale tail whole story
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Video ‘Whale poo has massive value’: CNN reporter explains why 2:34
Feb 2, 2024
CNN’s Chief Climate Correspondent Bill Weir follows the humpback whale migratory journey from Antarctica all the way to the coast of Colombia. “What Whales Tell Us” premieres on Sunday at 8pm ET/PT.
MA storm devastation
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henrysweatherchannel
Video Watch back-to-back storms wreak havoc in New England 3:03
Jan 26, 2024
As Maine braces for 4 feet of sea level rise by 2100, the current 7-inch increase was enough to devastate picturesque coastal towns this month when two freakish, back-to-back winter storms pushed tides to record highs. CNN’s Bill Weir reports.
05 antora hot rocks climate
Julian Quinones/CNN
These hot rocks can glow brighter than the sun. They could also help spell the end of fossil fuels
Dec 18, 2023
At some point in the dawn of humanity, a smarter-than-average homo sapien moved a rock away from the fire for warmth and invented the thermal battery.

About

Bill Weir is a veteran anchor, writer, producer, and host who came to CNN in 2013 after a decade of award-winning journalism at ABC News.

In 2019, he was named the network’s first Chief Climate Correspondent, drawing on his experience creating and hosting the primetime CNN Original Series “The Wonder List with Bill Weir,” now streaming on Max.

With his distinctive storytelling style, lush photography and a focus on our connected planet, Weir and his team produced four seasons of the show across 28 countries, highlighting wondrous people, places, cultures, and creatures on the brink of seismic change.

In 2022, Weir earned a News & Documentary Emmy® Award for his CNN Special Report: Eating Planet Earth: The Future of Your Food, and Columbia Journalism Review called his 2020 CNN Special Report: The Road to Change “one of the very best pieces of climate journalism ever run by a mainstream US news organization.” His first book, Life As We Know It (Can Be) will be published by Chronicle Prism in April 2024.

In his network career, Weir reported from all 50 states and more than 50 countries, covering breaking news and uncovering global trends. He was among the first reporters into the floodwaters of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and Japan’s tsunami zone during the nuclear crisis of 2011. He dodged Taliban bullets in Afghanistan, led network coverage from Iraq and was the first American to broadcast live from Tibet. As a writer and anchor, Weir produced several special hours for CNN and ABC prime time on topics ranging from religion, brain science and Woodstock to the business of mail-order brides and the rise and fall of General Motors.

His live shots have come from atop the Golden Gate Bridge and below the waters of the Great Barrier Reef while his adventure reporting includes jumps from hot air balloons, hikes deep into the Amazon and one fun night spent lashed to the side of Yosemite’s El Capitan.

Before joining ABC News, Weir wrote and hosted projects for the FX and USA Networks and was an anchor/reporter in Los Angeles, Chicago, Green Bay and Austin, MN.