The climate cause worth championing
With COP26 approaching, Raymond Snoddy applauds Channel 4 for picking up the editorial baton of climate change and asks if privatisation would have altered its news coverage
Channel 4 News did a remarkable thing this week. Days before the opening of the COP26 conference in Glasgow by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Channel 4 gave up the entire programme to the climate crisis facing the planet.
There would have been other stories a plenty to be covered, ranging from record rises in fuel prices and the exposure of yet more online bullying of children courtesy of Instagram, to the Government facilitating the dumping of raw sewage in waterways and beeches across the UK.
Such stories were all reduced to headlines in favour of live reporting by Channel 4 News reporters around the globe from what is left of the Brazilian rain forest and crumbling ice sheets in Antarctica, to bleached corals on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.
There was reporting from a massively polluting lignite-fired power station which produces a fifth of Poland’s electricity and on to the Maldives, which could sink below the waves within seven to 10 years.
In Brazil, the forest is still being cut down by those who want to increase cattle ranching, while in Washington support for a $100 billion fund to help poorer nations tackle the effects of climate change is proving hard to garner, even from some of President Biden’s Democrats.
For those who had been paying attention, most of the stories covered may be individually known. The clever thing was to bring them all together live in advance of the conference to concentrate minds on the enormity of the task we are all now facing.
It made sobering viewing, not least because the broadcast came at the same time as the United Nations released new data showing that greenhouse gases such as CO2 are growing at a faster rate than at any time over the previous decade.
This happened despite the Covid lockdown and the resulting slowing of economic growth.
The only tiny morsel of comfort that Channel 4 News could offer came from scientists seeding coral polyps on the Barrier Reef that might be more resistant to ocean warming and acidification and therefore could help with regeneration.
Overall it was a splendid thing for Channel 4 to do and one that can hardly have been financially rewarding. There were no ads- other than programme promos, either by choice or more likely because advertisers did not queue-up to be associated with such alarming developments.
There is another intriguing question. Commercial broadcasters will of course cover the events at Glasgow but it was Channel 4 News that felt free enough to make the grand editorial gesture.
Would such a thing still be likely, or even possible, if Channel 4 was owned by a larger for-profit media player?
It is impossible to say, but with so many difficult, and perhaps for viewers, even unpalatable news stories coming down the line if the scientists are right and they almost certainly are, it seems too great a risk to take.
Meanwhile, the drumbeats for privatisation of the channel are getting louder. An obviously well-informed lead to the business section of the Sunday Times was headlined: The Great British Sell Off as Bidders Eye Channel 4.
The paper says that former Channel 4 boss, Lord Michael Grade and ITV were among those said to be considering a purchase of the channel should, as seems likely, it is on the way to privatisation.
The potential involvement of Lord Grade, if he is involved, would look a little odd, given that he is also on a panel advising the Government on the future of public service broadcasting in this country.
New Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries told the Conservative Party conference that privatisation would help Channel 4 grow and be successful, without as usual providing any evidence that such a thing is either necessary or desirable.
The near existential threats to society from global warning surely argues for the cherishing of those media organisations prepared to tell uncomfortable truths rather than doing anything to destabilise them.
Sky News has of course its own daily programme on climate issues but not all media organisations have even come close to rising to the immense challenge – how to bring the right weight of coverage to bear on this most serious of issues without viewers, listeners and readers switching off?
It is likely that the right-of-centre national newspapers, which have prioritised opening the economy to keeping their readers safe from Covid, may also turn out to be the culprits on a “light” approach to climate change.
Despite nearly 41,000 testing positive, 263 deaths and 916 new hospital admissions in the latest daily total, many newspapers are still happy to still go along with the Government line that there is no need for a Plan B.
This is in spite of the fact that modest restrictions such as face masks in crowded places and evidence of vaccination for attending large events might prevent greater dislocations to come.
By any standards, the UN figures that greenhouse gas emissions are, on average, continuing to rise was an important story.
As The Times reported on its front page, the last time that the earth had similar concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere was three to five million years ago when the temperature was two or three degrees higher than it is now with sea levels 10 to 20 metres higher.
And the COP26 leaders- those who actually turn up- are trying to restrict the temperature rise to 1.5 Celsius.
It took a while to find the coverage of the UN story in the Daily Mail. It was there all right, all three paragraphs of it at the bottom of page 22 beneath Johnson claiming, bizarrely that recycling doesn’t work.
But the Mail put matters right today with a page lead devoted to the UN warnings that the world was staring climate catastrophe in the face unless there was COP26 action
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However, the Prime Minister admitted to a children’s press conference, more accurately, that it was touch and go whether the Glasgow talks would succeed.
The Sun did not cover the UN figures and instead emphasised the “touch and go” line and the confirmation that Vladimir Putin of Russia would not be attending.
However, The Sun is also running a green week complete with tips on how to reduce CO2 emissions in the home and garden and asking readers to make at least one lifestyle change to slow climate change.
There will have to be a lot more of that in future, and not just for a week, but in perpetuity.
The challenge is too great to rely entirely on Channel 4 News, public or private, and the authentic voice of warning from the 95-year-old broadcaster Sir David Attenborough.
The entire media will have to take up the cause and not just until COP26 is over.