Source: BBC Radio 4: Feedback
URL: N/A
Date: 18/08/2017
Event: "So was the BBC right to invite former Chancellor Nigel Lawson...", etc.
Credit: BBC Radio 4: Feedback
People:
Roger Bolton: In Feedback this week, another row about climate change and a controversial guest who got his facts wrong.
Nigel Lawson: ... during this past ten years, if anything, mean global temperature, average world temperature, has slightly declined.
Roger Bolton: So was the BBC right to invite former Chancellor Nigel Lawson onto the Today programme?
* * *
Roger Bolton: But we begin with climate change, an issue we discussed last week in our science special which, unusually for us, was recorded a couple of weeks before transmission. The day before it aired, the Today programme broadcast this interview...
Justin Webb: Lord Lawson is on the line - Conservative former Chancellor, of course, and Chair of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Lord Lawson, good morning.
Nigel Lawson: Good morning.
Roger Bolton: The blue touchpaper had been lit and the fireworks began, in our inbox.
Anthony Russell: Anthony Russell. I really cannot understand why a reputable news programme invites on an ex-politician with no scientific credentials whatsoever. I give up.
Roger Bolton: There's more criticism of that decision, in a minute. But first, I should say that the Lord Lawson interview on Today was a follow-up to an earlier one at 7:10 with the former US Vice President and filmmaker Al Gore, a passionate campaigner on climate change. He was promoting his film An Inconvenient Sequel. He argues that the economics of climate change are changing.
Al Gore: ... and they found they could reduce their electricity bills by going 100% renewable. And it's a side benefit - they're helping to save the future of humanity.
Roger Bolton: Then came the interview with Lord Lawson. And this was the first point presenter Justin Webb put to him.
Justin Webb: ... people like you, who have been saying the costs are too great, are now on the back foot, because the costs of doing what Al Gore wants us to do are fast reducing?
Roger Bolton: But the interview soon took a different turn, when Nigel Lawson referred to Al Gore talking "complete nonsense".
Justin Webb: Which bit of it was nonsense?
Nigel Lawson: For example, he said that there's been a growing - increase which is continuing in extreme weather events. There hasn't been. All the experts say there hasn't been. The IPCC - the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is the sort of voice of the consensus - concedes that there has been no increase in extreme weather events.
Peter Hughes: My name is Peter Hughes and I live near Canterbury in Kent. Justin Webb didn't robustly challenge Nigel Lawson, and so from this interview I rather inferred that some new and compelling scientific evidence, about which I had not heard, had overturned the global scientific consensus.
Nigel Lawson: The reputable scientists, reputable experts like Professor Pielke, and as I've said the IPCC, have confirmed that there has been no increase in extreme weather events.
Mary Vincent [?]: Mary Vincent [name partially inaudible] and I'm from Dylife in mid-Wales. It is completely irresponsible of the BBC to bring Nigel Lawson on and not have lined up a respected climate scientist who could have challenged him.
Nigel Lawson: ... if anything, mean global temperature, average world temperature, has slightly declined.
Roger Bolton: At 6:50 AM on the following day, Today revisited the subject, with the help of BBC Environment Analyst Roger Harrabin and Professor Peter Stott, who leads the Climate Monitoring and Attribution Team at the Met Office.
Peter Stott: ... this claim that we heard from Nigel Lawson that there's been cooling is simply not true. And the other claim that was not true was to say that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had not found evidence of changes in extreme weather - well, we can look at what they found and they say very clearly that we have seen changes in many extreme weather and climate events, since the -
John Humphrys: Such as?
Mary Vincent [?]: The BBC seems to have realised this mistake, but by then it is too late. It was also really unhelpful that Dr. Stott's interview was not broadcast in the same time slot as Nigel Lawson's, the previous day. When will the BBC realise that balance does not equate to broadcasting any and every view, however ill-informed or deliberately false?
Roger Bolton: And this week the Global Warming Policy Foundation, of which Nigel Lawson is Chair, conceded that the supposedly official figures he quoted on temperatures were - to use their word - "erroneous". As you would expect, we asked for an interview with the Editor of Today, Sarah Sands. Neither she nor anyone else from the programme accepted that invitation. We were, however, given this statement.
Female voice: The BBC acknowledges the weight of scientific consensus on climate change, and this underpins our reporting of the subject. We should always seek to make this clear. This does not mean, however, that we should never interview someone who opposes this consensus. And there are times when it's editorially appropriate to hear from a dissenting voice. On this occasion, we heard extensively from those who speak for the consensus, as well as from Lord Lawson, whose minority view on the politics and the economics of the subject has the support of the President of the United States. This split segment led on an interview with Al Gore at 07:10, which ran for twice as long as Lord Lawson's, who was invited to talk about the economics of subsidising green energy, later in the programme. Given how intensely Lord Lawson's claims are disputed, the next day we examined them in further detail and also interviewed the Met Office's Dr. Peter Stott, who's been involved in reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to give a scientific response to them.
Roger Bolton: Listener Matt Watkinson was one of the many listeners who contacted us after hearing the Today programme. Did he think there were any circumstances in which it would be right for Lord Lawson to be interviewed, as, in this instance, he was specifically asked to comment on the economic implications of tackling climate change?
Matt Watkinson: I thought that's fine, but Lord Lawson immediately veered off and started rubbishing climate change, rather than talking about the economic implications of it.
Roger Bolton: The BBC points out that those inaccurate statements were fact-checked on the Today programme the following day by the BBC's Environment Analyst Roger Harrabin. Does that go some way to solving the problem?
Matt Watkinson: It goes some way to solving the problem, but I think the damage had already been done. I think when Justin Webb conducted that interview, perhaps it would have been better to have one of the BBC's specialist reporters - the presenter could turn to Tom Feilden, to Roger Harrabin, and say "Is that right, Tom?" We have it corrected there and then. The presenters on Today do a super job, but that job can always be improved on.
Roger Bolton: For many listeners like Matt the problem was compounded by the fact that they believe the BBC has form in this area. A complaint was upheld by the BBC's Editorial Complaints Unit against the Today programme in 2014, when it invited Lord Lawson onto the programme without making it clear that he represented a particular viewpoint, and balanced the former Chancellor - who is not an expert scientist - with someone who was, as if their views carried equal weight. And it's not just news programmes which struggle. The following year, Quentin Letts' programme What's the Point of the Met Office was deemed to be in serious breach of editorial guidelines in the way it dealt with climate change. And all this was after the BBC had asked Professor Steve Jones in 2011 to look into the matter of scientific accuracy and impartiality in its coverage of science. He warned of what he called a "false balance", where one view is balanced by another, even where the scientific consensus is overwhelming. On Thursday I asked Professor Jones if he was surprised that this issue had arisen again on the Today programme.
Steve Jones: I am rather surprised that they've gone back to Lord Lawson and his Global Warming Policy Foundation who, in most people's views, are utterly discredited to comment on this.
Roger Bolton: So you believe there isn't a controversy - we're talking here about established fact. There is global warming - a significant contribution to that is manmade activity.
Steve Jones: Um, well, I think you have to careful in using the word "controversy". If there's no controversy in a science, then it's not a science. I mean, science is always open to changing its mind. But the fact that the interviewer simply swallowed the statement that there had been a decrease in temperature since 2007 is just staggering to me. That somebody should interview about climate change and accept that admitted falsehood now, without questioning it, I find it amazing.
Roger Bolton: Well, the BBC would say that he was essentially invited on the programme not to talk about climate change itself but about the policies, the economic implications of tackling climate change, so was it legitimate to ask him to be interviewed about those issues?
Steve Jones: There's nothing illegitimate about that at all. But what happens and what happened has happened again and again, with the question of global warming and particularly perhaps with Lord Lawson, is that he's invited on to make economic and political comments - and that's just fine. But then he goes on and he makes factual claims which are not correct. I came up with the phrase "false balance", which is I think what we see here. I would be happy if the BBC could find a climate scientist who denies the fact of global warming - there are one or two across the world - if you can find the dissenting voice, do it. And the economics, especially, is a different issue, as is the politics, and Lord Lawson is highly qualified to talk about that. But when it comes to talking about the science, then I don't think he's worth listening to.
Roger Bolton: Our thanks to Professor Steve Jones, listener Matt Watkinson and to all of you who got in touch.