Source: BBC Radio 4: Today Programme
URL: N/A
Date: 16/07/2014
Event: Roger Harrabin reports on GWPF structural change announced in May 2014
Attribution: BBC Radio 4
People:
Justin Webb: Lord Lawson's think tank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, will relaunch in September. The Charity Commission has forced it to divide into an educational arm, which will have charitable status, and a separately-funded political arm supplying news and comment. The change follows complaints that the main purpose of the organisation was political, not charitable. Our Environment Analyst Roger Harrabin reports.
Roger Harrabin: In September 2009, the Global Warming Policy Foundation was registered as a charity. It made an immediate impact - between November 2009 and February 2010, its leaders - the former Chancellor Nigel Lawson and his colleague, a social scientist, Benny Peiser - were quoted more than 80 times in newspapers, according to James Painter at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.
James Painter: They do essentially have quite a simple message about "We don't know enough about climate science, there's lots of uncertainties so we shouldn't take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or reduce our dependence on fossil fuels."
Roger Harrabin: The GWPF website includes GWPF TV, featuring interviews with climate change doubters [some music and a few seconds of audio footage from an interview.] And even some mainstream climate scientists, like Piers Forster from Leeds University, acknowledge that the group has usefully provoked his colleagues to address badly-understood issues, like the apparent pause in global warming.
Piers Forster: Climate sceptics, such as the GWPF, have really focussed our attention to understand part of the climate problem we had poor understanding of. And I think this is a good thing and it will ultimately make our climate science more robust.
Roger Harrabin: The GWPF has also won praise for some of its policy analysis, highlighting the hidden costs of clean energy, for instance. But scientists like Piers Forster say its messages are often politicised and derisive.
Piers Forster: They try and use uncertainty in climate science to destabilise the policy debate. They also criticise our scientific integrity, and that's why myself and my colleagues do not really like that approach to the debate.
Roger Harrabin: Take this crop of headlines from one of the GWPF's frequent email newsletters.
Woman's voice: "Green Energy Policies Face Collapse." "The Crisis of Climate Catastrophism." "Green Energy in Crisis." "Climate Craziness Cools." "Green Europe Faces Bankruptcy."
Roger Harrabin: A year ago, Bob Ward, a science communicator from Lord Stern's climate change team at the LSE, contacted the Charity Commission, accusing the GWPF of being a politically motivated group, spreading often misleading information on climate science. The Commission told BBC News that it raised the complaints with GWPF and instructed the group to make a clear separation between its opinions and the educational content it produces. The GWPF's Director Benny Peiser says the Commission didn't discuss Mr. Ward's allegations with them. He denies the group's main purpose is political, but he says the structural change imposed on them will strengthen their ability to promote debate over the costs of combatting climate change.
Benny Peiser: We accepted the advice given by the Charity Commission - and they had been inundated by green campaigners - and we looked at other organisations like Greenpeace and Amnesty International, accepted that that was a good structure. There will be an educational charity, which will publish our reports, and there will be a campaigning organisation that will be able to do even better.
Roger Harrabin: Have you been campaigning, so far?
Benny Peiser: No, we haven't.
Roger Harrabin: And MPs say that the GWPF's already been hugely influential, especially within the Conservative Party. But another row lies ahead. The Global Warming Policy Foundation says it'll make a clear separation of its activities by calling its campaigning wing the Global Warming Policy Forum - same initials. Already, Mr. Ward's preparing another complaint.