Climate change is the single biggest issue humanity faces. So why are contrasting opinions about this objective issue treated equally?
Climate Change: An Indisputable Crisis
When will mainstream broadcasting outlets treat urgent action against climate change as a non-negotiable issue? A while yet, if this election’s last head-to-head debate between Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak is anything to go by. Despite it being an existential risk to humanity, the BBC decided that climate change wasn’t worth bringing up once. Instead, issues like tax cuts, immigration and trans issues dominated the debate. (There have recently been voices decrying (understandably) the provocative airtime given to the latter.)
Yes, these issues are important in their own right. But they are of a very different nature to climate change. Left unchecked, the latter will cause entire countries to disappear, make others uninhabitable and create an unprecedented refugee crisis. While lowering taxes and immigration is a political choice that may or may not have benefits depending on other political choices, not dealing with climate change means guaranteed catastrophe. Yet politicians – bar the Greens – seem content to avoid talking about it. Climate change, it seems, is simply one issue amongst many, as its omission in the BBC debate goes to show.
Legitimating Illegitimate Viewpoints
The BBC’s failure to bring up climate change during the debate is an egregious error. Yet other established broadcasting outlets are hardly guilt-free. During this election campaign, they have asked conspicuously few questions about the lack of airtime climate change gets. Yes, some articles have been written on the topic. But there has been no sustained enquiry as to why the main parties are (a) so unwilling to broach the topic and (b) so willing to sacrifice financial pledges designed to tackle the climate crisis.
Now, the reason behind their evasiveness is obvious. Labour, not without reason, sees the cost of living crisis as the top issue for voters. Meanwhile, the Conservatives are content to shore up their core base, to whom policies concerning tax cuts would appeal over those concerning climate change. Political parties eschewing reason to gain votes is no surprise. Indeed, it’s to be expected. That’s why it’s crucial that established broadcasting outlets such as the BBC – which still have the biggest public reach – keep framing pressing issues with the urgency they deserve.
Alas, climate change isn’t urgent enough an issue for these outlets, apparently. Climate scientists can, with the backing of hard scientific facts, warn about the consequences of not meeting the Paris climate targets all they want. Broadcasting outlets will continue to give airtime to suspect, non-scientific discourse perpetuated by political parties, business leaders and so on. Worse, they’ll present their opinions as equally valid as those of climate scientists. To put a long story short, the biggest failure of these outlets is creating the impression that it’s legitimate to subject climate change (an objective issue) to highly subjective opinions.
To be fair to these outlets, current affairs are, by their nature, ever-changing. There are always so many new stories to cover from as many different angles as possible. Keeping one thing in the spotlight from one perspective would be both difficult and undesirable, especially when they’re constantly accused of bias. (The BBC is especially prone to such accusations.) Yet politicians routinely parrot the tired party line and perpetuate similar half-truths about climate change. We’ve seen why they do it. And it’s all the more reason for broadcasting outlets to step up and challenge them on it. Unfortunately, the opposite is true.
For example, much was made about Rishi Sunak’s decision to row back on the previous Conservative government’s pledge to ban the sale of new diesel and petrol cars by 2030. Environmental campaigners and climate scientists were rightly infuriated. Yet these perspectives were contrasted with those Conservatives arguing for the so-called logic behind that decision: that we can’t afford it without raising consumer costs. The debate never focused on the main issue at hand: that fossil fuels need to stay in the ground, which means that banning new diesel and petrol cars by 2030 is the bare minimum. Instead, broadcasting outlets let the government’s viewpoint (backed up by cynical politicking) appear to be as legitimate as those of climate scientists (backed up by hard scientific evidence). It’s a perfect way to make climate change appear to be merely one issue amongst many.
A Chance for Redemption: Upholding Objectivity against Subjective Claims
Let’s be clear: any dilly-dallying in dealing with climate change equals disaster. At present, we’re facing over 1.5C warming, which will bring, amongst other catastrophes, greater flooding, more wildfires and loss of biodiversity. No government policy of the major polluter nations is enough to reach the Paris climate targets.
We’ve seen why certain politicians are willing to dilly-dally on the issue for political reasons. Here we come full circle. The established broadcasting outlets (1) have the greatest public reach and (2) are there to serve the public’s interests by holding those in power to account. They should therefore be prime candidates for injecting an objective spirit into these political proceedings. After all, they have the power to establish very powerful narratives. For example, it was their failure to constantly challenge Osbourne and Cameron’s claim that Labour was responsible for the 2008 financial crisis that helped legitimise austerity Britain. And it was the airtime that they gave to Farage that helped make Brexit possible.
Now, given the existential nature of climate change, established broadcasting outlets have a chance to redeem themselves for past failures. Over the long term they can highlight the indisputable need to tackle climate change head on. To those politicians who seem reluctant to do so they can pose tough questions. To go back to tax cuts, immigration and trans issues, they can emphasise that for such policies to have any meaning at all, we need to have an inhabitable planet. Will they do so? History suggests that there’s little reason for hope. But when confronted by an existential catastrophe, hope is all we can cling on to.