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Air time given to climate sceptics criticised

October 18, 2013

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has published its fifth report on global warming, concluding it is 95% certain that climate change is human-induced. However, it will not release its detailed analysis of transport’s contribution to climate change until Working Group III’s report on mitigation of climate change is published, possibly in April 2014. The IPCC findings, published last month, were widely reported, but one of the world’s leading broadcasters, the BBC, has been criticised for giving ‘false balance’ to climate sceptics in its coverage of the report.

A former British foreign ministry official said the BBC had ‘betrayed its editorial professionalism’ by giving too much air time to people whose opinions had not been as robustly tested as those of the IPCC’s scientists.

A British geneticist who has investigated the BBC’s approach to science was also critical, accusing it of ‘false balance’. Steve Jones said: ‘Balance in science is not the same as balance in politics where politicians can have a voice, however barmy their ideas are.’

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