BBC drops plans for climate change special

The BBC has dropped plans for Planet Relief, a TV special on climate change, it emerged today.

In recent weeks BBC executives have been stating that it was not the corporation’s job to lead opinion on climate change.

But the BBC said the decision not to proceed with the Comic Relief-style day of programming was not related to the criticisms.

Ricky Gervais and Graham Norton were said to be among the celebrities who could be taking part in the proposed day of programmes tentatively scheduled for broadcast next year.

Last month, Newsnight editor Peter Barron said it was “not the corporation’s job to save the planet”.

Planning an entire day of programmes dedicated to highlighting environmental worries was going beyond the BBC’s remit, he said.

“If the BBC is thinking about campaigning on climate change, then that is wrong and not our job.

“People are understandably interested in this, but it is absolutely not the BBC’s job to save the planet.

“There are a lot of people who think that, but it must be stopped,” he said at the Edinburgh International Television Festival.

Head of TV News Peter Horrocks, writing in the BBC News website’s editors’ blog, also commented that it was not the BBC’s job to lead opinion on the subject.

A BBC spokesperson said Planet Relief had never been formally commissioned.

She said the BBC had decided to cut the special because audiences prefer factual output.

She said: “BBC1 aims to bring a mass audience to contemporary and relevant issues and this includes the topic of climate change.

“Our audiences tell us they are most receptive to documentary or factual style programming as a means of learning about the issues surrounding this subject, and as part of this learning we have made the decision not to proceed with the Planet Relief event.

“Instead we will focus our energies on a range of factual programmes on the important and complex subject of climate change.

“This decision was not made in light of the recent debate around impartiality.”

Other programmes in development about the green issue include a look at the effects of global warming on the world and what the world might be like in 2050.

There could also be a programme on the story of how scientists know about climate change and have researched the evidence for it.

In June, a report on impartiality, endorsed by the BBC Trust and management, concluded that the BBC should be wary of being hijacked by single-issue causes, after reviewing examples including the Make Poverty History campaign.

“Programmes that are in league with campaigns have no place on the BBC, because of the inherent loss of editorial control,” the report said.

The BBC’s coverage of Al Gore’s Live Earth concert in July averaged just 2.7 million viewers across five hours on BBC1, compared to an average of almost 9 million for the Diana memorial concert a week earlier.

Environmentalists criticised the decision as “cowardice”.

Activist and writer Mark Lynas told the BBC News website: “This decision shows a real poverty of understanding among senior BBC executives about the gravity of the situation we face.

“The only reason why this became an issue is that there is a small but vociferous group of climate ’sceptics’ lobbying against taking action, so the BBC is behaving like a coward and refusing to take a more consistent stance.”