Chris Packham and Sofia Pineda Ochoa at Content London yesterday
CONTENT LONDON: Award-winning broadcaster and conservationist Chris Packham is leading efforts to get the UK’s public service broadcasters to hold an urgent televised national emergency briefing about the climate crisis.
Packham was at Content London yesterday discussing the climate crisis fresh from delivering the opening speech at the UK’s first National Emergency Briefing last week.
The event saw a host of eminent scientists warn politicians, business and community leaders that the UK risks severe climate-related risks to its economy, public health, food systems and national security.
Packham now has UK broadcasters in his sights as he warns against pulling back from tackling the climate crisis, with an open letter urging the UK government and the country’s public broadcasters to air a televised national emergency briefing for the public about the climate crisis.
Addressed to UK prime minister Sir Kier Starmer and bosses at the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, 5, S4C and media regulator Ofcom, it is also asking them to run a comprehensive public engagement campaign, “so that everyone understands the profound risks this crisis poses to themselves and their families.”
“We’re presenting a letter to all the UK’s principal broadcasters basically saying you have a duty to tell audiences the truth. We’re recutting the scientists’ evidence from the National Emergency Briefing and making sure it lands on the desks of BBC leadership so they cannot ignore it,” said Packham.
“Broadcasters have a responsibility to help people start adapting rapidly to what’s coming. They must provide honest, science-based information instead of shying away from difficult truths.”
During the Content London session yesterday, moderated by C21’s Louise Bateman, Packham spoke alongside physician and filmmaker Sofia Pineda Ochoa about the urgent need for the media to stop amplifying mistruths pushed by fossil fuel lobbyists.
Packham and Pineda Ochoa recently collaborated on the hard-hitting documentary Greenwashed, which explores the urgent ecological challenges facing our planet.
“We’re being washed away in a tsunami of misinformation, and broadcasters need to stop amplifying the mistruths pushed by fossil fuel and Big Agriculture lobbyists,” said Packham.
Packham, who has won multiple awards for his environmental work and was awarded a CBE for services to nature conservation, has presented and produced many of the UK’s most influential nature programmes, including The Really Wild Show, Springwatch, Autumnwatch and Winterwatch for the BBC.
Packham discussed oil and activism in his 2023 Channel 4 documentary, Chris Packham: Is It Time to Break the Law?, which explored whether climate activists’ actions, including civil disobedience and potentially more radical measures, are justified.
He revealed he is turning to philanthropy to fund his next two documentaries, which look at animal welfare, due to a lack of broadcaster support.
“I’m negotiating to make two more films, and I’m seeking philanthropic support because no broadcasters are prepared to make them,” said Packham.
“If films like this need to be made independently and philanthropically because broadcasters won’t touch them, then that’s the way we have to go.
“Broadcasters are fearful of confronting the truth about climate breakdown, so independent, philanthropic funding is now the only way to tell these stories honestly.”
Issuing a rallying cry to Content London delegates, Packham said: “This is it. This is the brink. This is where we as a species make a difference. And whoever you are and however you feel, I cannot imagine that any one of you wants it on our species’ conscience that we destroy our one and only home.
“The only place that we know in the entire universe where there is complex life, and where people write symphonies and paint extraordinary landscapes, and where once there was The Ramones.
“Please, go to it, if you have the power to communicate the truth. This is the time, because in the United States, at the moment, the truth has been expunged, and we’re in deep, deep trouble as a result. Thank you.”
