London, 30 October: Lord Lawson, the chairman of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has written to Lord Patten, the Chairman of the BBC Trust, to personally investigate a complaint by Peter Lilley, MP regarding the BBC’s systematic bias in its approach to climate change.
Peter Lilley’s complaint, published today by the GWPF, refers to a recent Newsnight programme in which he participated, having just published a substantial GWPF report on the Stern Review of the Economics of Climate Change.
In his complaint, Lilley reveals the ongoing and systematic bias in the BBC’s handling of climate change evidence.
“The BBC cannot credibly suppress the views of those who think the IPCC too alarmist while promoting those who think it too cautious,” Lilley writes in his letter. By doing so, the BBC lays itself open to the charge of inconsistency and prejudice.
In light of yet another manifest case of one-sided climate reporting, Lord Lawson is calling on the BBC Trust to address the wider problem, “namely the case for the BBC to migrate from its present one-sided reportage and propaganda of the conventional wisdom on climate change and climate change policies to a more balanced and objective coverage of this complex and important range of issues.”