The first episode of the Daily Climate Show aired yesterday, Wednesday 7th April, a new Sky News daily programme looking at the stories that are impacting our changing climate while addressing some of the potential solutions
Sky is a principal partner and media partner for the COP26 climate summit due to be hosted by the UK in Glasgow in November . The head of Sky News said: "there has never been a more urgent need to report accurately on the climate crisis".
The role of the news media is critical in influencing levels of public concern. For too long climate change change has not made the headlines. If you enter the search term ‘climate change’ into Google Trends, the term last peaked in popularity in 2019, dipping significantly in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic began.
The topic is covered sporadically in the media and the connections between more frequent extreme weather events, multilateral conferences, scientific models appear to be disconnected, complex, remote and partisan.
This program marks a big and welcome change, including short stories from around the globe that visually highlight the extreme changes in the climate and the solutions that are urgently needed to halt carbon emissions.
The 15-minute program hosted by Anna Jones includes live data on the Earth’s temperature rise; a running total of global C02 emissions and the split of energy use in the UK between fossil fuels, nuclear and renewables.
The programme will help viewers understand the immediacy of the climate crisis showing how integral data is in illustrating our impact on the climate. Just as we have learnt about R rate throughout the pandemic, we will now have a way to track how collective action can instigate change.
Its main feature focused on opposition to rare earth mining in Greenland. These elements, nicknamed “industrial gold”, are already considered geo-politically sensitive with the largest deposits of rare earth mineral being in China and Vietnam. They are used in electronic devices and even bank notes, but mining and extracting is particularly polluting. Yet, they are key for the future of green technologies as they are needed for the manufacture of magnets that sit within wind turbines and batteries in electric vehicles.
Other features included an Extinction Rebellion protest at Barclays Bank, Polestars “moonshot goal” to create a climate neutral car by 2050 and a piece on Gjenge Makers, a Kenyan plastic recycler and re-manufacturer.
Having climate change as a central focus in the mainstream media will increase carbon literacy. It will deepen the collective understanding on climate change, and remind society how through our global supply chains, we all play a part in halting our impact on the earth. With increased knowledge, there will be greater confidence to make decisions on how to take action on climate change and a better understanding of the difficult trade-offs that we may need to take.
Stories on businesses taking action to mitigate climate change are likely to be a key focus in future episodes. Features scrutinising climate action will also be are also welcomed, helping to combat greenwashing.
At Business West we are committed to addressing climate change and we have set a target to become Net Zero by 2030 through a range of carbon reduction and nature led programmes. We are working with innovative businesses like Spherics to develop carbon foot printing tools, and are working to develop new services like ExportAR to reduce the need to transport goods to trade shows.
We also work with partners to develop tools for SMEs to begin their journey to Net Zero such as like Bristol Green Capital Partnership and International Chamber of Commerce. Our Trading to Net Zero hub showcases South West businesses who are developing products and services that are helping to address climate change while signposting to available resources.
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