The BBC has been reprimanded for a “serious” breach of rules on impartiality and accuracy over a Radio 4 show that featured climate sceptics mocking the science behind global warming.
The episode of What’s the Point of..., presented by Daily Mail columnist Quentin Letts, focused on the Met Office, which backs the opinion of the majority of the world’s scientists that climate change is being caused by human activity.
It included a number of statements suggesting that the Met’s stance was controversial, referred to the “climate change theory” and called it a “fiction”.
The BBC Trust said the show had failed to provide a balanced view of the debate around climate change, and had featured interviews with well known climate sceptics without adequately explaining that their views were not representative.
Guests included Peter Lilley MP, Graham Stringer MP, forecaster Piers Corbyn and Andy Silvester from the TaxPayers’ Alliance, all of whom have questioned the widely accepted science behind climate change.
The Met’s response was confined to a short clip from the organisation’s head of communications, Helen Chivers, which did not address the show’s critique of climate change research.
The BBC Trust report said the programme had “failed to make clear that the Met Office’s underlying views on climate change science were supported by the majority of scientists” and that “audiences were not given sufficient information about prevailing scientific opinion to allow them to assess the position of the Met Office and the Met Office position on these criticisms was not adequately included in the programme”.
A section of the report contributed by the BBC executive said that the mistakes were in part due to a heavy workload and inexperienced production staff. A decision at a meeting early on in the commissioning process not to discuss climate change was not recorded properly and later ignored, it added.
The BBC had previously acknowledged the failings and issued an apology in October.
Radio 4 spokesperson said: “Radio 4 referred this programme to the trust given its shortcomings and we note that the trustees agree that this episode broke the editorial guidelines. We have already taken steps internally to avoid similar mistakes happening again and we apologise for the editorial failings in this programme.”
The trust said the show should not be broadcast again and, due to the seriousness of the breach, should not be made available online.
