Media Storm - Heatwaves and Net Zero: Who sets the climate agenda?

Episode Date: September 10, 2026

Care about independent and ethical news (and Mathilda’s baby)? Support Media Storm on⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! This month, the UN released a new report about climate change: the planet is soon poised to breach the safe temperature limit, reaching at least 1.8C under even the most optimistic future. The report is clear: “There are no good outcomes above 1.5C”. Every fraction of a degree will cost lives, destroy livelihoods, deepen inequality and push ecosystems closer to irreversible damage. Pretty huge news right? Not according to the mainstream media, who dedicated a mere two articles to this report.  This summer, rolling heatwaves hit the northern hemisphere with an intensity not ever seen before. Droughts have ruined Europe’s harvests. A collapsing glacier led to a flash flood that swept away over a thousand people in Nepal and Tibet. A ‘godzilla’ El Niño is brewing in the Pacific that scientists say will be the strongest in 1000 years. And the media? They’re dedicating time to callers who think trees spontaneously combust and telling the public to just ‘embrace a Mediterranean lifestyle’. (By the way, Sunday Telegraph editor, that Mediterranean lifestyle you speak of now includes wildfires, displacement and death).  Scientists have repeatedly proved that the best hope for humanity is to stick to a goal of net zero emissions by 2050 - cutting down major pollution sources like oil and gas, and using natural absorbers to help take the remaining gases out of the air.  In 2019 Theresa May signed the UK’s Net Zero target into law. “Standing by is not an option,” she said. The landmark pledge reflected a rare cross-party consensus. But last year, the UK’s right-wing parties began openly questioning long-settled climate science. The Tories u-turned on their pledge, and Net Zero became increasingly politically contentious. Negative articles and editorials about net zero skyrocketed. Nearly 100 UK newspaper editorials opposed climate action in 2025. There were more than two editorials a week attacking Ed Miliband, the then Labour energy secretary. It marked the first time that editorials opposing climate action overtook those supporting it. Where did they come from? Who is funding fossil fuel interests? Why has climate denial taken root in the right-wing? And what can we do when faced with climate doom?  To help us answer those questions and shine a light on the fossil fuel interests that run our news cycle, we’re joined by DeSmog investigative journalist Sam Bright and climate journalist and writer Diyora Shadijanova.  Read DeSmog’s investigation into The Telegraph’s record of climate falsehoods here. Join Diyora’s climate book club here. This episode is hosted and produced by Mathilda Mallinson (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@mathildamall⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠) and Helena Wadia (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@helenawadia⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠)  The music is by⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @soundofsamfire⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow us⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠@mediastormpod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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This episode is brought to you in partnership with Open Britain, a grassroots campaign group making democracy work for everyone, not just the rich and powerful. So, we're in September now, and I'm recording this without having to mute myself every time you speak, Matilda, and blast myself in the face with my fan, because, I mean, I guess the heat waves of the summer have pretty much subsided, right? I guess so. When we were recording over the last few months, because I've had to have the windows shut to block out the outside sound, I was literally, like, sitting on ice packs to try and keep myself cool. It's been intense. I mean, how did you cope with the heat waves?

I have to be honest. It was especially difficult because... I'm pregnant. Yes! The official Media Storm podcast pregnancy announcement. This is the Media Storm baby. Yes. First name, media.

Second name Storm. First name, Storm. I could do that. Yeah. Second name, balance it. Also, I think that we... should probably just be clear that it's not us having the baby together, even though I'm very much involving myself within this. It's a real shame because when we did our original

cover shoot for Media Storm, we took these photos sitting on the ground where I was like in her and his lap and her arms are around me. It really looked like our like birthing photo. Oh my God, I'd forgotten about that photo. I might just send that out as the birth announcement. Yes, please post that. But yes, I have. have been pregnant now for six months, which is pretty wild. I was actually secretly pregnant when we recorded our maternity services episode. I'm so sorry. It was genuinely like quite upsetting. I blacked it out. I can't remember anything from that episode. Yeah, what else do you need to know? Statutity maternity pay is obviously laughable. Meanwhile, paternity leave is two

weeks. So by the way, listeners, lovely listeners, the only way that I am able to not totally give up my career to have a child is thank you to our Patreon people. Don't worry, the baby is conveniently timed for Christmas so you won't even miss me. I'm not going to be

gone that long. I know. For real, it is really exciting. I'm actually very excited at like the new lived experience episodes that this might bring up, you know? But yes, honestly we could not do this without our patron subscribers. And please, if you are a listener and not yet a subscriber, please consider

subscribing. Yes, do. Anyway, back to the heat waves and being pregnant in the heat waves. Oh my God. Guys, I cried on the tube. It was so hard. And you know what? I was actually going to come here and say that in the six months I've been pregnant, not a single man has stood up for me on the tube, but on my way home today, this like lovely man. stood up and just really restored my faith in mankind. But genuinely, until now, only women have stood up. And the problem is, right, everyone's just on their phone. So no one looks up to see if anyone needs a seat. And I think that if you were in the priority seat, I should probably credit this rule to my friend, Tash. If you were sitting in the priority seat on a tube, you were not

allowed to be on your phone. Because if you turn your phone off and look up, you might see a pregnant woman crying silently and begging for someone to see her. That is what the heat wave did to me. What if I told you though that this was probably the coldest summer of the rest of your life? Wait, what? Amir, five days ago, the UN released a new report about climate change. In 2015, countries met in Paris and agreed to limit global warming to no more than 2 degrees C, setting 1.5 degrees C as the threshold below which we could avoid the worst effects of climate breakdown. Now, the recent report says the planet is soon poised to breach the safe temperature limit and that global heating will reach at least 1.8 degrees C under even the most optimistic future.

They say there are no good outcomes above 1.5 degrees C. Every fraction of a degree will cost lives, destroy livelihoods. deepen inequality and push ecosystems closer to irreversible damage. Oh my God, stop. I'm scared. Why am I having a child? Get back in the ovary. Also, this seems like huge news.

Why have I not seen this in the news? Matilda, we've been doing Media Storm long enough to know that accurate and factual news about climate change is still struggling to find its place in the mainstream media. Oh, yeah. And I'm actually really excited on this episode to further expose the really quite sinister and calculated reasons as to why it's struggling to find its place. But you're right. This UN report got minimal pickup in the mainstream press. There was one Guardian article, one New York Times article, and that's it.

I think Greta Thunberg summarized it well when she said, I don't think we understand how terrifying this news is, but the one thing more terrifying than this is the fact that it is not groundbreaking news everywhere in the world and not pushing us all out on the streets. In this report, scientists say the world could get back to 1.5 degrees through deep, rapid emissions cuts and removing carbon from the atmosphere. So they lay out practical solutions on how to do this.

But these solutions are nowhere to be found in the press coverage. Yikes. Actually, if I just think about the type of coverage I've seen of this summer's heat waves, some of it has been downright ridiculous. So ridiculous. Like this from the editor of the Sunday Telegraph,

Alistair Heath, headline, Britain can't stop climate change. Let's just embrace a Mediterranean lifestyle. This article signals a progression in the right-wing press from those who want to prevent the move away from fossil fuels. First, spend years denying the problem, like those at the Telegraph have done, and then accept the problem, but just claim it's too late to act, and it's not a big deal if we all just

get some aircon and embrace it. There will be plenty of losers, says Heath, but it's pointless seeking to prevent the inevitable. Many in Britain would enjoy the warmer climate. So I see the argument has shifted from science denial to nihilism. Smatternism. Smatternobes. with overtones of elitism, there will be plenty of losers. Well, I wonder who those losers will be. Yeah, he literally may as well be saying, well, if you're poor, you're fucked, but the Uber rich may be able to build bunkers and save themselves from the end of the world. But something that these upper-class editors haven't quite grasped yet is that the climate crisis does not discriminate. Yes, the poorest countries are paying the biggest price for climate change, and we'll get on to

why later in the episode. But there have been wildfires and flooding. across Europe, and just last year, a wildfire in LA destroyed thousands of multi-million pound mansions, like, you are not exempt. And the telegraph saying, embrace the Mediterranean lifestyle, is also so flawed in another way, because just a couple of months ago, at the time of writing that article, there were devastating European wildfires which tore through France, Spain and Portugal, and forced more than 300,000 people to evacuate their homes. So I've got news for you, Mr. Heath. If you want to embrace the Mediterranean lifestyle, you're embracing wildfires, you're embracing 40-degree summers, you're embracing loss of living

spaces and possibly death. Actually, not just possibly death, actual death. Like, I think one of the things I've been truly shocked by in media coverage terms is the lack of noise about the death toll from the summer heat waves. More than 2,700 people are thought to have died from heat-related causes during the May and June heat waves in England and Wales. Just take a moment to sit with that, 2,700 people dying from heat-related causes right here in the UK. The majority of heat wave coverage I remember from the last few months is like reporters at swimming pools, people eating ice cream, busy beaches, not climate change-fueled heat that is claiming lives.

Mm-hmm. Claiming lives, shutting down schools, causing havoc at hospitals, shutting down transport. I mean, the list just goes on and on. Yet while all of that was happening, the UK media was doing this. Forests, trees, grass,

there's not spontaneous combust because it's hot, okay? I actually proved it because the wives have to be. I got some leaves, I've got some grass and I put it in the oven at 220 degrees for an hour. It did not burst into flames. Loll! That was a caller into the Ben Kentish show on LBC in late July. So can we just dispel the myth that in 40 degree heat that a tree will just spontaneously combust. If you get in, put some stuff in the oven at 220 degrees, it will not burst in the flame.

With all due respect, I'm not going to get home at 2 a.m. and start putting leaves in my oven. Well, don't take my word for it. I'm just telling you, scientific facts. I know this is pretty funny, like a man took leaves and twigs and shoved them in his oven, but it really just does show a fundamental misunderstanding of the impacts of climate heating. As the presenter Ben Kentish tries to explain later on in the call, when it's very dry, as it has been all summer, wildfires are more likely to spread if someone drops a cigarette or likes a barbecue. Yet this caller is determined. to dispel the myth that a tree will spontaneously combust.

Like, yes, it's funny, but it really demonstrates a right-wing, exaggerated straw man narrative that we're all overreacting, trees aren't setting a light, and who cares if it's just a little bit hotter? So let me get this straight. This summer, rolling heat waves hit the northern hemisphere with an intensity not ever seen before. droughts have ruined Europe's harvest, a collapsing glacier led to a flash flood that swept away over a thousand people in Nepal and Tibet. And as we speak, a Godzilla El Nino is brewing in the Pacific that scientists say will be the strongest in a thousand years, and the media is debating whether a tree spontaneously combusts. I mean, pretty much. Okay, cool.

Scientists have repeatedly told us and repeatedly proved that the best hope for humanity is to stick to a goal of net zero emissions by 2050. Net zero means the amount of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide the UK adds to the atmosphere is no longer more than what they take out. So this means stopping or cutting down major pollution sources like burning coal, oil and gas, and using natural absorbers like forests and oceans to help take the remaining gases out of the air. In 2019, Theresa May signed the UK's net zero target into law. Standing by is not an option, she said.

The landmark pledge reflected a rare cross-party consensus. But net zero has become an increasingly politically contentious topic. Last year, the UK's two main right-wing opposition parties began openly questioning long-settled climate science. Even up to 2024's general election, every party other than Reform UK campaigned on a commitment to reach Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Yet in 2025, the Conservative leadership abandoned that target, and Reform made it a key battleground after immigration for the next general election. And the media, they followed suit.

Negative articles and editorials about Net Zero skyrocketed, nearly 100 UK newspaper editorials opposed climate action in 2025. There were 112 editorials, which is more than two a week, that included attacks on Ed Miliband, the then-Labor Energy Secretary. It marked the first time that editorials opposing climate action overtook those supporting it. How has net zero become an easy target on which all our ills can be blamed? Who is funding fossil fuel interests?

has climate denial taken root in the right wing. And what can we do when faced with climate doom? A new morning this week from the United Nations. Officials say the world is close to crossing the global warming temperature threshold sooner than expected. Where is the evidence that net zero is going to stop it? There isn't any. We should enjoy the hot weather. Have a glass of English sparkling wine. Edmielaband, who is basically a green communist. And if it's a bit warm, then be doom and gloom about it. Welcome to Media Storm, the news podcast that starts with the people who are normally asked last. I'm Helena Wadia. And I'm Matilda Malinson.

This week's Media Storm. Heatwaves. A summer of extreme lies. Welcome to the Media Storm studio. Our first guest is a journalist, author and deputy editor of the climate investigations platform, D. Smog. He was previously an investigative journalist at the BBC and has written for the New York Times, The Guardian, The Mirror and others. Welcome to the studio, Sam Bright. Our second guest is a British Uzbek writer-journalist and political comm specialist based in South London. She writes a monthly book column for hyphen alongside contributions to numerous other publications, including The Guardian and the Independent.

She co-founded Hot House Book Club, a book club focused on climate change with over 300 members and previously served as senior editor at the lead, editor at ACT Climate Labs and senior editor at Galdem magazine. Welcome back Diora Shadda Genova. Thanks so much for having me back. I'm glad I didn't scare you off last time. To have a shot at staying within 1.5 degrees C global warming, we can't have any new oil or gas fields. It's irresponsible and short-sighted to be funding new fossil fuels when we need to be getting to net zero. This was a 22 post by the now Secretary of State for Energy security and net zero, Miata Fambula. Yet fast forward four years later, and sources say she is poised to approve extraction at a controversial new gas field in the North Sea this month, the jackdaw field off the coast

of Aberdeen. Separately, the Rosebank oil field, also off the coast of Aberdeen, had been approved for drilling under the previous Conservative government. A legal challenge was brought in 2024, which argued that consent was given without fully considering the impact of burning the fossil fuels which would be produced. The previous decisions were ruled unlawful and sent back to the regulator to be taken again. Officials have not yet finished their analysis of Rosebank's environmental impact, but some close to the process believe they will soon decide whether the project should be approved.

The PR line from fossil fuel companies, lines that get into the media, and we'll talk about that a little later, is that drilling in the North Sea will bring down bills, create energy security and new jobs. Deora, why is this not entirely accurate? So there's quite a bit of misinformation floating around North Sea oil and gas drilling, and I kind of want to address it one by one. So on bills, it's often been suggested that more drilling will reduce household bills, but in the UK, it's private companies that extract, process and sell oil and gas on international markets. And it is the international markets that set the price. So we, as UK consumers, wouldn't get any discount advantage. So to bring down these market prices, you'd have to inject

a really large volume of oil and gas into the energy system. And there's just nowhere near enough oil and gas in the North Sea to do that. On energy security, as we've seen in recent years, it's our reliance on fossil fuels that makes us deeply insecure. Whether it was Russia's invasion on Ukraine or the war in Iran, oil shocks have wrecked the global economy and have sent prices of everyday commodities spiraling up. And even the government's own climate advisors have forecast that achieving net zero by 2050 will cost less than a single oil shock and bring health and economic benefits while insulating the country against future costs.

And in terms of jobs, the industry body offshore energies UK has said that Rosebank and Jack Door would support a peak of more than 3,500 jobs during the construction phase, and also the fields would support around 900 jobs throughout their lifespans. But then there are also reports of Adjura's own assessments around the Jackdor gas field, indicating that there'd only be 27 permanent jobs, which is obviously very little. But overall, the picture is that North Sea jobs have been in decline for the past two decades, because 90% of the resources have actually been already extracted. So it's quite clear that we need to invest

more in green infrastructure, which is clearly where the future is headed. Also, I think it's worth pointing out how many new jobs could be created with sticking to net zero. Now, a lot of this false information or misleading information gets into the British press and overwhelmingly where we see that is in the right wing press. Here are some examples. In March this year, the Daily Mail's front page read, get drilling to stop bills soaring. Also in March, the telegraph led with reopening the North Sea would lower bills. Funny enough, also in March, Trump told the son that his advice to then UK Prime Minister Kirstama would be, open up the North Sea immediately, your energy prices are through the roof. So much irony

that we can't even get into it. The Daily Mail decided that eco-dogma is to blame for turning the country into a tinderbox, saying that happy-clappy rewilders were to blame for fires in Suffolk. The Mail on Sunday wrote, this long hot summer is not the apocalypse, it's a gloriously long holiday in France. Climate deniers seem to have a playbook, portray extreme weather as ordinary weather and then blame the media or the lefties for being alarmist. Sam, why is it that we see the right wing in particular constantly argue that climate risks are exaggerated? If we're talking about the political parties, particularly reform and equally the conservatives to a large extent, You know, they derive a not inconsiderable amount of their funding from fossil fuel interests.

You know, we've exposed the fact that the majority of reforms funding comes from those with interests in the fossil fuel industry. The Conservative Party has a long history actually of taking many millions of pounds from climate science deniers. I don't think it's conspiratorial to say that these parties are on the sides of major industries. and, you know, there's no bigger industry in the modern world than the oil and gas industry. As for the media, I mean, there's sort of a symbiosis between right-wing politicians and the right-wing press. You know, the sort of cultural whereby on the one hand, you've got these soy-eating lefty vegans who are believing clean energy projects. And then on the other hand, you've got the sort of truck driving, meat eating. full-bodied Brits, who want us to drill baby drill, or as Richard Tite said, drill,

Britain drill for more oil and gas. And it sort of creates an us versus them attitude, which allows them to say, if you believe us, if you believe our mates in reform and the conservatives, buy our newspapers. I also have an additional take on this. A lot of right-wing parties don't want to increase things like taxes. They want to decrease taxes. And a lot of The questions around this is about raising enough money to be able to invest into these big infrastructure projects. So it's kind of easier just not to do anything at all. If you say, oh, well, it doesn't exist and you're not really held accountable because you haven't promised to do anything. And I think if you're actually interested in solving the challenges posed

by the climate crisis, it's a very hard thing to sell to people to say, hey, this is going to be really expensive and you might have to pay for it as well. I agree. And I think there's a real contradiction here in the right wing position. And I've been thinking about this a lot recently because the quite sort of scientific technical words that are used to describe basically two points of view. One is mitigation. So let's try to stop the planet from warming. And the other is adaptation. So, you know, even if the climate warms, we need to do things to prepare ourselves to stay cool and stay alive fundamentally. And those two things are not necessarily opposed. But the right tends to advocate more heavily in terms of adaptation. So nothing that humans can do is going to be able to,

and certainly not the UK, can, you know, nothing we can do can meaningfully change the temperature. So we've got to prepare ourselves for a warming planet. But as you say, also, these are the same politicians that are proposing mass public spending cuts. So using what money are we going to be able to adapt to climate change. And I think the only sensible position, if you believe in cutting public spending as they do, is to actually try to mitigate and try to prevent the climate from warming in the first place. And they've just got their, as with a lot of things, they've just got their wires completely crossed. This is why we've seen so many articles in right wing papers about aircon rather than about actually solving global warming. One phrase I've heard recently is that some people,

are just lukewarmers. So this is a term used to describe people who essentially accept that humans cause climate change, but believe that the warming is actually quite mild and the negative impacts won't be severe enough to justify urgent or costly action. And that is a form of climate delay that we're seeing a lot in the press in terms of we need to think about issues around cost of living and therefore we need to slow down on the green. transition as though two are in opposition to each other when that is just blatantly not the case. But I feel like one of the things that allows the space for that doubt, for that denialism, for that delayism, is the media's love of a two-sided discussion. And it felt at one point,

like, we were past that with climate. You know, used to have, I don't know, in the 90s, climate deniers versus the climate scientists, that passed. And yet today, we increasingly see climate falling back into these two-camp discussion. We've just had the hottest summer. on record, which followed the wettest winter on record. Last week, the Environment Secretary Dame Angela Eagle told households in the UK to literally stock up on food to prepare for extreme weather. This is because the largest El Nino event is forming in the Pacific and could lead to food supply disruption. Yet even when the government gives these warnings, media headlines fall into both sidesism. Diora, why do you think so many aspects of the climate crisis are still

framed as debates in large sections of the mainstream media. A lot of these debates often form around government decisions or a government rowing back on its initial position. We've just had a change in government. But I'm hearing a weakening in the government's position on net zero. And it's specifically exciting cost of living pressures. So, you know, the energy secretary has indicated she won't stick to her predecessors, Edmilla Band's target of nearly eliminating fossil fuels from Britain's power supply by 2030 because doing so would push up household bills. She just wants to weaken that commitment ever so slightly.

But then there's also stuff around new cars that we sell by 2030, having to be electric. The target around that is also being loosened, potentially allowing half of all new vehicles sold by 2030 to still have petrol engines, as opposed to the 20% that was the original target from a previous government. So this sort of loosening of these targets, what that forces is for the government to reorient its whole communications around what they're doing. And then the media is then scrutinising the government's decisions and it's having these debates.

And that's something that I'm genuinely really concerned about that we're going to see some a weakening of the position here. And while there is also more coverage that, plays into this both sides kind of debate style. There's also the fact that global climate coverage is down 38% from its 2021 peak. In the US, CBS News, which was bought by a Trump ally and tech billionaire David Ellison in August last year, laid off most of its climate team the same year. The Washington Post, owned by tech billionaire Jeff Bezos, gutted its own climate desk. In the introduction to this episode, Matilda and I dissected an article by the editor of the Sunday Telegraph, which was titled,

Britain can't stop climate change, let's just embrace a Mediterranean lifestyle, and included the line, there will be plenty of losers, but it's pointless seeking to prevent the inevitable. Many in Britain would enjoy the warmer climate. Sam, there seems to be in a lot of these op-eds in right-wing papers, an indifference towards mass suffering by a certain elite class. Have you seen this kind of link between the rise of fascism or the rise of the far right and climate breakdown? Oh yeah, absolutely. The playbook, if you like, of the right and the far right now includes a whole host of issues spanning from climate denial to the mass deportations agenda to Doge-style public service cuts. And it's almost like if you want to be part of this far-right,

club, you have to subscribe to each of these elements. And these supposed free thinkers, you know, how much do they bang on about freedom of speech? In actual fact, they're sort of enforcing a sort of intellectual conformity amongst this clan, this us versus them attitude of we believe these things. We're not going to question them. And also we're going to caricature or the other side as believing things that actually, fundamentally, they don't. And this runs through the media as well. It's the Fox News style of media where you get a radical right-wing commentator, paint them as speak in common sense, you know, Lee Anderson style,

and then you bring on to debate them, although you try and shout over them as much as you possibly can, you bring on somebody who represents the most radical side of left-wing thought, that only a handful of people believe, and then you cast their opinions as indicative of entire left-wing thought, and then you've just created this caricatured argument, and you've set the terms of debate. And obviously we've seen Fox News essentially imported into the UK in recent years through GB News, which is co-owned by Sir Paul Marshall, and as we've shown, Sir Paul Marshall's hedge fund has extensive fossil fuel investments.

But, you know, this kind of media style, this kind of punch-and-duty thing, is, you know, bread and butter for the tabloid press, and they've been doing it, they've been doing it for years. And I tell you, one of the fundamental problems is that the broadcast media, the likes of Channel 4, the Channel 4 are, you know, pretty good at this. But in particular the BBC, they take their lines in terms of what they see as, you know, politically and nationally significant from the press, and the press is funded almost entirely by billionaires,

who, again, subscribe to this worldview that includes climate denialism, and the BBC and broadcasters needs to be stronger, and they need to stick to the science, not what the right-wing press is telling them. And when you have this caricature debate that you've just painted for us, the voice that's missing is arguably the most. most important voice, the voice of lived experience, the real life, day-to-day suffering that is caused by this. Deora, who are these losers of climate change? Yeah, I mean, we're the losers, right? We're the losers. The majority of the people on this planet are losers. Even the

billionaires are losers. What are they going to do when, you know, they've got all the money and wealth and power in the world and actually no societies left to live in? One of the conversations that often is missing around conversations to do with climate change in the mainstream media, I think within climate activist circles, we all know that this is intimately tied to rising inequality, right? The supply chain issues caused by climate change are massively inflating our food prices, for example. Up to 30 to 40% of our staples are getting more expensive. because of climate change. So, you know, when we hear the narrative around the cost of net zero,

I think it's really, really important to challenge it with the actual truth of what is happening and, like, getting this into people's heads that is actually our inaction on climate change that is driving so much of the hardship that we're experiencing today. Can I jump in real quick on that one as well? I was thinking about this over the winter. How do we make this resonate with people in the UK

who, you know, will be experiencing climate change, but maybe not as sharply as people elsewhere. And I was, you know, I was marching along in the rain for like the 14th consecutive day, four of my umbrellas had broken, you know. It's like there's just a certain misery to climate change as we've experienced it in the past couple of years. And I was watching one of the,

National Emergency Briefings, which I recommend to anybody watching this as well, that sort of go to the science behind climate change and why these things are happening. And it explained to me for the first time why we were monsoon on, essentially, for weeks on end during the winter. And it's because climate change causes the Atlantic current systems to slow down, essentially. So you have stuck weather patterns, which means that in the UK during the winter, we get stuck with just cloud coverage in perpetuity. And it also means during the summer you're stuck with heat. You're stuck with the sun.

And I think that's one of the key things that we've got to get across to people is that it's not just about the breakdown of civilization, but it is just your day-to-day life will be a heck of a lot more unpleasant. I do think a lot of people realized in this heat wave this summer, perhaps in spite of the media, that while it might be quite nice to go on holiday, in extreme heat. It is not nice to live in it

and it is not nice to work in it. I think that did hit, did hit some people. Hit me. Let's take a quick break. You gotta try breakfast. And what better way than with a delicious Pratt organic coffee?

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Specialist Climate Change Publication Carbon Brief has been analysing newspaper editorials about climate change since 2011 and found newspaper editorials mirrored a significant shift in the UK political rights in 2025, as parties are mimicked far-right reform UK by definitively rejecting net zero targets and policies that they had previously championed. Nearly 100 UK newspaper editorials opposed climate action in 2025, a record figure that revealed the scale of the backlash against net zero in the right-leaning press. However, many newspapers that took aim at net zero, they took aim at it as a catch-all term for policies that they deemed harmful. Most editorials that rejected climate action, did not even mention the word climate, often using net zero instead. Sam, what are the biggest media misconceptions about net zero

and how have they been misapplied by the UK press? I think it's been a concerted strategy, an intentional strategy from the right, to try and separate net zero, which is cast as something that is expensive. You can't afford it during a cost of living crisis. and climate change, which basically they don't talk about. They don't talk about the science of climate change anymore. You go back 10 years, and the playbook was, we're going to question whether carbon dioxide emissions actually contribute to climate change.

And they realized that they just couldn't win that argument, because the science is definitive. The 99, 100% the scientists can't be wrong. So what they've done is they've said, yes, man-made climate change might be happening. but it just costs too much. The policy measures that we need to implement in order to achieve net zero, they're grossly unaffordable, they're attempting to impose a sort of neo-communist climate dictatorship on the country, if not the world.

And so we shouldn't do any of it. And as Diora said throughout this, very rightly, it's just not true. It's just not true. The reason that energy is unaffordable is because, we've seen a series of fossil fuel-led shocks. You know, obviously we saw the Russia-Ukraine crisis. We've seen the U.S.-Israeli bombardment of Iran, which has sent oil prices, spiraling. This is a fossil-fuel-led energy price spike, which they're trying to blame on net zero.

I think one stat that I'll just throw in the mix that I thought really epitomizes sort of the ridiculousness of the anti-net-zero argument. It's from the Climate Change Commission, which is an independent government advisory body, that pointed out that the entire cost of achieving net zero emissions by 2050 was equivalent to one fossil fuel price shock. And we've experienced a couple of those just in the past like five or six years. So if they want to winge about anything where the cost of energy is concerned, they should be wishing about the cost of oil and gas.

I do feel like this negative opinion on net zero is being kind of rammed down our throats. And actually analysis from the Institute for Public Policy Research shows that media coverage of net zero is more than twice as likely to be negative than public attitudes. So it's like we're really being steered in that direction. And one of the tropes that comes up a lot is this idea of national dependence. right? The UK has chosen to become reliant on fossil fuel imports. The UK could become energy independent. If only it expanded its North Sea production. The whole like Falkland Island debates and the and the gas fields brings this up as well. This like sovereignty idea that is tied to the fossil fuel energy discussion. This obviously comes a lot from the Reform Party.

Sam, why has Net Zero been presented as a threat to UK sovereignty? In this sort of cliched politics that they've constructed, you've got this sort of mid-20th century Nirvana where a country is entirely self-reliant. You know, you make your own goods, you source your own food, you produce your own energy, you know, you don't really think about other countries other than maybe to malign them and, you know, practice casual racism towards them. But they're trying to tie together two of their favorite issues, which is, as you say, this sort of flag waving, chest thumping, nationalism and pro-fossil fuel politics of, oh, if only we just, you know, drill the North Sea, everything would be fine.

and we wouldn't have to rely on those pesky windmills, as Trump calls them, that apparently are killing birds en masse and the likes. And didn't you say they were making foxes fat or something, which was hilarious, that all the dead birds were getting eaten by the foxes, and there were giant foxes roaming the British countryside. Yeah, I mean, I'll die from climate change, as long as the foxes don't get fat. But, yeah, really cares about the foxes.

But, yeah, fundamentally, the thing is, is the North Sea is a declining basin. We're not even declining. It has declined. Like the majority of its reserves have been plundered. We just can't, we can't meaningfully extract any more from the North Sea. So if we want to, if we want to use oil and gas, we have to import it. The sovereignty argument is way more powerful in the case of clean energy.

The right love to go on about the green and pleasant land, you know, the rolling British countryside and, you know, are beautiful, the white cliffs of Dover. have they not spotted the masses of ocean space that we can put offshore wind turbines? You know, one of the windiest countries in the world probably. And it's just the sort of the level of deception and the level of falsehood that the right is willing to engage in, it just comes out through this whole sovereignty thing. Because fundamentally, if you want to have a nationalist energy policy... Look at China.

China's certainly seen that the geopolitical sovereignty economic benefits of investing in clean energy. I think, Sam, you make some really great points around the supply side of the climate misinformation, especially around the threat to UK sovereignty. But I think we also have to think about the demand side. Why do these narratives stick with people, right? Like, what are they striking at? The really frustrating thing around misinformation is that tackling it does not mean you logically deconstruct your opponents arguments. Logic, unfortunately, doesn't really work. It's about emotion, and that's what a lot of

research shows around misinformation and white sticks. We are living in a really, really volatile world where there are wars everywhere for so many reasons. And climate change is actually exacerbating the reasons for these wars to occur in the first place. So many wars fought over resources over land. So I think we have to also think. about that is that people are scared and the right is just offering them really simple answers to solve people's fears around just like the global chaos. Yeah, it's a really important point. And while we're on this kind of question of nationalism versus globalism, a quote I've seen a lot recently is that climate change will manifest as a series of disasters viewed through phones with

footage that gets closer and closer to where you live until you're the one filming it. And there is this level of distance, right? The countries facing the worst climate disasters are currently further away from us, from intense flooding in Pakistan to chronic droughts in East Africa. Climate-related disasters are concentrated in the countries that have contributed least to climate change. These countries lack the capacity to respond to worsening climate conditions yet are affected disproportionately. At the same time, it was revealed earlier this. year that the UK has reduced its international climate finance commitments, dropping from a previous five-year pledge of £11.6 billion to a new target of around £6 billion over three years.

Diora, often in news media, climate disasters are reported under a world news banner. They're framed as really having nothing to do with the UK. Why is this damaging? and what is meant by a historical carbon debt? The nothing to do with our narrative or framing is really damaging because it's actually false and it lets rich countries off the hook. The UK didn't get to be one of the richest countries in the world by accident. We spearheaded the Industrial Revolution

and we share a disproportionate responsibility for the greenhouse gases currently trapped in the atmosphere because we started burning fossil fuels 200 years ago. So that's our historic carbon debt, and we've used far more than our share of the planet's carbon budget. And as you've said, the country's facing the worst floods and droughts. Today, mostly didn't even cause any harm. They're facing the most extreme impacts of the climate crisis.

But I also don't think actually the case rests on guilt alone, because even if we set history aside, we share responsibility now. So even if we didn't have the historical emissions, the fact is that our emissions don't stop at a border that we drew, you know, 100 years ago or 500 years ago. So a flood in Nepal and a heat wave in the UK come from the same warming atmosphere. And these impacts aren't shared equally, but we need an international consensus on climate action. and international solidarity with the places

that are bearing the worst of it. We live on a shared planet. I know that makes me sound like a hippie, but it is true. You hippie-diffy, real-wolder. But you know what? It actually points out this deep, deep irony

with the whole sovereignty, anti-climate discussion because the impact that we are having here is causing mass displacement abroad, finite resources, and that in turn is sending waves more refugees. The numbers have... gone absolutely exponential and the single primary driving factor of displacement now is the climate.

And so the politicians who are saying, we will stop the boats, we will protect our borders, they should be going around with placards saying, go vegan and yay net zero, because by doing the opposite, they are collapsing, firstly collapsing territorial sovereignty overseas, where people's land becomes inhospitable, turning territory into an incredibly finite resource and therefore creating a whole crisis of territorial sovereignty all over the world. Now, I have to bring this discussion back to an episode that we did recently called Bad Think Tanks, because Think Tanks play a big role in this information ecosystem. Groups labeled as Think Tanks anyway, which are often actually just selling bogus research

on highly political topics, topics like abortion, immigration, and of course, climate change. We spoke a lot about a group of think tanks registered at the address 55 Tufton Street, and our episode explained how media narratives about topics like climate change are often meticulously planned to shape societal narratives. A desmog investigation found that people associated with one of these think tanks, a think tank called the Global Warming Policy Foundation, wrote at least 48 telegraph articles during Labor's first hundred days, and the paper disclosed those ties not once. Sam, what can you tell us about who the Global Warming Policy Foundation are,

who their backers are, and what this says about the role of the corporate lobby over our media today? You've asked me about my specialist subject now. Yeah, here we go. Here we go, here we go. Yeah, so the Global Warming Policy Foundation, the GWPF, they're one of those notorious groups. Actually, one of the few remaining that's actually still based at 55 Tufton Street,

because since we've covered these groups, a lot of them have scattered to neighbouring streets. But the GWPF is still holed up in number 55. It's probably the most prominent climate denial think tank in the country. Board members have included the likes of Tony Abbott, the former Prime Minister of Australia. You've got Alison Pearson, who's a telegraph columnist. It was founded by Nigel Lawson, former Conservative Chancellor. It's got a hefty political footprint. And, you know, it's really the sharp end of the spear where climate denials concerns.

You know, they say the things that a lot of people on the right only think and dent express. So they've actually said that carbon dioxide emissions should be higher. They're not just advocating for us to do not. think, they're actually advocating for us to pump more CO2 into the atmosphere, which is absolutely bonkers. And not only are they given a platform by the Telegraph, they're often on GB News and quoted across the right-wing press. And occasionally, they've made it onto the BBC, though we've been quick to point out the error of their ways in giving them a platform. Like a lot of these groups, we don't know a great deal about who funds them. But in

reality, I think we can all make a fair judgment as to who might be funding them. The sort of corporate interest, the sort of big money backers, that are often behind these sort of groups. There was an investigation by Open Democracy that found that the GWPF received nearly a quarter of a million dollars from the Sarah Scaife Foundation, which holds $30 million in shares across 22 energy companies, including $9 million in Exxon and $5.7 million in Chevroft. So that really just tells you everything you need to know, as also does Sam, as you said, the fact that Alison Pearson is a telegraph columnist and a director of the Global War

Policy Foundation. I mean, you can't write it, but unfortunately, you can. It's also incestuous. Now, in order to not leave our listeners with a message of panic and doom, we'd like to leave them with a message of hope and action. So firstly, how can we as news consumers spot? climate disinformation. What should we look out for, Diora? Okay, so we spoke quite a lot about the narratives that we hear, and I think once you hear the narratives, you kind of can't unhear them, but there are also

deliberate tactics that I use to distort information and not just with climate stuff, but also on migration and other social issues. I'll give a few, a really common one is misrepresentation, so it's a tactic that takes something real and distorts it. This could be a job. This could be a genuine quote, a real statistic, an actual event, but it's been stripped of its context and reframed to mean something it doesn't. Sometimes people cherry pick, which is another tactic that only presents the evidence that supports your conclusion and ignores everything that contradicts it. Again, nothing stated as technically false, but overall the picture is misleading. So, for example, in climate disinformation, that looks like saying something like, oh, well, we've had a really cold winter,

and that must mean that global warming isn't actually real. Then false solutions are a tactic that acknowledge a real problem, like the climate crisis, but then we'll offer a solution that doesn't actually address it. So within climate action, that might look like offering geoengineering projects and putting loads of money into risky, controversial, technological projects that are aimed at stopping climate change from happening, when we actually know that what we really need to do,

is to stop drilling for oil and gas, and we need to do all the mitigation stuff and all the adaptation stuff and all the climate justice stuff, and that's how we solve the climate crisis. We know what we need to do. So Sam, I guess what are some practical steps that members of the public can take

to have their voices heard on climate change? Well, I think that's really important. And I think that for me personally, taking action, feeling empowered, is the most important thing, like feeling as though I'm contributing meaningfully. That's why I'm an investigative journalist is because it's the only thing I could do to make sure that I feel as though I'm making a difference and stopping the bad guys from winning, essentially, is through exposing them, who they are, who they're being funded by,

why their ideas are wrong. And so whatever that looks like to you, I would say, you know, whether that's supporting a political party that believes in climate action, going out door knocking, whether that's volunteering in some way, whether that's giving money to a good cause. I would obviously say supporting meaningful investigative platforms such as de-smog. Spray the word amongst your family. I think that's hugely important. A lot of this conversation has been to do with miss and disinformation,

and studies have shown that the best way, the best antidotes to misinformation, not just on climate, but on every topic, is a family member exposing those things to be wrong, intervening essentially to say, no, you shouldn't believe that, and here's why. And I think that, you know, without causing too much acrimony over the Christmas dinner table, I think gently nudging your family in a better direction, even just sharing things on social, social media, even if they seem like small things, they all add up to a huge difference. Thank you so much both for this discussion. You've given us a lot to go home and think about. Quickly before we lose you, I'm going to ask each of you, where can people follow you?

And do you have anything to plug? Diora, let's start with you. I co-host a climate change book club. So if you were a fan of this conversation, you should come to our book clubs. We're based in London. But we also have an Instagram account. which you could follow and see what we're reading. It's at Hot House Book Club. Thank you. And Sam? Follow DeSmog on all the best social media channels. We have a weekly newsletter where we run through the investigations that we published that week

and our hot takes on the news. So I'd say that's the best way to get up to speed with all of our work. Yeah. And I'm on social media as well if you can put up with my opinions on a daily basis. Thank you for listening. week, we explore the huge backlash to a Channel 4 documentary titled The Great ADHD Myth and discuss how neurodiversity has been demonised in the media. If you want to support MediaStorm, you can do so on Patreon for less than a cup of coffee

a month. The link is in the show notes and a special shout out to everyone in our Patreon community already. We appreciate you so much. If you enjoyed this podcast, please send it to someone. Word of mouth is still the best way to grow a podcast, so please do tell your friends. and obviously leave us a five-star rating and a review. You can follow us on social media at Matilda Mal at Helen Awaddea and follow the show at Media Storm Pod. Media Storm is an award-winning podcast produced by Helena Wadia and Matilda Mallinson. The music is by Samphire.

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