Chris Packham has backed a climate emergency declaration call urging the UK government to host a prime-time televised briefing after a 50-minute film on climate and nature breakdown was circulated. The appeal has drawn 91 cross-party MPs, peers and members of the UK’s devolved legislatures, putting fresh pressure on ministers while parts of the UK are in a third heatwave of the summer.
Packham opens the film, The People’s Emergency Briefing, by saying: “I understand it’s human nature to prefer not to know, to try to bury our heads in the sand. But if we all take a breath and watch this together, well first of all that’s a huge relief and second we can figure out what to do about it”. The film says climate and nature breakdown threaten food security, the economy and public health.
Chris Packham and Westminster Hall
The briefing push builds on a national emergency briefing held in Westminster Hall in November, when 9 experts gave stark assessments. Rosie Boycott and Tim Farron are among the signatories to the newer parliamentary call, which asks for a televised national climate emergency briefing rather than another closed parliamentary event.
Packham described climate breakdown in the film as the “most insidious threat to our society” and said it was putting the “very fabric of our society at risk”. More than 2,000 screenings of the film have either taken place or been confirmed to take place so far, giving the campaign a wider public reach than a single parliamentary event.
UK government and climate statement
A spokesperson said the UK government already holds an annual statement on the state of the climate. The second statement is planned for later this year, and Ed Miliband used the first statement last year to set out the work the government said it was doing in response to the climate and nature crises.
Miliband said the government had secured the largest investment in clean power in a generation and the largest flooding programme in history. The climate change committee has warned for more than a decade that the UK’s plans to protect people from rapidly worsening extreme weather are inadequate, and the government’s advisers said an additional £11bn per year in spending was needed to adapt, with about half expected from the private sector.
Europe heat and the call
The timing of the call reflects the summer outside Westminster. In June, most of Europe sweltered in its worst ever heatwave, and scientists said that heatwave would have been impossible without the human-induced climate crisis. In summer 2022, more than 60,000 people died due to heat in Europe.
What happens next now turns on whether the UK government accepts the request for a televised emergency briefing or keeps relying on the annual climate statement already in place. With 91 signatories and more than 2,000 screenings behind it, the campaign is pushing for a public broadcast that would put the same material in front of a far larger audience than the Westminster Hall session reached.
