Al Jazeera has a news story on The curious persistence of climate scepticism.

The text says

Climate scepticism is fringe and unscientific. So why is it that sceptics still manage, in certain countries, to get airtime denying the effects of global warming? Sceptics theories in the news media, such as carbon dioxide doesn’t cause a greenhouse effect, are largely confined to what is known as the Anglosphere: the likes of the US, the UK, Australia. Elsewhere, including the most populous, polluting countries like China and India, such scepticism is hard to find. The Listening Post investigates the curious existence and persistence of climate scepticism in the news media. Contributors:

Leo Hickman, director, Carbon Brief

Maxwell Boykoff, associate professor, University of Colorado-Boulder

Anu Jogesh, India policy and governance lead, Acclimatise

James Painter, research associate, The Reuters Institute

Hepeng Jia, director, China Science Media Centre

In the video (fast forward to 13 minutes into it) it is claimed that climate sceptics appear in the media “with striking frequency”, and that it is “surprising” that they “get so much exposure”. James Painter talks about his paper that says there is much more scepticism in the media in the US and UK than in France, China, Brazil or India. There is a bit of the usual Murdoch-bashing, and of course the oil companies and Koch brothers get a mention.

Then they say that the BBC has “come under fire for how often they present fringe views on climate change”. There’s a brief clip of Nigel Lawson, who was allowed onto the Today Programme for a few seconds back in February 2014 (incorrectly labelled as December in the video).

Then Carbon Brief’s Chairman Leo Hickman comes on and claims that the “BBC has had a particular problem with false balance for a number of years”. What does he mean by this? Well, he goes on:

“every year or two they’ll have another car-crash moment where they invite a climate sceptic on.”

There is then another short clip of Lawson from 2017 when he was briefly allowed on the radio again to rebut Al Gore’s “claptrap” about extreme events. Of course, the biased activists of Al Jazeera and Hickman pick out the one incorrect thing Lawson said, and don’t appear to be at all concerned about the falsehoods promoted by Al Gore at the same time or Peter Stott the next day.

Then the story takes a rather more sinister turn. China is held up as an example.