BBC should include climate change update in every weather forecast says ex-weather presenter Bill Giles Bill Giles calls on BBC and other broadcasters to make climate change latest a daily feature of weather forecast

The veteran weather forecaster Bill Giles has called for the BBC and other broadcasters to include climate change information in every forecast.

Giles, who led the BBC weather team for 17 years until his retirement in 2000, told Radio Times: “I am calling on the BBC and the other major broadcasters to incorporate an additional five-to ten-minute slot into the forecast that focuses properly and honestly on the Earth’s changing climate.”

‘Explain why climate changing’

Giles, 79, said: “This climate change slot should air at least once a week and would use our technical ability to show weather everywhere in the world to explain in clear, ‘non-jargony’ or technical terms the reasons why our climate is changing – largely due to human influences – and the effects of this on us and all other animals.”

i's TV newsletter: what you should watch next Email address is invalid Email address is invalid Thank you for subscribing! Sorry, there was a problem with your subscription.

The former BBC forecaster argued that in order to “properly explain the underlying changes to climate” broadcasters will “need to look much further afield at the weather across the world, reporting and analysing extremes on a daily basis.”

Weather forecast cut by BBC

However changes to the BBC1 post-10pm schedule introduced this month, have reduced the airtime devoted to the nightly weather forecast between Monday and Thursday.

Giles would be happy to emerge from retirement to “offer any advice or help” on the proposed expanded forecast because “understanding and explaining climate change is one of the most important things facing humanity today. And the BBC and other broadcasters urgently need to reflect this.”

Giles said the Met Office was already discussing climate change when he first joined in the 1950s.

Climate sceptics get it wrong

“There is still debate on the subject,” he said. “But where the sceptics go wrong is that they confuse weather and climate.”

“Of course you can have a very cold spell in the winter in the United Kingdom, as we did last year, by being visited by the so-called Beast of the East.”

“But that’s weather, not climate. Climate is long term – decades and centuries.”