No tracking. No cookies
Subscriptions
Subscriptions
Byline Times is an independent, reader-funded investigative newspaper, outside of the system of the established press, reporting on ‘what the papers don’t say’ – without fear or favour.
To support its work, subscribe to the monthly Byline Times print edition, packed with exclusive investigations, news, and analysis.
Climate activists are in prison due to laws pushed by “billionaire-owned media”, campaigners heard at a conference of climate activists over the weekend, spearheaded by figures in Extinction Rebellion.
Donnachadh McCarthy is Director of the Climate Media Coalition, a research group made up of activists who push for greater media attention of the climate crisis.
He addressed a ‘Tell the Truth’ conference in central London on 14 September, which saw 60 or so leading figures from UK climate campaigns analyse the state of climate coverage in the UK.
McCarthy told activists: “Climate protestors are in jail because billionaire media demanded changes to the law. They demanded the police crack down on climate protectors and that punitive sentences be given.”
Reporters from right-wing tabloids have previously infiltrated climate activist organising calls and passed information to the police.
“During Extinction Rebellion’s first six months [in 2019], the media treated it like a carnival,” McCarthy said. But think tanks including Policy Exchange soon began pointing to the cost of policing the protests, as well as pointing to isolated incidents of emergency vehicles being disrupted. In McCarthy’s words, think tanks and lobbyists “persuaded the billionaire media to demonise us.”
In 2023, then-PM Rishi Sunak admitted that the conservative think tank Policy Exchange ‘helped us draft’ legislation cracking down on climate protests. Policy Exchange reports are frequently splashed on the front pages of publications such as the Daily Mail and The Telegraph, which then in turn set the agenda for broadcasters.
The former Conservative premier was praising Policy Exchange, which received $30,000 from oil and gas giant ExxonMobil in 2017, for shaping laws that target green activists, as DeSmog reported.
Donnachadh McCarthy, Director of the Climate Media Coaltion, drew on the example of US lobbying against the landmark 1997 global agreement on fossil fuels, the Kyoto Protocol. “As soon as it was signed, the American petroleum industry created a strategy to destroy it. They used think tanks, corrupted professors, and planted stories in the media to persuade politicians.” In 2001, the US Senate voted 95-0 to reject the treaty.
The Role of the Media
For McCarthy and many of the UK’s climate movements, opposition from the British press is a major blocker to tougher climate action in Westminster and beyond.
“The fossil fuel economy has four pillars: government regulation, the oil industry, banks that fund it, and media corporations that give it political and social permission to operate. The media is the most important pillar. If we had the media on our side, the government would regulate [to ensure] climate action, oil companies would become renewable energy corporations, and banks would fund the transition,” McCarthy says.
Analysis by the Climate Media Coalition amid the 2022 UK Government energy review following the invasion of Ukraine compared public opinion on seven key climate energy issues with mainstream media opinions and the Government’s actions.
“The public favoured onshore wind, offshore wind, insulation, and solar, and opposed fracking, expanding North Sea oil and gas, and nuclear. The billionaire media only agreed with the public on offshore wind. In the final review, guess what? Offshore wind was the only issue backed by the Government that aligned with public opinion,” McCarthy told the conference.
The Climate Media Coalition says it has achieved some victories through meeting with media executives.
“We’ve had success through engagement. We approached The Guardian‘s travel desk about its pieces promoting long-haul flights, and that led to changes in their coverage,” McCarthy said.
“We protested outside the Daily Mail, which led to a meeting with the editor and resulted in a two-page spread promoting solar power,” he added.
McCarthy himself has repeatedly appeared on GB News to set out the scale of the climate crisis.
“Initially, it was hostile, but by approaching it from a position of love and seeing them as people, we’ve made progress,” he added. He claims that a senior GB News presenter told him he was initially sceptical, but told him “You’re right” after repeated appareances. “Now, some of those who used to attack us describe us as friends of their shows and agree with our points,” McCarthy added.
ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE
Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account.
We’re not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe.
Climate Disinformation
As well as GB News, outlets accused of bias against strong action on climate change include the Murdoch-owned Sun and The Telegraph, which is currently being sold – potentially to Murdoch’s News UK or the owners of the Daily Mail.
A recent editorial in The Sun claimed that the Government planned to ban all petrol and diesel cars from the road by 2030. “Sensational stuff, but completely wrong,” Colin Walker, Head of Transport at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, wrote earlier this month.
The organisation complained to press self-regulator IPSO, and the Sun was – in a rare move – forced to issue a correction.
Only today (16 September), The Telegraph ran a story that was arguably misleadingly headlined: “Labour to back away from 2030 petrol car ban”. Readers had to click through to the piece to see the actual body includes the crucial word “new” petrol-powered cars. In other words, there were no plans to ban the second-hand market or forcibly take petrol/diesel cars off the road.
Another researcher of climate change coverage told Byline Times: “There’s a real pattern to the misinformation [in the UK press]. The vast majority is related to Electric Vehicles or heat pumps. There’s some on oil and gas and renewables, and quite a bit on land and farming subsidies…
“When you get [Telegraph columnist] Matt Ridley writing about how awful renewables are and how great fossil fuels are, it’s important to note he’s got a huge coal mine on his land.”
The Telegraph often features comment pieces from figures linked to the climate-crisis denying Global Warming Policy Foundation. However, their GWPF roles are often not published.
Earlier this month, around 100 protesters gathered outside the Tufton Street offices of controversial think tanks before moving on to the offices of Policy Exchange, as they urged the Labour Party to cut ties with the groups at the heart of shaping Conservative policy.
Around 40 climate activists are currently understood to be in prison for climate-related protests, according to Defend Our Juries, a group set up to raise awareness of jurors’ ability to acquit defendants on the basis of their conscience.
Several waves of anti-protest laws were passed under Rishi Sunak’s Government, including the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023. Figures close to Home Secretaries Priti Patel and Suella Braverman (respectively) were clear at the time that the legislation targeted climate activists.
Subscribers Get More from JOSIAH
Josiah Mortimer also writes the On the Ground column, exclusive to the print edition of Byline Times.
So for more from him…
