192 governments agree in Copenhagen that climate change is manmade and dangerous so why doesn't the BBC?

Copenhagen was a bad, fudged, inadequate, non-binding deal, which not everyone signed up to and which has weakened the structures of international decision-making (see here for the Friends of the Earth view and the George Monbiot view). But one important thing did come out of wreckage - in the final analysis not one government in the world denied the existence of manmade climate change nor the importance of trying to combat it.

That contrasts strongly with the position of the BBC which is utterly hamstrung by its fear of being seen as a campaigning organisation and by the addiction of its news editors to controversy not consensus.

Here's one typical example - in BBC Environment Correspondent Roger Harrabin's posting about Copenhagen yesterday morning he said: “A survey a while ago showed that 18% of scientists thought the Intergovernmental Panel [on Climate Change] had exaggerated. This gives hope.”

This seems to be the survey he's talking about. I find it hard to understand how Roger Harrabin thinks this survey: a) is in some way scientific given that it was based on responses to an email or indeed that it "shows" anything at all; b) discredits the incredibly rigorous IPCC process; and c), most ludicrously of all, “gives hope”.

As an ex-BBC journalist I understand the constraints that Roger is working under. The BBC is utterly paranoid about not being seen as a campaigning organisation or being used by campaigning organisations. Its news editors, like news editors everywhere, prefer controversy to consensus. But I think the BBC has a moral duty to do better than that on an issue which threatens the very existence of the human race.

To say that there is scientific disagreement about manmade climate change in 2009 is the equivalent of believing the earth is flat. To give Lord Nigel Lawson equal status to respected climate scientists on this subject is utterly irresponsible. To allow climate deniers like Andrew Neil and Jeremy Clarkson to get away with the rubbish they spout on BBC programmes is morally repugnant.

The fact that the BBC gives climate sceptics more credence than they deserve is, I think, a principal reason why the public are confused and why it is so hard to achieve serious political action on climate change. There's plenty of room for argument about what we do, about whether our current economic and political system can solve the crisis, and about when or if we unleash runaway climate change, but not on the basic facts. BBC journalists and presenters should be saying that there is no scientific dispute about the existence of manmade climate change loudly and clearly in every report and programme.

Our children will not thank the BBC for the irresponsibility of its current position on climate change.