Veteran journalist attacks corporation over waste of energy and use of air travel

Mr Paxman said the BBC was adopting a "high moral tone" on the issue, but that it internally viewed tackling global warming as a "marginal concern" and was adopting policies that would increase its carbon footprint.

He criticised the amount of energy used by the BBC - claiming its electricity bill had doubled from almost 6.5 million to nearly 13 million in just three years - and the decision to film the Robin Hood series in Hungary because it was cheaper despite the "carbon costs of all the to-ing and fro-ing".

Recycling practices were "laughable", said Mr Paxman, who also attacked the waste of electricity in the news department in BBC Television Centre, where computers and lights were left on overnight and the air-conditioning had to be kept on even in January.

He said he did not know if the prophecies made by climate "doomsayers" were true, but added he was "willing to acknowledge that people who know a lot more than I do may be right when they claim that it is a consequence of our own behaviour".

Writing in the BBC staff magazine, Ariel, Mr Paxman attacked the BBC for failing to offset the carbon produced by overseas flights and said some journalists were doing so out of their own pockets.

"The BBC believes people do not pay their licence fees to see them spent on offset arrangements," he said.

"When I asked Yogesh Chauhan, the chief adviser, corporate responsibility, why, he replied, 'The biggest impact we can make is through our programmes'.

"The BBC's environment correspondents, even the makers of series like Planet Earth, are trapped in a bizarre arrangement in which they travel the globe to tell the audience of the dangers of climate change while leaving a vapour trail which will make the problem even worse.

"With the massive deployment to the Beijing Olympics looming and filming for another Planet Earth series under way - to say nothing of the numerous, vital, overseas fact-finding tours of senior management - a corporation-wide policy is urgently needed."

He proposed several steps to address the situation properly, including a commitment to reduce carbon emissions by at least 3 per cent a year and guidelines for staff to minimise air travel.

"We have to recognise that broadcasting is a product of the age of energy abundance and is unlikely ever to be entirely cost-free. But we can make an effort," Mr Paxman said.

"Environmental aspects are a marginal concern [at the BBC] and it is unarguable that other policies, set at the top of the organisation, conspire to magnify the carbon footprint. Digital broadcasting is an environmental idiocy, designed not to reduce carbon but to multiply it."

The BBC responded by stressing the measures it was taking to reduce its carbon footprint.

"Jeremy raises some valid points in his article, but there are also a few issues we'd like to clarify," a spokeswoman said.

"The BBC is committed to a comprehensive environmental policy to minimise energy consumption; reduce harmful emissions; re-use, recover and reduce waste; use environmentally friendly transport and develop a corporate culture which takes green responsibilities seriously and look at ways to improve what we do - and how we do it.

"We already use green 'renewable' electricity, covering 95 per cent of UK operations, and have embarked on an ambitious energy efficiency programme which will further reduce electricity consumption by at least 3 per cent year-on-year over the next four to five years."

She said carbon offsetting "remains a contentious issue", many environmentalists are sceptical about the whole idea, saying it detracts from the main priority to reduce energy use.

"If the BBC is to cover events in, and make programmes about, the rest of the world then some level of overseas travel is inevitable," she said. "The BBC does not currently offset against flights as we do not believe it represents a good use of the licence fee. However... we will be looking at offsetting as part of a wider package of measures."

Friends of the Earth Scotland's chief executive, Duncan McLaren, said Mr Paxman was "correct, but only up to a point".

"He is correct when he says that it is not good enough for the BBC to try and excuse its environmental impacts based simply on the fact that it makes great programmes about green issues," he said.

"While the BBC is probably right to say licence fee-payers would rather not see their money spent on offsets, it is important that the money is not knowingly used in ways that trash the planet either."

In a report out this week called The Business of Climate Change, Dr John Llewellyn, senior economic policy adviser at Lehman Brothers, concluded that climate change was becoming "one of the major forces shaping business".

He described Mr Paxman's view as "a fundamentally misplaced piece of analysis".

The way to deal with emissions was to make the polluter pay and, once the true cost of carbon was reflected in the cost of a flight or other activity, people should then be free to choose.

Is it too late to avoid the worst?

TODAY sees the launch of a major international report which assesses the best science available on the threat posed by global warming.

The fourth scientific assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, drawing on research by 2,500 scientists in more than 130 countries, concludes it is virtually certain that rising global temperatures are the result of greenhouse gas emissions produced by human activity.

It is also expected to predict temperatures will rise by between 2 to 4.5C above pre- industrial levels with a "best estimate" of 3C.

Jeremy Paxman, the BBC Newsnight presenter, appeared to join the ranks of environmentalists calling for more to be done to address climate change, with an outspoken attack on his employer.

But while some environmentalists insist the world can still avoid "dangerous climate change" - said to kick if there is a two-degree rise - others argue we must prepare for hard times ahead. Two proponents of these views make their case here.

Yes

says professor Bill McGuire

THE world has failed to make any real progress on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and serious climate change is now unavoidable.

My personal expectation is we are going to see at least a 2C rise in temperature above pre-industrial levels so I think it is inevitable that we will have to adapt to the changes in climate that this will bring.

Drought is going to be pretty common in the south of England particularly. Agriculture is going to have to adapt to these conditions.

But we will also have to get used to more extreme weather, particularly floods. Flash floods are going to be a huge problem, probably more for England than Scotland because Scotland is way ahead in flood planning.

Sea level rise will be a major issue. At the moment, it is rising by about one centimetre every three years. The rate of rise has gone up over the last few decades and it now looks as if the Greenland ice-sheet is starting to fall apart, which means we may well see a one to two metre sea level rise in this century.

Ultimately we could see a seven-metre rise and you cannot defend against that, you'd just have to manage the retreat from many coastal communities, towns and cities. You cannot build a 30ft high wall round the coast of Britain.

I don't want people to lose sight of the fact that it is absolutely critical that we tackle the causes of climate change. The two approaches - trying to minimise climate change and getting ready to deal with what is going to happen - really need to be hand in hand.

In simple terms, it's going to be bad, but the longer we do nothing, the worse it's going to be. What we have to adapt to depends on how quickly we take action.

• Professor Bill McGuire, of Benfield Hazard Research Centre

says Dr Richard Dixon

THE latest science report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change adds to the plethora of important studies and reviews in the past year which have told us we need to take urgent action on climate change. Crucially it also tells us that it is not too late to avoid the worst predictions of the climate scientists who make up the IPCC group.

If we let final temperatures rise more than 2C above pre-industrial levels, we risk losing the forests of the Amazon, the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica and the permafrosts of Siberia, all of which will help increase the rate of climate change.

This would have disastrous consequences, generating millions of climate refugees and seriously messing up the global economy.

Some say it is already too late to stop the world suffering the real disaster scenarios. They may even be right, but fortunately they are very much in the minority and the current consensus is that we have about ten years left to really get things moving. We need to see global emissions peaking by 2015 and falling sharply after that.

How are we doing? Scotland's emissions appear lower today than in 1990, as long as you ignore international aviation. Of course we can't afford to ignore aviation. In reality it makes up around 10 per cent of Scotland's climate change impact, is the fastest growing sector of emissions and could reach 25 per cent of our impact by 2020.

We can stay below 2C but the task is so huge that we need to devise a war on climate change. We need to redirect the economy away from the things which increase emissions and towards the things which reduce them.

And just like war, we may need rationing, in this case carbon rationing, if we aren't mature enough to kick our addiction to cheap flights, gas-guzzling cars and keeping electrical appliances on standby mode.

• Dr Richard Dixon, director of WWF Scotland