TELL OFCOM: These global warming claims are misleading

Watch: GB News host dismisses human-caused climate change, claiming that the “climate has always changed” and that the temperatures are “cooler” than thousands of years ago. 

On 24 July 2024, GB News host Martin Daubney made misleading and unscientific claims about the climate which minimised the severity of modern human-made climate change.

His claims violated Ofcom rules 5.1 and 5.7, which require accuracy and avoiding misrepresenting facts. Submit your complaint to Ofcom using this form and by following the guidance below. 

Programme details:

Programme title: Martin Daubney
Date of broadcast: 24 July 2024
Time of broadcast (24 hour clock): 16:51
Channel / station*: GB News

Your complaint:

Subject: GB News host Martin Daubney made misleading and unscientific claims about climate change and global temperatures, violating Ofcom rules 5.1 and 5.7 requiring accuracy and avoiding misrepresenting facts.

Description:

Here’s a few bullet points to include:

• On 24 July, GB News host Martin Daubney, in a conversation with meteorologist Jim Dale, about the recent two hottest days in history, declared that “the climate has always changed”, and that “the temperature at the moment relative to thousands of years ago” is “actually cooler”, which supposedly proves that “it’s not quite the situation of ‘the world’s burning’”. He also proclaimed that “the climate’s always changed, it’s called the sun”.
• Daubney’s claims are unscientific and misleading, violating rules 5.1 and 5.7, which require coverage to be “reported with due accuracy” and that “facts must not be misrepresented”. Daubney’s remarks also contradict Ofcom’s guidance around global warming, where it states that the “scientific principles behind the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming” are “broadly settled”. 
• Climate records indicate that recent temperatures are the highest in 2,000 years. While there was a ‘Roman Warm Period’ and a ‘Medieval Warm Period’, there is no evidence to suggest that globally the Earth was warmer then than it is now.
• Temperatures have changed over the last 10,000 years, but the Earth’s temperature has grown unnaturally rapidly in the post-industrial period with established links to human activity. The impacts of human-made climate change are being felt right now and are only due to get worse. At the current rate, global temperatures will reach an average of 1.5 degrees centigrade over pre-industrial levels in 2040.