The Telegraph’s Record of Climate Falsehoods
Original article by Sam Bright republished from DeSmog.
The newspaper has been scolding the BBC for its editorial failings, while issuing a string of climate corrections.
The Telegraph, which has accused the BBC of bias and a lack of editorial rigour, has been forced to amend a swathe of climate inaccuracies.
The BBC’s director-general and CEO resigned this weekend after a critical review of the broadcaster’s coverage was leaked to The Telegraph.
The Telegraph has used this opportunity to slam the BBC – saying that the “BBC has just signed its own death warrant” and that its future is “now in doubt”. The paper is also reporting that the BBC is now reviewing its climate and energy coverage over accusations of bias.
However, The Telegraph has repeatedly made basic errors in relation to its climate coverage in recent times.
According to its corrections and clarifications page, The Telegraph published four articles in December and January that included the false claim that Energy and Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband plans to build 1 billion solar panels to meet his net zero emissions targets.
In reality, reaching net zero by 2050 will require a tenth of that figure – 100 million solar panels.
The Telegraph has repeatedly castigated the BBC in recent days for its apparent lack of fairness, yet the newspaper frequently attacks its opponents using hyperbolic, incendiary language – even when its facts are wrong.
One of the reports that used the false solar panels statistic was entitled, “Miliband’s eco lunacy will wreck Britain and enrich the Chinese dictatorship”.
In an article from Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice entitled, “Ed Miliband’s solar farm building spree will ruin our countryside for ever”, the newspaper also claimed that the solar panels set to be installed over the next decade will cover an area of farmland the size of Greater London – a falsehood that had to be corrected.
Tice is a notorious climate science denier who has suggested that CO2 is “plant food”.
Other Telegraph falsehoods have included the amount of undersea cables and overland power lines needed to reach net zero, the amount that would be saved by manufacturers if “net zero costs” were scrapped from bills, and that Britain has been “paying the highest electricity prices in the world for second year running”.
The BBC has made 33 corrections to its coverage overall this year, compared with 114 corrections from The Telegraph.
“Looking to The Daily Telegraph as an arbiter of journalistic accuracy and ethics is like calling on the fox to give you advice on securing the hen house,” said Mic Wright, author of Breaking: How the Media Works, When it Doesn’t and Why it Matters.
“The paper’s attacks on the BBC are not remotely done in good faith and are the result of the publisher’s ideological and commercial interests. There is no world in which The Telegraph’s output would survive the level of scrutiny applied to the BBC’s journalism.”
The leaked review of BBC editorial decisions was produced by Michael Prescott, a former external adviser to the broadcaster’s editorial standards committee. He claimed that a speech by Donald Trump during the 6 January 2021 riots on Capitol Hill in Washington DC had been selectively edited by Panorama to suggest that Trump was encouraging the riot.
Trump is now threatening to sue the BBC for $1 billion (£760,000).
While Trump’s speech was edited to distort his words, he did tell his supporters to “walk down to the Capitol”, after which rioters smashed through barricades, ransacked the U.S. Capitol, and injured 174 police officers. When he re-entered office in January 2025, Trump retrospectively pardoned all 1,600 individuals who were charged or convicted in relation to the attempted coup.
“It’s easy to see why Trump wants to destroy the world’s number one news source,” said Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey. “We can’t let him.
“The BBC belongs to all of us here in the UK. The prime minister and leaders from across the political spectrum should be united in telling Trump to keep his hands off it.”
The Telegraph was approached for comment.
The Telegraph’s Climate Deniers
As DeSmog has shown, The Telegraph has ramped up its aggressive, inaccurate, anti-climate attacks over recent years.
DeSmog’s analysis of opinion and editorial articles about the environment published on The Telegraph’s website in the first 100 days of the current Labour government found that 94 percent were anti-green – attacking or undermining climate science, policy and technological solutions, or environmental activists.
The Telegraph focused on Ed Miliband, with its columnists regularly deploying ad hominem attacks, labelling him “red Ed” and “mad Ed”. In one article, columnist Allison Pearson called Miliband “thoroughly mental Mili”.
In an article last week about the BBC, Pearson said: “We have become accustomed to BBC journalists lying by omission and the prioritisation of pet subjects – I swear there isn’t a spark caused by two sticks rubbed together in southern Europe that hasn’t been seized on by climate editor Justin Rowlatt as evidence of man-made global warming.”
Pearson has formal ties to climate science denial groups – a common feature of The Telegraph’s climate commentators.
She is a director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), which has claimed that carbon dioxide has been “mercilessly demonised” when in fact it is a “benefit to the planet” and should be “two or three times” higher than current levels.
Fellow Telegraph columnist Lord David Frost is a director of Net Zero Watch, the GWPF’s campaign arm. Frost – who has no scientific training – has claimed that “rising temperatures are likely to be beneficial” to Britain. He was recently appointed director-general of the Institute of Economic Affairs, an anti-climate lobby group that received funding from oil major BP for decades.
Individuals associated with the GWPF wrote at least 48 articles in The Telegraph during Labour’s first 100 days, yet their ties to the climate denial group were not mentioned once by the newspaper.
“When disinformation is allowed to run rampant, this can have devastating consequences for democracy – as is already being seen in the United States,” said Richard Wilson, director of the campaign group Stop Funding Heat. “Clearly we all therefore have an interest in ensuring that every UK media outlet – including the BBC – maintains the highest possible standards of accuracy.
“Equally, anyone familiar with The Telegraph’s long track record of misleading climate coverage may have questions about their new-found enthusiasm for rigorous and accurate reporting.”
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s leading climate science body, has said “it is a statement of fact, we cannot be any more certain; it is unequivocal and indisputable that humans are warming the planet.”
The IPCC has also stated that carbon dioxide pollution “is responsible for most of global warming” since the late 19th century, which has increased the “severity and frequency of weather and climate extremes, like heat waves, heavy rains, and drought” – all of which “put a disproportionate burden on low-income households and thus increase poverty levels.”
A previous DeSmog analysis found that, during the six-month period to 16 October 2023, 85 percent of The Telegraph’s editorials and opinion pieces on environmental issues were anti-green.
Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, previously said the editors of The Telegraph had “lost their minds when it comes to climate change”.
“Both newspapers [The Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph] are campaigning against climate policies,” Ward told DeSmog. “They are bombarding their poor readers with laughable propaganda, particularly in their comment columns.”
Additional research by Joey Grostern
Original article by Sam Bright republished from DeSmog.
