The BBC has been accused of “rank hypocrisy” after a reporter racked up an estimated 20,000 air miles to ask why “despite all the green promises, we’re using more fossil fuels than ever before”.

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t Ian Magness

The BBC has been accused of “rank hypocrisy” after a reporter racked up an estimated 20,000 air miles to ask why “despite all the green promises, we’re using more fossil fuels than ever before”.

London-based Richard Bilton travelled to Europe, the Middle East and the United States for an episode of BBC One’s Panorama in which he claimed “the world is saying one thing and doing another” on climate change.

Analysis by The Telegraph suggests that he could have racked up around 20,000 air miles, taking flights to Dubai, Alaska, California and Berlin for the programme, which was aired on Nov 13.

At the most conservative estimate, this would have produced around 5.4 tonnes of CO2, more than the average person produces in a year and the equivalent to driving an average car for 18 months.

The air miles estimates are based on one scenario, which involved Mr Bilton taking return flights from Berlin and Dubai back to London, and going from the UK to California and then onto Alaska before returning across the Atlantic.

The BBC would not say which routes Mr Bilton took.

The BBC, which has pledged to reduce its operational greenhouse gas emissions by 46 per cent by 2030, said all the flights were in economy class and were “required” for “on-the-ground reporting”.

But critics have pointed out that the corporation has local teams of reporters in each location, meaning the “one-man jolly” was “rank hypocrisy”.

In the Panorama episode entitled Why Are We Still Searching for Fossil Fuels?, Mr Bilton took aim at how the world’s energy companies are planning to drill for more oil and gas, and interviewed academics who demanded a faster path to net zero in order to keep global warming to 1.5C.

He told viewers ominously: “2023 is expected to be the hottest year on record – the devastation of climate change will be hard to stop if we remain reliant on fossil fuels.”

Mr Bilton added: “Figures seen by Panorama paint a pretty grim picture of the world – everywhere, Middle East, US, UK – we’re getting more and more carbon out of the ground instead of leaving it.”

Dame Andrea Jenkyns, the Conservative MP for Morley and Outwood, said: “If the BBC feels it necessary to lecture the public about fossil fuels, they should practise what they preach first.

“BBC Panorama ought to do an episode on itself, namely how its reporter is globe-trotting on flights at the licence-fee-payers’ expense.

“To add to the rank hypocrisy, the BBC could easily have used its local teams of reporters in each country rather than sending one man on a jolly.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/18/bbc-hypocrisy-row-air-miles-emissions/

Strangely there does not seem to be any mention of China and India in Mr Bilton’s whingeing!