March 17, 2010

expert reaction to ASA ruling on climate change adverts

The Advertising Standards Authority has ruled that government television commercials on climate change expressed too much certainty in the evidence for human-induced climate change.

Prof Mark Maslin, Director of the UCL Environment Institute, said:

“There is a fine line between raising awareness about the potential serious threat from climate change and simply frightening people. The public deserve a better communication strategy from the government which shows them the scientific evidence for climate change and the different options we have to deal with it.

“As the science does not drive policy, so people and politicians must weigh different competing issues – of which climate change is just one. So I believe using popular nursery rhymes is too simplistic a communication tool for the complex and challenging issue of climate change, with which the public needs to engage.”

Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science, said:

“It is important that the public realise that on eight of the nine points on which the Government adverts were challenged, the Advertising Standards Agency found that they did not breach its code. However, on one, the ASA ruled that the Government newspaper advertisements had expressed too much certainty in asserting that ‘extreme weather events such as storms, floods and heatwaves and storms will become more frequent and intense’ in the UK as a result of climate change.

“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded in its most recent report that there was a greater than 90 per cent chance that heavy rainfall and heatwaves would occur more frequently over most land areas globally during this century, based on current trends as a result of climate change. However, it is more difficult to make specific predictions about the occurrence of extreme weather events in small geographical regions of the world, such as the UK.

“This does not mean that extreme events in the UK will not increase in frequency and severity, only that our ability to estimate future changes is limited at present. So-called ‘sceptics’, who promote complacency and denial about the causes and consequences of climate change, will no doubt use this ASA ruling as a propaganda tool in an attempt to mislead the public. But the public should be sceptical of anybody who uses this ruling to claim that there will be no change to extreme weather events in the UK if greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere carry on rising.”