The broadcasting regulator Ofcom will not be opening an investigation into GB News after one of its guests spread misinformation about climate action, DeSmog can reveal.

Appearing on the Neil Oliver Show on 14 April, journalist Jasmine Birtles made a series of outlandish claims about climate action leading to mass deaths. She claimed a “depopulation agenda” exists that seeks to “remove seven and a half billion people from the world”.

She added that “one of the co-founders of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore” has claimed that if we reach net zero emissions by 2050 “half of the population of the world will die”. 

These comments, originally made by Moore and echoed by Birtles, have “absolutely no basis in fact”, according to Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research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.  

The comments were “an attempt at scaremongering”, he said. “The promotion of false allegations that net zero is being used for genocide is a clear breach of the Broadcasting Code”.

Ofcom has decided against an investigation, despite several apparent breaches of the Broadcasting Code, which the regulator enforces. 

Rule 5.7 of the code states that, “Views and facts must not be misrepresented”, while rule 5.9 states that “alternative viewpoints must be adequately represented either in the programme, or in a series of programmes taken as a whole”.

The views expressed by Birtles were not corrected by the host Neil Oliver, nor did he or any other guest offer a different viewpoint. Oliver echoed Birtles’s views, stating that the broader climate “agenda” feels “anti-human… It feels that people are being put into second place or third place”.

Birtles told DeSmog that: “Science persuades by data and evidence and it’s important that we allow freedom of speech and freedom of opinion in discussing scientific themes. As we have seen, moment by moment in the last few years, there is no such thing as ’settled’ science, in any area. Science is constantly moving and changing and it is only able to progress if healthy debate between scientists is allowed.

“This is why I support some of the work that GB News does in allowing dissenting voices a platform – something that is so lacking in most mainstream outlets.”

A number of climate consensus studies conducted between 2004 and 2015 found that between 90 percent and 100 percent of experts agree that humans are responsible for climate change. A study published in 2021, which reviewed over 3,000 scientific papers, found that over 99 percent of climate science literature says that global warming is caused by human activity.

The World Health Organisation has stated that, between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year from undernutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress.

Birtles was also wrong to state that Moore co-founded Greenpeace. The campaign group has been forced to issue statements in the past distancing itself from Moore and his views, claiming that he “often misrepresents himself in the media as an environmental ‘expert’ or even an ‘environmentalist,’ while offering anti-environmental opinions on a wide range of issues”.

However, Ofcom has confirmed that it will not be investigating GB News over this segment. The regulator received dozens of complaints but its website states that the Neil Oliver show on 14 April “did not raise issues warranting investigation.”

Ofcom told DeSmog that the views expressed on the show “were clearly presented as a personal opinion, consistent with the right to freedom of expression.”

Richard Wilson, director of the campaign group Stop Funding Heat, said: “Ofcom’s failure to act will inevitably raise new doubts about its ability to do its job without fear or favour, and add to concerns that it is giving GB News a free pass to air conspiracy theories.

“If Ofcom is unable to hold GB News to account over something as blatant as this, what hope can the British public have that it will do its job effectively in the run-up to the general election?”

As DeSmog has previously reported, GB News has provided a prominent platform for anti-climate perspectives since it launched in June 2021. One in three GB News presenters spread climate science denial on air in 2022, while more than half attacked climate action.

GB News was approached for comment. 

GB News and Ofcom

GB News has been the subject of more than 50 Ofcom investigations since 2021, resulting in 11 breaches of the Broadcasting Code.

In March, the regulator found that GB News had breached the code on five occasions for using politicians as newsreaders. Programmes hosted by Conservative MPs Jacob Rees-Mogg, Esther McVey, and Phillip Davies were all found to have broken the rules. Politicians are allowed to host “current affairs” programmes, which typically involve analysis rather than reporting, but are not supposed to be used as news presenters. 

However, campaigners have criticised the blurred boundaries between current affairs and news content, and Ofcom’s often lenient attitude towards GB News. 

For example, Ofcom ruled in February that Neil Oliver had not broken the Broadcasting Code after suggesting that COVID vaccines were causing “turbo cancer”. 

Ofcom also announced in April that politicians would still be able to act as presenters on the platform during a general election period. In addition to Tory MPs, several GB News presenters are representatives of the hard-right party Reform UK. They include the party’s president-owner Nigel Farage, leader Richard Tice, and sole MP Lee Anderson. Reform has campaigned against the UK’s legally binding 2050 net zero target, and says that it wants to hold a referendum on the subject. 

GB News co-founder and former chair Andrew Neil has called on Ofcom to be stricter with the broadcaster. Neil told the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee in April that he had been “surprised how tolerant” Ofcom had been towards GB News. 

He added: “I am surprised that any regulator would allow politicians sitting in the Houses of Parliament to present political TV programmes… on these areas Ofcom needs to find a backbone, and quick.”

Fossil Fuel Ties

A number of GB News presenters have been vocal about their support for policies that would maintain and extend the UK’s reliance on oil and gas. 

On 9 December 2022, host Mark Dolan praised West Cumbria Mining’s plan to open a new coal mine in Cumbria. He said the UK should “drill, baby, drill” for coal, oil and gas, adding: “I think the push for net zero here is another element of liberal progressivism which is infecting the West.”

As revealed by DeSmog, the hedge fund run by GB News co-owner Paul Marshall had £1.8 billion invested in fossil fuel companies as of June 2023. Marshall Wace had shares in Chevron, Shell, Equinor, and 109 other fossil fuel companies. 

Marshall invested £10 million in GB News when it first launched two years ago and, in August 2022, joined the Dubai-based investment firm Legatum Group in a £60 million capital injection and buyout of GB News’s other major investor, Discovery. 

Marshall is now set to step back from the GB News board in order to concentrate on a buyout of the right-wing newspaper The Telegraph. He will be replaced by Conservative peer Lord Theodore Agnew, who has at least £100,000 of shares in the Norwegian oil and gas giant Equinor. 

GB News reported losses of £42 million in the year to May 2023, and £76 million since its launch in 2021. It recently announced 40 redundancies, which is estimated to be a 14 percent cut in its headcount.