Under the banner of Our Planet Now, the BBC will bring together its UK and global services to deliver unrivalled and comprehensive coverage of COP26, as well as a wide range of programming throughout the autumn and winter exploring, in depth, the topics of environmental sustainability and the world’s changing climate.
Highlights include:
The BBC will bring together its television services in the UK and worldwide for a special Global Climate Debate on the opening day of the conference (1 November), and broadcast from BBC Scotland’s headquarters at Pacific Quay. The programme will feature global political figures and a young audience joining the debate live from around the world.
For the first time, the BBC’s 45 local and nations radio services across the UK will join forces with BBC World Service and with BBC international charity BBC Media Action for a global Climate Voices Festival - giving voice to the hopes and concerns of young people about the environment and the forthcoming summit.
Blue Peter will be announcing the winner of its COP26 Our Planet Now competition on the show on Thursday 28 October. The winner’s creative writing will be transformed into an animation by the award winning Aardman Studios, with a soundtrack performed and recorded by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, to premiere in front of world leaders at the conference.
Tim Davie, BBC Director-General, says: “This summit will be a hugely significant moment in the global response to climate change. The BBC’s ambitious plans will engage all audiences through the key moments, issues and debates.”
Charlotte Moore, BBC Chief Content Officer, says: “November’s conference provides an opportunity for the BBC to take our commitment to exploring the environment and the challenges facing our planet to the next level.
“With the UK hosting the summit, the range of content and the breadth of platforms the BBC can provide means we’re able to illuminate the debate like never before - and help audiences, at home and around the world, understand what’s at stake, the potential for solutions, and how they too can make a difference.”
As part of the BBC’s coverage, the One Show and Morning Live will be presented from Glasgow across the whole first week of the conference, with BBC Two’s Newsnight also being hosted live from the BBC Scotland HQ.
On the eve of the conference, just before the world’s attention turns to Glasgow as delegates gather, the BBC will host in Glasgow the Global premiere for The Green Planet, BBC Studios’ Natural History Unit’s latest six-part series narrated by Sir David Attenborough.
Throughout the conference BBC News and the BBC World Service will provide an extensive news offering, delivering content across digital, television, radio and online, including programmes - such as Today, Newshour and The Andrew Marr Show - broadcasting live from Glasgow.
The BBC is planning a wide range of programming both before and after the conference under the Our Planet Now banner, including:
A five-part landmark documentary series, The Earthshot Prize: Repairing Our Planet, led by Prince William, founder of the Earthshot Prize, and Sir David Attenborough;
The powerful drama, The Trick, which tells the real life story of the Climategate affair from 2009;
A new consumer show, Shop Well To Save the Planet?;
The launch of ambitious BBC Bitesize initiative, The Regenerators, to inspire 5-16 year olds across the UK to lead a greener lifestyle and thrive in a more sustainable world;
And BBC Radio 3 presents The Tempest, a new environmentally-inflected version of Shakespeare’s play to coincide with COP26.
Notes to editor
Our Planet Now
Our Planet Now is the BBC’s ongoing commitment to programming which explicitly explores the environment and the challenges facing the natural world. Further information can be found on the BBC’s dedicated Our Planet Now website and there are also Our Planet Now collections on BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds.
Sustainability at the BBC
In addition to programming, the BBC is also stepping up its commitment to becoming more sustainable and reducing its environmental impact. At the start of the year the BBC announced plans to reach a target of Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions for its direct operations by 2030. The BBC will ensure its emissions targets for 2030 are officially validated by the Science Based Targets Initiative. Further details will be announced in due course.
COP26 Climate Conference coverage
BBC News and Current Affairs
Reporting and analysis of the COP26 Conference will be led by the BBC’s first ever Climate Editor, Justin Rowlatt, and Science Editor, David Shukman, with BBC News correspondents such as West Africa Correspondent Mayeni Jones, South Asia Correspondent Rajini Vaidyanathan, and Australia Correspondent Shaimaa Khalil reporting from around the world, assessing how initiatives might be received in those countries which are most vulnerable to climate change, and those economies who rely on polluting industries.
The BBC will host an ambitious, high-level Global Climate Debate on Monday 1 November, the opening day of the climate summit. Four leading global political figures will come together to take questions from young people in the studio and around the world on the challenges presented by climate change, and the hopes for global solutions to be achieved at the COP climate change meeting.
Reporter Daniel Rosney will be taking BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat on a sustainable road trip across the UK, to meet Britain’s young people at the forefront of the climate crisis, for a special BBC iPlayer documentary to air later this year.
Andrew Marr will be presenting his flagship political programme on BBC One, live from Glasgow on the eve of the conference, and Today and Newsnight will also broadcast from the city during the opening week.
Chief Political Correspondent Adam Fleming will be presenting Newscast, his chart-topping podcast, from COP26, providing listeners with an essential guide, breaking news stories and interviewing some of the world leaders at the conference.
The BBC’s flagship technology show, Click is heading to Glasgow for a unique interactive production, Click LIVE At COP26, which will dissect the roles innovation and technology can play in helping solve the world’s biggest problems.
Blue Peter: Our Planet Now Competition
The winner of the Blue Peter’s COP26 Our Planet Now competition will have their creative writing transformed into an animation by the award winning Aardman Studios, with a soundtrack performed and recorded by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, to premiere in front of world leaders at COP26. This money-can’t-buy prize will also see the lucky winner attend the conference to see their winning work play out on the world stage and their text preserved in perpetuity by the British Library.
In 2021, more than 65,000 kids in the UK have earnt their Green badge by pledging to make positive changes to live in a more environmentally friendly way to save carbon, reduce plastic pollution and boost biodiversity.
Climate Voices Festival
On the eve of COP26, the BBC’s 45 local and nations radio services across the UK will join forces with BBC World Service and international BBC Charity, Media Action, for a global Climate Voices Festival, capturing the thoughts and feelings of 5-24 year olds and finding out what their hopes and fears are about the direction that our climate and the world could take. This will culminate in a live global discussion across participating networks, bringing together young people from around the world.
BBC Young Reporter: Climate Stories
In July, the BBC launched a search for talented young storytellers from across the UK to apply for an exciting new training opportunity as part of the popular Young Reporter programme. The 22 successful applicants have just been announced. As well as securing training from BBC journalists they will be on hand to provide support and guidance with the production of original stories about sustainability and climate change. These reports will form part of the BBC’s coverage of COP26.
BBC Education: The Regenerators
BBC Education will launch an ambitious initiative, The Regenerators, to inspire 5-16 year olds across the UK to lead a greener lifestyle and thrive in a more sustainable world. It will take a uniquely holistic approach to sustainability for young people embracing science, the natural world, practical action, developing new skills and influencing others. Whether at home or school, The Regenerators will equip children and teenagers with the knowledge and tools to understand the issues associated with climate change and how our actions can make a real difference. The BBC Bitesize initiative will be divided in to three complementary strands, Education, Action and Celebration, each bringing together the best of the BBC to reach young audiences.
COP26: Television & iPlayer
During the first week of the conference, The One Show will broadcast live from Glasgow, with a focus on how we can all play a part in tackling climate change, providing context on the week’s events and attendees in a clear, relatable way. Meanwhile BBC Daytime’s Morning Livewill also cover events across the week, providing plenty of practical tips and advice on how each of us can more proactively work together to protect the planet as well as updates on what’s happening in Glasgow. On iPlayer, the Our Planet Now collection will bring together must-watch BBC shows about the environment and the challenges facing the planet.
BBC Scotland
BBC Scotland’s news teams will bring comprehensive coverage of the conference across radio, television and online platforms. Ahead of the conference a BBC Scotland News special Our Planet Now - Scotland Climate Change Special nextweekbroadcasts tonight (Thursday 30 September), taking a look at how Scotland’s people, innovators and experts are making an impact in tackling the world’s climate emergency.
A Debate Night special will also discuss the big questions that affect Scotland with a worldwide climate conference on its doorstep.
Launched earlier this year, Radio Scotland’s Climate Tales writing competition is designed to encourage Scotland’s young people to express their hopes, fears, aspirations and opinions around the climate change challenge facing the world, with the competition final to be broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland and the BBC Scotland channel.
In Breaking The News: Cop26 Special, Des Clarke and his guests attempt to solve the world’s climate problems that farmer Jim Smith insists ‘Is no aw the coos’ fault!’ The panel will take a wry look at the conference itself; the issues raised, the keynote speeches - and more importantly how the world’s leaders have handled Glasgow in November.
In education, Bitesize Scotland has produced a new series on sustainability for primary and secondary school learners. These 27 learner guides feature colourful animations that cover topics such as saving energy, having a positive impact on the environment, and using water, plastics, metals and other resources more sustainably. For secondary school learners, 17 new articles look at the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, with videos that explore the issues from both global and Scottish perspectives. These are all part of an expanding body of content supporting Learning for Sustainability across Scotland’s curriculum.
BBC ALBA and BBC Radio nan Gaidheal will also cover the climate conference with a range of progamming which will aim to humanise and localise the global climate change debate as well covering the high-level political decisions made during the conference.
Eorpa returns with an extended edition. The team will be speaking to ordinary people to find out what issues are on their mind regarding the environment and how progress can begin to be made.
Uaine is a special series for CBBC ALBA exploring environmental issues in a series of 8x6 minute programmes.
BBC Radio Nan Gaidheal will offer regular coverage through its scheduled news programmes and daily topical programmes. In addition a raft of special programming is planned where young people will be invited to become guest editors of selected programming across a number of different genres, reflecting their perspective on climate change.
BBC Wales
A brand new natural history series Wonders of the Celtic Deep - voiced by Dame Siân Phillips - forms part of BBC Wales’ plan for COP26. There will also be extensive content across all services - Wales Live will come from the conference, and BBC Radio Wales and BBC Radio Cymru will feature the latest news from the summit - focusing on issues through a Wales based lens.
For BBC Radio Wales Breakfast Tom Phipps will travel from Cardiff to COP26 in Glasgow by electric car, picking up environmental stories along the way, from coastal erosion to the green economy. Comedian Mike Bubbins also sets out on a journey by electric car for the documentary Our Electric Roads which explores how Wales will finally consign petrol and diesel engines to the past. And Carys Eleri asks how as a nation we can move Beyond Recycling to focus more on reducing and re-using.
Radio Cymru has a series of programmes including a climate themed edition of panel show Hawl i Holi, and specially commissioned drama series Cofiwch Rhyl. The early morning nature show, Galwad Cynnar, takes over the evenings with Galwad at 6pm each night during the second week of the conference.
The BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales will surface daily digital content across all their social media including behind the scenes tours of how they meet sustainable outcomes, interviews with players about cycle to work schemes and films showcasing commissioned community compositions to raise awareness of climate change in Wales. And BBC Education and BBC Sesh will also mark the event.
BBC Northern Ireland
In Northern Ireland, BBC News NI will feature reports from Environment Correspondent, Louise Cullen live from Glasgow across local TV and radio news and current affairs programmes.
BBC Radio Ulster will reflect the big issues of the conference with packages and special programmes. ATL Introducing will focus on the local/global music touring industry and its effect and efforts to reduce its carbon footprint, including digital technologies such as hologram performances. Wild North and Warming will explore the threat from climate change and ever decreasing bio-diversity and its potential effect on Northern Ireland. Gardeners’ Corner and Farming Matters will look at the horticultural/agricultural effects of climate change and the measures being considered at the conference.
Sunday Sequence will be looking at how we reached this point, what measures need to be taken and the ethical and material costs and consequences and throughout the two weeks Thought for the Day will reflect the issues raised at the conference.
On BBC Radio Foyle The Breakfast Show will have updates throughout the conference and the Mark Patterson Show will run a series called Threatened Places - a walk and talk tour with guests from places across the North West that could be threatened by climate change, from rail routes to football pitches.
COP26: Radio & Sounds
BBC Radio 1
Radio 1’s Minute Of Me will be handing over the mic to young people across the UK and around the world, giving them the opportunity to speak about their planet to an audience of millions on the UK’s biggest youth radio station. The initiative launched for the first time in 2020, offering listeners the chance to have their voices heard and share what it is that makes them who they are as the nation listens. This time, Minute of Me will return with an environmental focus: from Friday 28 October – Sunday 7 November, young people will have 60 seconds to talk about the planet we call home, and any hopes, dreams or aspirations they hold for its future. The station will be putting a call out for anyone with a story to tell, whether it be about a project they’ve worked on, how they’ve been inspired by the work of young activists like Greta Thunberg, or simply sharing their own thoughts and feelings about climate change.
In addition, Radio 1’s Life Hacks will broadcast two environmental specials: a COP26 special unravelling what exactly a climate change conference entails; while a Life Hacks Minute of Me special will revisit some of the stories from across the week coming out of Glasgow.
BBC Radio 2
Radio 2 Big Bee Challenge
Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine show will be engaging with the conference to bring the key topics to listeners. Their climate change ‘focus group’ will bring together listeners from every decade, aged 9 to 99, on 1st Nov and then feature them throughout the fortnight. This comes on the back of Radio 2’s Big Bee Challenge over the summer, which saw a competition for younger listeners aged 6-12 years to design a bee-friendly garden. The winning design was built at an NHS Trust site in Doncaster. Radio 2 also encouraged everyone to do one thing to help the bees wherever they live during Big Bee Challenge Weekend.
BBC Radio 3
Music Matters will be marking COP26 live on Saturday 6 November, examining the environmental impact of classical music and how listeners and musicians are changing the way they work.
On the same day, a special studio concert edition of New Music Show recorded from Glasgow will feature music responding to environmental and climate change, composed and performed by soprano Laura Bowler, and electronic composer Annie Mahtani.
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4’s environment programme, Costing the Earth, will set out the issues that make the summit such a vital moment with Tom Heap presenting a show from Glasgow on 2 November and reporting on the latest progress on 9 November. With the airtime to explore the issues in-depth and to meet some of the most influential and interesting delegates and campaigners, Costing the Earth will be an essential guide to COP26
BBC World Service
In October, World Questions: Climate Change looks at the environment, with a special programme from Australia. The BBC’s Shaimaa Khalil will present the programme, which will look ahead to the COP climate change conference. A panel of politicians and campaigners will discuss the world’s most pressing issues, from the perspective of the Southern Hemisphere. Podcast The Climate Question will do a COP special and, when the dust settles at the end of the conference, World Questions will revisit the topic, exploring What the World Made of COP26.
Our Planet Now: content this autumn and winter
Life at 50°C
Life at 50°Cis running across BBC outlets and digital platforms. The beautifully filmed series from BBC World Service presents the reality of climate change through stories of people around the world and explores how communities living in cities and rural areas have had to adapt their lives to cope with extreme heat. It has been produced by BBC News Arabic with support from BBC News Mundo, BBC News Urdu, BBC News Hindi and the BBC’s other Indian language services.
Filmed in Nigeria, Pakistan, Australia, Mexico, India, Mauritania, Iraq, the Gulf states, and Canada, highlights include a one-hour documentary on BBC Two for This World duringCOP26, a two-part documentary on BBC News Arabic and BBC News Persian, four half-hour programmes on BBC News Channel and BBC World News, and a collection of ambitious digital films on BBC iPlayer and BBC News YouTube channels.
Television & iPlayer
The Earthshot Prize: Repairing Our Planet
Earthshot
The Earthshot Prize: Repairing Our Planet is a beautiful and inspiring five-part landmark documentary series that will finally give us reason to hope for a brighter future on Planet Earth. Led by Prince William, founder of the Earthshot Prize, and Sir David Attenborough, and featuring other members of the Earthshot Prize Council including singer Shakira and footballer Dani Alves, the series looks past the problems we face and onto the solutions that promise to deliver us all a sustainable world in which both nature and humanity can thrive.
The first-ever Earthshot Prize awards ceremony will take place on 17 October at Alexandra Palace in London. It will air on BBC One and BBC iPlayer. A three part podcast series, Costing the Earth: Earthshot, for Radio Four and BBC Sounds will complement the series and event.
The Green Planet
Green Planet
Plants live secret, unseen lives. But in their hidden world and on their timescale, they are as aggressive, competitive and dramatic as animals, locked in desperate battles for food, for light, to reproduce and to scatter their young. From the NHU and Sir David Attenborough, the series employs the latest technologies and showcases over two decades of new discoveries. The Green Planet will reveal this strange and wonderful world like never before. In the series, David will travel across the globe, from the USA to Costa Rica, Croatia to northern Europe. From deserts to water worlds, from tropical forests to the frozen north, David finds new stories and brings a fresh understanding of how plants live their lives. He will meet the largest living things that have ever existed; trees that care for each other; plants that hunt animals and a plant with most vicious defences in the world. Twenty six years after Private Life of Plants aired on BBC One, we see how science and technologies have advanced, and how our understanding of the ways in which plants behave and interact has evolved.
The series is also a great passion project for Sir David Attenborough. On air in early 2022, it transmits at a critical moment, as our green world stands on the brink of collapse. It is therefore vital that we begin to understand and appreciate that central part it plays in making our world habitable for us. The Green Planet will reveal this strange and wonderful world like never before and will be the first immersive portrayal of an unseen, inter-connected world.
The Wild Gardener
The Wild Gardener (w/t) is a brand new two part programme presented by Colin Stafford-Johnson that will show how anyone can turn a piece of land into a wildlife haven. With our natural world under siege, wildlife cameraman Colin Stafford-Johnson wants to help turn thousands of years of garden obsession on its head. In the face of wildlife armageddon, Colin believes if you have a garden, you can make a difference! After decades of filming the earth’s dwindling wildlife, Colin returns home to embark on a very personal journey of garden redemption. He has just inherited his boyhood country garden in Ireland and wants to rip it up and turn it into a wildlife wonderland. Getting down and dirty, he’ll move mountains, dig ponds, clear scrub and try to figure out how to lure the wild creatures back.
The Trick
The Trick tells the story of world-renowned Professor Philip Jones, Director of Climate Research at the University of East Anglia, who back in 2009 found himself at the eye of an international media storm and the victim of cyberterrorism.With time running out against an unseen enemy, The Trick looks at the potentially devastating consequences to humanity from climate change denial; how a media storm undermined public confidence in the science and how the concept of ‘truth’ took a back seat causing us to lose a decade of action. The film also charts the unjustified persecution of Phil Jones, his wife Ruth’s fierce support of her husband and the fight for the ultimate exoneration of himself and the science.
Shop Well To Save The Planet?
Shop Well To Save The Planet
This new three part series sees the worlds of Shop Well For Less? and Eat Well For Less? combine for the first time, as Chris Bavin, Jordan Banjo, Joanna Page and Melanie Sykes help families across the UK find out if they can shop better for the planet without spending a fortune. Each episode will have a family at its heart; some may question whether it’s possible to be more sustainable on a budget, others may want to make changes but don’t know where to start. All our families will try and test a variety of eco/sustainable versions of the products they currently buy. But will they be as good and are they worth the money? After putting the products through their paces will our families want to change their shopping habits and shop well for the planet?
Nature and Us: A History through Art
In this ambitious new BBC Four series, art historian James Fox tells the story of our ever-changing relationship with nature through the lens of some of the world’s most extraordinary artworks. With the threat of climate change ever present, James argues that art can offer powerful evidence of human attitudes to the natural world throughout our history – from prehistoric cave art, to Assyrian sculptures, Zen gardens and romantic painting. Each tells us not only what we have thought about nature but what we have felt about it too. Tracing a unique journey through history, culture and nature, James shows how the art of the past can perhaps offer lessons for our future on this planet.
Countryfile Plant Britain
Countryfile Plant Britain is returning with an autumn special to update viewers on their big, ambitious two year project to get everyone planting to combat climate change and to help wildlife and our own well-being. Launched in November 2020, the project has an initial goal of planting 750,000 trees – one for every UK primary school starter in 2020 – with an additional seasonal focus on creating community gardens and planting wildflowers.
Autumnwatch
The show returns this October for another series celebrating a season of change. As always, the series will tackle the environmental issues facing the world, both on and off screen. Broadcast live from Norfolk, the Isle of Mull and Castle Espie, it will include a variety of stories demonstrating the impact of climate change across the UK. The production team actively promote sustainable energy as best practice and the Watches were the world’s first Hydrogen powered outside broadcast.
BBC Panorama Special (w/t)
BBC Climate Editor Justin Rowlatt presents this one-hour special for BBC Panorama. This year has seen record-breaking high temperatures in the Pacific Northwest and Canada, floods in Germany that swept away entire villages, a plague of mice in Australia’s New South Wales and dust storms from China sweeping thousands of miles to South Korea. Using compelling new footage of extreme weather events, and interviews with those who filmed them, Panorama reveals the human stories behind the wildfires, floods and droughts that have devastated lives across the world in 2021.
The Lakes with Simon Reeve
In a new, three-part series for BBC Two this autumn, Simon Reeve explores the idyllic Lake District and its vast surrounding county of Cumbria. Visited by 20 million people each year, the Lakes hold a unique place in British life. 40,000 people live within the park’s borders, most of them earning a living from tourism, hospitality, and farming. Simon discovers that what feels like a timeless and serene landscape is also fascinatingly complex, where environmental issues like energy and climate sit alongside social issues such as inequality and post-industrial decline. Simon meets the locals and visits the lesser-known parts of the county, to examine some of the crucial matters at the heart of Cumbria and its future.
Children’s
Show Me The Honey
Starting on 30 September, Show Me the Honey! follows wanna-be beekeepers as they learn everything there is to know about caring for a hive of 50,000 pollinators. With BAFTA-winning presenter and bee enthusiast, Maddie Moate, at the helm, the CBBC series follows kids from four families from across the UK on their beekeeping, honey-making adventure. They won’t have to go it alone though – as well as Maddie they’ll have beekeeping expert, Curtis Thompson, on standby to give advice and lend a hand throughout the process.
BBC Scotland
Black, Black Oil
Across factual, there will be a number of documentaries including Black Black Oil, which will ask if the era of North Sea Oil is over. North Sea oil has been an invisible machine powering the UK for decades. It now faces an uncertain future as activists and investors demand change. This 1x60 film draws on voices of young activists, oil company executives, economists and pension fund managers to explore the vital questions that affect all our lives. This documentary looks at how the drama of global climate action is playing out in the fight over North Sea oil. It reveals the invisible infrastructure of oil from the offshore rigs and the buried pipelines to its flow through the stock markets of London and explores the complexity of the challenge as the North Sea industry struggles to meet the need to cut carbon emissions whilst oil workers see their livelihoods under threat and investors seek to protect their assets. Meanwhile a younger generation of climate activists are motivated by the signs of impending chaos, and the very real threat of global sea level rises. Black Black Oil explores the complexities of transitioning away from oil and gas as a society and considers how quickly can we do it?
The Hermit of Treig
Taking a look at an alternative way of live, Hermit Ken is a 1x60 documentary for BBC Scotland set in the remote Scottish mountains far from electricity and phone signals. After 40 years of living in solitude, 73 year old Ken Smith welcomes us into his world and challenges our perceptions of what a hermit is. Director Lizzie Mackenzie tells Ken’s story as he faces aging and battling the medical system. He must face whether he will be able to live out his last years in the wilderness he calls home.
Beechgrove: Mucking In
The Beechgrove team return with a climate themed special. Beechgrove: Mucking In on BBC One Scotland is the culmination of Beechgrove’s encouragement of all things green this year. It’s a natural extension to what Beechgrove already does and aims to show ways that communities can embrace environmentally sustainable practices in their homes and communal green spaces. This special edition will highlight the benefits of maintaining habitats for wildlife, encouraging sustainability, helping ecosystems to thrive and recycling and repurposing everyday items in the garden. Working with local people at the Wimpy Park Community Group in Alloa, the Beechgrove team is aiming to inspire groups across the country to do their bit for the environment.
My Kind of Town
My Kind of Town returns for a new series on BBC Scotland and kicks off with a special episode in the run up to COP 26. Ian Hamilton and guide dog Major are heading to Cumnock in East Ayrshire. Once a thriving mining town, Cumnock now has an ambition to become Scotland’s first green town by running its own hi-tech renewable energy system and making use of digital and smart technologies. Digging below the surface of these ambitious plans for the town, Ian meets the locals to see what they think about it all and also to find out what smaller steps they are taking to move towards a greener world. Cumnock provided coal to power the country for generations; now the town is hoping to transform its future.
Growing Up Green
One-off documentary Growing up Green tells the story of what it’s like to be raised at the Findhorn Foundation, a community dedicated to sustainability based on North East Scotland’s remote Moray coast. Told from the perspective of three young people who grew up in the community, the film explores how the ideals of the Foundation helped inform their opinions and lifestyle choices as adults. The documentary offers a unique perspective through the eyes of a generation raised in families where environmental protection is a way of life.
Back From The Brink
This 50-minute programme is a pan-European natural history production for the BBC Scotland channel, celebrating the hard work, dedication and commitment of conservationists across Europe who are striving to understand, and save European species from extinction.
Changing Landscapes: A Story Of Scotland
Scotland has always been intensely proud of its landscape. But at the same time, Scotland has always done its landscape, and the natural world, grave harm. Changing Landscapes meditates upon the care and carelessness we’ve brought to bear on the environment. For this 60 minute film, we’re diving deep into Scotland’s film and video archives – moving images from the last hundred years – to tell the story of this contradiction. We will hear the words of poets, ecologists, travellers, read for us by some of Scotland’s most famous voices, but we’ll also hear ordinary folk from our archival store – people whose relationship with land and nature will be as varied as folk always are.Driving the film will be music. BBC Scotland’s Scottish Symphony Orchestra will perform a carefully selected soundtrack of work by Scottish composers old and new, featuring pieces by one of Scotland’s oldest living composers, Thea Musgrave, and one of its youngest, Jay Capperauld. We’ll hear from some of the finest of Scotland’s folk musicians – and from some of our most successful younger acts, who will remind us that Scotland’s relationship with nature has been – in many ways – like a bad romance.
The Reluctant Environmentalist
There’s also a lighter look at the climate change challenge. Presenter Zara Hill is setting herself tasks to see if she can reduce her environmental footprint. The results of her entertaining efforts will then come under the spotlight in front of a studio audience in this half hour programme titled The Reluctant Environmentalist. Clips of Zara’s endeavours will feature on The Social too.
Radio & Sounds
BBC Radio 3
The Tempest
Drama on 3 presents a new environmentally-inflected version of Shakespeare’s play to coincide with COP26. A Scottish cast is headed by Ian McDiarmid as Prospero. This new production places the play within the context of our current global climate challenges and draws out the play’s environmental themes. The Tempest shows how Shakespeare explores the relationship between humanity, the environment and our connection with nature.
The Essay: Sounds of Isolation
Renowned sound recordist Chris Watson recalls five quests to the South Pole, Skellig Michael, Finland, Northumberland and Iceland in search of isolation and wild sounds.
The Green Thinking podcasts
A partnership between BBC Radio 3 and UKRI’s Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) as part of the Arts & Ideas podcast series - culminate in November. Presented by New Generation Thinkers Eleanor Barraclough and Des Fitzgerald, the podcasts explore the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling climate change.
BBC Radio 4
Costing The Earth: Earthshot
While international meetings to discuss climate change and polices that affect the world can seem rather distant to us as individuals, on a local level there are many exciting and creative initiatives all over the world where people are developing practical solutions to the environmental problems they see. The Earthshot prize highlights many of these projects, ideas and initiatives which have the potential to make a difference locally and globally. Taking inspiration from President John F. Kennedy’s Moonshot which united millions of people around an organising goal to put man on the moon, The Earthshot Prize aims to incentivise change and help repair the planet by identifying evidence-based solutions to the world’s biggest environmental problems. Launched by Prince William and the Royal Foundation, every year for the next ten years the global environmental prize will award five one million-pound prizes to those who make the most progress towards achieving the five ‘Earthshots’. In this three part series, Chhavi Sachdev looks at the practical work of the prize nominees, and profiles their solutions on a range of subjects; protecting nature, cleaning the air, ocean revival, climate change and waste.
The series will also be broadcast on BBC World Service and is a complement to the BBC One series. The Earthshot Prize: Repairing Our Planet.
The Black and Green
A documentary exploring the sometimes uneasy relationship between Black and green politics from the late 1960s to the present and the wariness that exists today between new movements such as Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion (XR). Some Black activists and writers have criticised XR as decidedly white, idealistic and middle-class. Some environmentalists, meanwhile, have dismissed what they’ve called ‘identity’ politics as too parochial in the face of a looming global climate disaster.
39 Ways To Save The Planet
BBC Radio 4, in partnership with the Royal Geographical Society, presents 39 ideas to relieve the stress that climate change is exerting on the planet. In this fourth and final series, presenter Tom Heap reveals real-world solutions to climate change that are happening right now.
Glasgow: Our Last Best Hope?
Douglas Alexander's essential guide to COP26 from his home city of Glasgow. Douglas asks leading voices what hope there is of success and meets Glaswegians playing their part in the city's transition to net zero. Douglas Alexander witnessed failure first hand as part of the British Ministerial delegation to COP in Copenhagen in 2009. Now the biggest summit in the world is coming to his home city of Glasgow, Douglas asks leading international figures including John Kerry, Christiana Figueres, Mark Carney and Alok Sharma what it will take to make a success of COP26.
Plastic: The Biography
The remarkable story of how plastic became such a major player in the worlds of industry, medicine and design (among many others) before becoming persona-non-grata thanks to its intimate involvement in our current ecological plight, is one of the great tales of the last century. Laura Barton sets out to create a biography of this most multi-faceted and fluid titan of the manufacturing world, using the rich archive from TV, radio, advertising and film - as well as fresh interviews with contemporary experts. Plastic’s story is one of incredible power, hubris and more recently disparagement, but it is also endlessly complex and morally ambiguous; while plastic’s negative impact on our environment is inescapable, Laura will set out to describe how it has also revolutionised the way we live our lives in any number of invaluable ways.
Could I Regenerate My Farm to Save The Planet?
According to soil scientists, within 50 years we will not only suffer serious damage to public health due to a degraded food supply lacking trace minerals, but we may also no longer have enough arable topsoil to feed ourselves. Meanwhile our reliance on meat products is being blamed for increasing CO2 and climate change. Regenerative Farming is gaining traction around the world as a means of increasing biodiversity, improving soil quality, restoring watersheds and enhancing the ecosystem of farms. The writer and shepherd James Rebanks is interested in adopting these methods on his farm in the Lake District. But can he do so when industrial farming has been the paradigm for so long? This investigation takes Rebanks on a quest to meet leading proponents farming ranches to five acre plots in the UK, US and Europe. He discovers how mimicking natural herd movements, stopping both ploughing and adding costly chemicals could make his farm economically sustainable. But there is an added urgency, can these methods regenerate the soils, provide effective carbon sequestration and feed the planet? When so many people believe turning vegan and shifting to plant-based ecological farming is the way forward, is he guilty of wiping out the diversity of animal life to make way for a few species he has decided to subjugate and profit from? These are pressing questions facing farmers worldwide, but especially in the UK as EU funding comes to an end. How can he use his farm to save the planet?
Climate of Fear
A three-part series telling the astonishing stories of three towns – in Canada, Germany and Greece – overcome by extreme weather in summer 2021.
Green Inc
Journalist and satirist Heydon Prowse explores the multi-billion-dollar advertising industry that’s rebranding the world’s biggest corporations as green. Does the rebranding reflect real change - or is it “greenwash”?
The Hack that Changed The World
The moment that information warfare began can be traced back to East Anglia in 2009 and the hack that changed the world. A hacker broke into the email system of the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in Norwich and stole emails and files. The material was distributed and published online, setting back efforts to combat climate change by years. And the culprit has never been caught. Who did it. And why? BBC Security Correspondent Gordon Corera investigates.
The BBC One drama, The Trick, explores the human cost of the story focusing on the scientist in the eye of the storm, world-renowned Professor Philip Jones, Director of Climate Research at the University of East Anglia.
BBC World Service
The Climate Question: Why did we doubt climate change?
Recent research has analysed how oil companies subtly and systematically, over decades, have shaped public discourse about climate change. One technique has been to take great care over the particular language used in their communications. Another has been marshalling the same public relation methods that were first used by tobacco companies to successfully distract us from the harm cigarettes do. The Climate Question looks back over the dark history that made us doubt climate science.
BBC Radio 5 Live
What Planet Are We On?
BBC Radio 5 Live will release a special episode of the climate change podcast, ‘What Planet Are We On? with Liz Bonnin’. Taking the form of an audience takeover, Liz and hosts will answer listener questions about COP26 and climate change. This episode will be published mid-October.
Leeds: City On A Mission
Earlier this year, BBC Radio 5 Live launched Leeds: City on a Mission. This year-long project follows the city of Leeds in its efforts to cut carbon emissions. The West Yorkshire city has pledged to be net carbon neutral by 2030. 5 Live has and will continue to follow families, business people, campaigners, and local leaders as they seek to make the changes needed to deliver a greener future for Leeds. ‘Leeds: City On A Mission’ will help audiences across Britain understand what moving to a net zero economy could really mean for their homes, their work, the way they travel, their diet and their leisure time. As part of Leeds: City on a Mission, 5 Live will be hosting coverage on making your home ‘fit for future’ on September 17. The content will air ahead of the government’s long awaited Heat and Buildings Strategy, which is due out this month. Later this Autumn, 5 Live are also planning a Citizen’s Summit in Leeds to talk about potential solutions moving forward, alongside coverage of all the key events in Glasgow.
