MPs call on UK government to host televised emergency briefing on climate emergency

The TV environmentalist Chris Packham holding a national emergency briefing in Westminster Hall last November. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images View image in fullscreen The TV environmentalist Chris Packham holding a national emergency briefing in Westminster Hall last November. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images MPs call on UK government to host televised emergency briefing on climate emergency As UK swelters in another heatwave, 50-minute Chris Packham film outlines threats to security, economy and health MPs are calling on the UK government to host a televised national climate emergency briefing in response to what has been described as the most “insidious threat to our society”. In November, in the “first-of-its-kind, national emergency briefing”, nine experts gave stark assessments in Westminster Hall of the scale of the changes needed to adapt the country to the rapidly changing climate and ecological landscape. The team behind the event has since crowdfunded to produce the People’s Emergency Briefing, a 50-minute film outlining the urgent threats that climate and nature breakdown pose to food security, the economy and public health. The call for a televised briefing comes as parts of the UK experience their third heatwave of the summer. In June, most of Europe sweltered in its worst ever heatwave that scientists said would have been impossible without the human-induced climate crisis. In summer 2022, more than 60,000 people died due to heat in Europe. UK swelters in third heatwave of the year as western Europe counts cost of hottest-ever June Read more The film, hosted by the TV presenter and environmentalist Chris Packham , calls on the government to stage a prime-time, televised emergency briefing on the climate and nature crisis. So far, 91 cross-party MPs and peers and members of the UK’s devolved legislatures have signed a parliamentary call urging the government to host this briefing. Signatories include the peer Rosie Boycott and Tim Farron, the former leader of the Liberal Democrat party. “I understand it’s human nature to prefer not to know, to try to bury our heads in the sand. But if we all take a breath and watch this together, well first of all that’s a huge relief and second we can figure out what to do about it,”, Packham says at the start of the film. Lt Gen Richard Nugee, a retired senior British Army officer, describes climate breakdown in the film as being the “most insidious threat to our society” which is putting the “very fabric of our society at risk”. A recent report by senior UK national security officials warned the country is under severe threat from the climate crisis and the looming collapse of vital natural ecosystems, with food shortages and economic disaster potentially just years away. The government did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment on whether it will hold a televised briefing, but a spokesperson said the government already holds an annual statement on the state of the climate, th