Professor John Beddington talks with Sue Nelson and the National Environment Research Council (NERC) about climate science and climate sceptics. Restating the case for urgent action, Professor Beddington discusses how controversy does not undermine science.

Professor Beddington said:

'There are some aspects of climate science that are certain. Co2 emissions into the atmosphere warm up the globe. That's unassailable. What isn’t unassailable is a whole series of things to do with the predictions of how fast climate change is happening... and the regional differences.'

Professor Beddington also asserted that controversy and uncertainty were helpful to science, although admited that scientists had perhaps not been as good at communicating the value of uncertainty to the general public.


Listen to Professor Beddington's audio clip here.


This weekend (January 30-31, 2010) Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, discussed climate science and hit back at climate sceptics in a range of interviews with The Observer and Channel 4, amongst others.