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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 16/10/2026

Reform UK is currently advertising... 71 ...job vacancies?! And they include these "journalism" roles. George Orwell, among others, might have a view on whether churning out propaganda for a political party can ever be deemed journalism. It's going to be *very* interesting to see who gets hired

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 04/09/2026

It's rare to see a mainstream news broadcaster explicitly referencing loss-and-damage finance, climate justice and big-emitter responsibility in its reporting. So this moment on the BBC's News at Ten really caught my attention. Report by @azadehmoshiri.bsky.social in Nepal

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 27/08/2026

This week marks the 20 years since the pivotal 'Climate Camp' protest held outside the huge Drax coal plant in Yorkshire. It's worth re-reading the Guardian's editorial and think of everything that has happened since (including, not least, the closing down in 2024 of the UK's last coal plant)

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 26/08/2026

Here's FEMA's guide for how to "build a kit" www.ready.gov/kids/family-...

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 24/08/2026

The daily global average sea surface temperature has just reached its highest level on record, per C3S. "The timing of the record is particularly notable. Global ocean temperatures are typically highest in March and April, following the austral summer, yet this record has been reached in August."

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 15/08/2026

The Times has also published this letter by @chlobrim.bsky.social in response to an editorial which was full of sceptic tropes... www.thetimes.com/comment/lett...

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 15/08/2026

The Times has just published these two reader letters in response to a column by @hugorifkind.bsky.social headlined: "Where are all those climate deniers now?" I just googled them. The first is a "retired consultant in rheumatology" The second is "UK former chief geologist, BP North Sea"

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 14/08/2026

Everyone in the UK has just - for the first time ever - received this SMS message on their phones with a loud repeating alarm. Instant, dramatic communication to 10s of millions of people. #ClimateChange

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 14/08/2026

This is fine... "Britain on fire" "Heatwave devastation" "Inferno" "Houses burn and train derails on hottest day" "Rampant wildfires engulf streets of family homes" "Record 2.5m trips to A&E" "Temps hit 38.1C as fifth heatwave peaks" "Britain in meltdown"

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 14/08/2026

But, of course, nothing changes. Still the same "enter prompt" commentary inside...

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 13/08/2026

Look who they go to for quotes - and how they structure the order of the quotes in this article...

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 13/08/2026

What could possibly have led the Daily Mail – a climate-sceptic newspaper with an owner *and* editor-in-chief both well known for their love of grouse shooting – to run this frontpage? It's really hard to tell...

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 12/08/2026

"This is gaslighting of the highest order. The truth is, it requires dedicated ideological belief to argue against the scientific evidence that net-zero is needed to stop ever more expensive and destructive warming." @pilitaclark.bsky.social in today's FT giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 03/08/2026

ah, OK... www.carbonbrief.org/qa-does-the-...

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 31/07/2026

"Drill, baby, drill" the North Sea, say Conservatives and Reform. Meanwhile, over at BP HQ...

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 31/07/2026

This must be so head-spinning for them... Here's the Daily Mail trying to cover the wildfires ('Evacuate!') and record heat deaths in UK, while also trying to maintain its climate denial by running a highly misleading comment piece by Matt Ridley and an editorial focused on "water companies"

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 31/07/2026

And here is today's letters page, showing how its readers get so heavily influenced by the crank climate denial embedded in so much of the newspaper's commentary (and its often skewed and misleading reporting)...

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 31/07/2026

And note how the frontpage of the Telegraph juxtaposes news of her comment piece with a huge image of wildfires burning close to Sizewell nuclear power plant. One of her promises: "We will build nuclear power"

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 31/07/2026

The Daily Telegraph ends its rollercoaster week of comment pieces about climate change with one by Kemi Badenoch, leader of the opposition Conservatives. Note how, yet again, she doesn't explain how she will "replace" the Climate Change Act. Just vibes about "markets, innovation and competition"

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 30/07/2026

"Antalya on fire..." Yes, this is the Turkish city due to host the next UN climate conference, COP31, this November

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 30/07/2026

The Telegraph has now removed "embrace Mediterranean life" from the headline - presumably realising that Heath (who is the editor of its Sunday edition, remember) was being widely mocked and derided. Here's before and after...

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 30/07/2026

Heath is now responding to reader comments beneath his article and they are as dismissive, arrogant and ill-informed as would expect. A sample...

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 30/07/2026

"Allister will be responding to your comments from 3pm" 🍿 www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2026...

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 30/07/2026

++NEW++ "During the May and June 2026 heat events there were an estimated total of 2,877 heat-associated deaths" "...the mortality burden is already close to the highest annual totals previously recorded by UKHSA" www.gov.uk/government/p...

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 30/07/2026

Additionally, the UK and French governments have also issued a similar statement on climate change: "[We] call on all countries to intensify their efforts to tackle its causes while boosting resilience to its effects" www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/presse-et...

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 30/07/2026

++BREAKING++ The UK and Spanish governments have issued a joint statement overnight: "[We] agreed that this summer’s wildfires demonstrated that climate change was now a national security emergency facing Europe and threatening our way of life." www.gov.uk/government/n...

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 30/07/2026

And here is some of that "Mediterranean lifestyle", as reported by today's Telegraph website...

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 30/07/2026

This is the letter that the current Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has written to the Telegraph in response to yesterday's column by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard. Note how she - yet again - doesn't actually explain how she would tackle climate change 🤔

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 30/07/2026

Meanwhile, look at the extreme discordance and dissonance of stories on this news page in the same edition...

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 30/07/2026

The Daily Telegraph has raced through all five stages of climate denial this week. But this is, perhaps, the most ridiculous column so far: "Without minimising the severe downsides…especially on some poorer nations, many in Britain would enjoy the kind of warmer climate predicted by modellers..."

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 29/07/2026

This is a really smart way to make sure Reform's climate deniers are named and their views are firmly on the record: "Below is a list of all 30 councillors in Walsall who voted against the amendment to accepting the existence of man-made climate change" www.birminghammail.co.uk/black-countr...

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 29/07/2026

++WOW++ Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Telegraph: "Badenoch has chosen an abominable political moment to flirt with climate nihilism…The political Right needs to rediscover its philosophical compass…you have to conclude that the Tories have gone Trumpian on the existential issue of our time"

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 28/07/2026

Another another climate-sceptic lobbyist has popped up in the Telegraph. This time John Constable which the article does not declare to its readers is on GWPF's "advisory council" and its "former energy editor". Frost was a GWPF trustee. Cosy. GWPF is a notorious dark-money lobby group

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 28/07/2026

Here's Nick Bridge – the UK's former special representative on climate change under last Tory govt – on Channel 4 News citing @carbonbrief.org analysis about the extreme and relentless anti-climate action campaigning by some UK newspapers "Some of the media is shocking on this..."

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 28/07/2026

In the UK it is also called the Daily Telegraph (and has a weekly sister paper called the Sunday Telegraph)

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 28/07/2026

Here are some of the responses he left in the short time he hung around...

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 28/07/2026

This is, let's say, pretty assuming...

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 28/07/2026

Aaaaaaannnd, 24 hours later, normal service is resumed... The Daily Telegraph has published a response column by a politician with, yes, *extremely* close links to climate-sceptic lobbyists and who recently said in parliament that climate change was *checks notes* “likely to be beneficial”

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 27/07/2026

Welcome to the frontpage of the Daily Telegraph* website... * The newspaper that has relentlessly spent the past three decades seeking to belittle climate science and undermine climate action at every turn

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 27/07/2026

It seems Tim Stanley's article is pushing all the right buttons over on Twitter...

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 27/07/2026

Now approaching 6,000 comments under the article - and they are the predictable bin-fire of crazy that you would expect...

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 27/07/2026

Let's just say that the readers are losing their minds in the comments under the article. More than 4,000 comments so far. A tiny sample...

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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 27/07/2026

Given this newspaper's long, long history of promoting and enabling climate denial, this article in the Mail on Sunday is fascinating on several levels...

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