Boris Johnson skips climate change debate, replaced by melting ice sculpture

The Prime Minister of United Kingdom, Boris Johnson declined to attend the debate on climate change on Channel 4 and the broadcasting regulator decided to replace the spot with a melting earth ice sculpture with the Conservatives logo. Britain's governing party filed a complained against the channel after Johnson was put out of a general election television debate on the climate crisis on November 28. The channel justified their actions, saying that the one-hour debate was live and was organised for the party leaders but Johnson decided to skip it. However, a former environment secretary, Cabinet minister Michael Gove showed up at the studio to take part on behalf of the far-right Conservatives but was not allowed. Gove later took questions on climate change by coming live on Facebook. 

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A partisan stunt?

Not only the UK PM but the Brexit Party leader, Nigel Farage had also skipped the debate and therefore his spot was also replaced with an ice sculpture of planet earth, along with his party's logo. On behalf of the Conservatives, Lee Cain wrote a letter to Ofcom saying that the cross-part event was unfair and breached its requirement by denying the Conservatives to take part. He further says that there is a clear precedent for such debates to take place without the contribution of the party leaders. Cain called the ice statue a 'provocative partisan stunt'. However, those who did take part in the debate were leaders from Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens, Welsh nationalists Plaid Cymru, and Scottish Nationalist Party. 

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After the debate, the presenter, Krishnan Guru-Murthy thanked all the participants and clarified that the debate was for 'leaders only' as the show was stressing it from the start because the leaders were only prepared to debate with other leaders. Krishnan further said that the channel's offer to Johnson and Farage to go there and discuss the emergency of climate change 'remains open'. During the debate, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said that the election scheduled on December 12 is country's last chance to tackle the climate and environment emergency. Johnson said he only wishes to debate with Corbyn, seeing him as theoretically the only alternative prime minister. The Brexit Party, on the other hand, said it did not take part because it had no faith that the broadcaster will conduct this debate in a fair and objective way. 

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(With inputs from agencies)