A Briefing the Nation Needs to Hear

In November 2025, something unusual happened in Westminster. Ten of the UK’s leading climate and nature experts stood up in front of an invited audience of over 1,200 politicians, business leaders, faith figures and media — and gave them, in plain terms, the national briefing on the climate and nature crisis that most of us have never had.
It was called the National Emergency Briefing, introduced by naturalist Chris Packham CBE, and it set out what climate and nature breakdown means for our health, our food systems, our national security and our economy. Ten speakers covered the full breadth of the crisis — nature, climate, tipping points, weather extremes, food security, health, national security, economics and energy transition — chaired by Prof. Mike Berners-Lee. Among them was Prof. Tim Lenton OBE, from Exeter University, who also gave an excellent talk on tipping points in Bovey earlier this year. Their message was blunt: Britain has led before on facing down existential threats and needs to lead again — but only once its policymakers, and its public, are properly informed.
That Westminster event was always intended to be the start of something, not the end. The organisers have set out three clear aims of their campaign:
1. A televised national emergency briefing, prime-time, multi-channel, delivered to the whole country by independent experts, with regular televised updates to follow. MPs from across the party divides have already signed up to a Parliamentary Call backing this.
2. A national emergency response — science-led action on the scale of WW2 or the 2008 financial crisis, including emergency legislation to cut emissions while investing in adaptation.
3. Help lead stronger global action at a time when international climate conferences have consistently failed to deliver the scale of response needed.
Whilst that campaign continues, the evidence from the Westminster briefing hasn’t stayed behind closed doors. A 50-minute film — the People’s Emergency Briefing — now carries the same material out into communities across the UK. It combines the scientific content from the original event with reactions from members of the public and some familiar faces, deliberately built to help audiences take in difficult facts on a human level rather than simply as a barrage of statistics. It doesn’t shy away from the frank realities, but it’s also designed to leave people with a sense of what a genuine, positive response could look like — and several who attended the original Westminster briefing said as much themselves, describing a mix of alarm and optimism once they’d heard the full picture. The film is recommended for ages 16 and up.
The format is simple and deliberately local: screenings in village halls, cinemas, faith spaces and workplaces, each followed by a facilitated discussion, with local MPs and civic leaders invited to attend and hear the same evidence as their colleagues in Westminster. It’s already reached communities right across the country, and screenings are increasingly being registered on the organisers’ interactive national map.
Here in Bovey Tracey, following sold-out screenings at Bovey Paradiso in July, that reach is about to include us for a second time. At Climate Action Bovey and Heathfield (CABH), we believe the message of this film deserves a dedicated screening, to include local community leaders. This will be on the evening of Wednesday 14 October 2026* at the Riverside Community Centre. Visit www.cabh.org.uk for full details. We hope you can make it.
So what can a small town like ours actually do to help drive those three national aims? More than you might think. Attending a screening and bringing a friend adds a voice to a growing movement the Government can’t easily ignore. Signing the open letter and asking our own MP to back the Parliamentary Call turns local interest into direct pressure on Westminster. And every screening that goes ahead — ours included — becomes part of the evidence that this issue matters enough, to enough ordinary people, to demand the televised national briefing and ongoing updates being called for. Local pressure, multiplied across hundreds of towns like Bovey, is exactly how national change tends to start.
If you’re involved with a workplace, faith group or club that might host its own screening in the meantime, the National Emergency Briefing organisers provide full materials — discussion guides, posters, the lot — to make it easy.
You can find full details, the national screening map and how to host a screening at www.nebriefing.org.

* Please note the 14 October screening is now almost sold out (as at 17 September). But the good news is we are hosting a second screening with the same format and venue on Friday 6 November 2026, doors open 6:30pm, film starts 7pm. If you haven’t been able to join us on 14 October, please do so on 6 November and book free tickets here.