This film and project deserve our support
The National Emergency Briefing was an event in Westminster in November 2025, and is now an excellent film of the event, available for free showings: many have already been organised, see map here.
The Briefing features 10 experts, authorities in their sector, setting out the implications for health, food systems, the economy and society of the climate and nature breakdown. They speak from the heart as well as the head: for example, Hugh Montgomery, a Professor of Intensive Care Medicine, tells us, “At 63, I’m scared for my own life and future. I’m absolutely terrified for that of my son.”
Even if you consider yourself well-informed, this film is likely to give you some new information: some alarming, some encouraging. For example, Britain is in the bottom 10% of countries globally on the biodiversity index. At 2°C of warming, a major corn harvest failure is expected every other year.
However, the experts are clear and agreed on what actions can be taken, and their potential achievability. In particular, moving to net zero in the UK is readily affordable: it would currently cost only 0.2% of GDP, and would pay back by 2041. Whereas delaying this shift incurs far greater costs from extreme weather events and more.
The National Emergency Briefing is a new initiative, supported by an impressive range of organisations, including the National Trust, RSPB, and the Climate Psychology Alliance. Its founder-leaders are Simon and Nick Oldridge, who describe themselves as “climate funders and communicators with a background in business”.
The local showings have two main aims: one is for local communities to ask their MPs to respond and engage: at the Hereford showing, neither local MP attended, and sadly this may be the norm. The other aim is for communities to start exploring what they could do for themselves locally, and there was a good discussion after the film.
The NEB organisers are calling for three actions, and asking people to lobby their MP to support them:
- The Government should deliver a national emergency briefing on primetime TV, followed by regular updates.
- The Government “should launch a science-led national emergency response to the climate and nature breakdown showing the same leadership and determination as WW2…”.
- The UK should help lead stronger global action on these issues.
The National Emergency Briefing deserves our support, and deserves to succeed. The three steps they advocate would represent huge progress in an appropriate response to this crisis.