COP26: 'Hate tells scientists their work is important'

Prof Phil Jones said his experience could be compared to "some of the recent reporting" on those working on the Covid vaccine

The scientist at the centre of the Climategate scandal and the subject of BBC drama The Trick said scientists need protecting from abuse.

Prof Phil Jones was head of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in Norwich when its servers were hacked in 2009.

Stolen documents were used to wrongly accuse him of making up data on climate change, for which he got hate mail.

Of the on-going abuse of scientists, he said: "It tells us the work is really important and inspires us to continue."

He still receives hate mail each November and December, around the anniversary of the data breach at the University of East Anglia unit and the subsequent "media storm" 12 years ago.

Jason Watkins played Prof Phil Jones in The Trick, which is available on the BBC iPlayer

Back then, as dramatised in The Trick, his life's work was called in to question, both in some sections of the press and by climate-change deniers.

• BBC iPlayer: The Trick

"It was a really awful time - I was used to dealing with comments on my work at scientific conferences, but when the media storm arrived, I just couldn't respond to it," he told BBC Look East.

"We were fighting against a massive tide, and people just didn't seem to want to know about the science, they wanted to know about a few words in a few emails."

He said he has seen parallels in other branches of science.

"The best analogy at the moment is what's been happening to some of the people working on Covid and the vaccines, who are getting some of the same thing from some recent reporting," he said.

"They are really just messengers of the work they do; there shouldn't be this hate.

"People have to stand up for science, and realise scientists themselves need protecting."

The drama shows the emotional impact on Prof Jones and his wife Ruth, played by Victoria Hamilton, "which you don't normally see in interviews with scientists", Prof Jones said

All allegations against Prof Jones and the CRU were rejected in subsequent inquiries.

Prof Jones still works at CRU and said he had "got to be hopeful" about COP26 later this month.

"The science is much stronger now," he said.

"If they had acted after Copenhagen [December 2009], we'd be 10 years further down the line.

"They acted in the Paris Agreement in 2015 but they have to enhance that in Glasgow, and there has got to be action in countries around the world if we going to avert any more major changes in the climate."

He described The Trick as "essential", although watching himself played by actor Jason Watkins was "very surreal and odd".

"The actors get across the emotional side, which you normally don't see in interviews with scientists," he added.

"I think it's a story that needs to be told.

"There are climate change deniers out there who want us to go on, business as usual, continually burning more and more fossil fuels, and the more we put into the atmosphere, the harder it is going to be to do anything about it."

The Trick was first broadcast on BBC One on Monday, and is available on the BBC iPlayer.

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