Sky News Announces Winner of Green Advert Competition

Sky News has announced the winner of a competition to create an advert highlighting the effect of global warming, which will be aired across BSkyB's bouquet of channels.   The advert, designed by a cabaret singer, will be shown on Sky News and all other Sky channels from this Thursday.

Zac Bauman, 35, has won Sky News’ climate advert competition in which entrants were asked to pitch a 30-second TV advert to inspire people to reduce their carbon emissions.  Zac, who earns a living as a one-man Rat Pack tribute act, submitted a script called “This Is Not a Movie”.

His idea is based on a disaster movie trailer with a twist at the end. The final caption reads:  “This is not a movie. This is real”.  Zac was delighted with his win.  “I’m jumping up and down, he said, “This is great. I’ve always been really into making films.”  The competition was judged by Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Miliband MP, Friends of the Earth Executive Director Andy Atkins and Sky News Executive Editor Chris Birkett.

Ed Miliband paid tribute to his script: “It’s a very clever idea which brings home to people the dangers of climate change,” he said.

Friends of the Earth Executive Director Andy Atkins said: “I think the idea of making it very clear to people some of the consequences of climate change is likely to wake people up.” 

Zac has been to the Sky News Centre to help his script be turned into an advert by a team of Sky producers and directors before being broadcast across all Sky channels in the run up to the United Nations Climate Summit in Copenhagen in December.

The competition was launched as the countdown to the crucial Climate Conference gets underway. Despite ad campaigns from organisations ranging from Greenpeace through to the Government, using approaches from scare tactics to more positive encouraging messages on relieving CO2 emissions, Sky News believes that the general public in the UK still isn’t properly engaged in the global warming debate.

Sky News’ Holly Williams will be in Copenhagen for the United Nations Climate Change Summit providing extensive coverage. Throughout the conference, Sky News Correspondents around the world will also report on how climate change could affect some of the planet’s poorest communities. Sky News’ Africa Correspondent Emma Hurd will undertake an Antarctic Expedition with a team monitoring the continuing melting of the polar ice cap and its potentially devastating effect on global water levels, habitats and wildlife. RTS Television Journalist of the Year Alex Crawford, meanwhile, will be in Nepal to report on the fastest retreating glacier in the Himalayas.

On the 10, 11 and 12 December, Sky News presents ` Turning Up The Heat', which will see Anna Botting anchoring from Mumbai, a city whose emissions are set to increase as its population continues to rise, and Andrew Wilson reporting from Brazil; a key player in the block of developing countries involved in climate change negotiations. Every minute, an area larger than three football pitches is lost in the Amazon forest. With 20 per cent of the world's carbon emissions created by deforestation, world leaders are trying to find a way of making the forests worth more alive than dead. Andrew will be in the western-Brazilian state of Acre, the home of Sky’s Rainforest Rescue project which aims to tackle deforestation.