good evening. i'm lizzie greenwood—hughes, here with your latest sports news. and we're starting with the news this evening that the chairman of one of qatar's biggest banks has confirmed his consortium will bid to buy manchester united. the move came ahead of today's 10pm soft deadline for proposals and it follows last month's stated interest from british businessman sirjim ratcliffe. united's current owners since 2005, the glazer family, are considering selling as they explore strategic alternatives. earlier, our sports correspondent andy swiss spoke to our presenter olly foster. we were expecting a bid from qatar. we weren't sure about tonight, but

it's arrived. he's the chairman of the qatar islamic bank, which is one of the leading banks in qatar, he's the son of a former prime minister and he says the bid plans to return the club will seek to place the fans at the heart of manchester united football club once more. he says the bid will be completely debt—free which will look to invest in the football teams, the trading centre, the stadium and wider infrastructure. he says the vision of the bid is for manchester united football club to be renowned for footballing excellence and regarded as the greatest football club in the world. there will be few questions about this because a qatar consortium already own the champions. could that lead to a potential

conflict of interest? some fans have expressed human rights about qatar's health record. but this is clearly a fairly significant move. 18 years under the glazers, they've been criticised heavily for burdening the club with a lot of debts. i think a lot of fans' ears prick up. the only way the glazers could buy it was plunging into debt. the words debt—free in that statement leap out. the words debt free in that statement leaked out. when you bear in mind the sums of money, which are colossal, and the fact they're talking about investing in the infrastructure. that would be attractive to some fans was the

the man who admitted attacking the arsenal goalkeeper aaron ramsdale at the north london derby last month has been banned from football for four years. joseph watts pleaded guilty to assaulting ramsdale and also admitted throwing coins onto the pitch during the game at the tottenham hotspur stadium on 15th january. ramsdale was kicked in the back after arsenal beat spurs 2—0 in the premier league match. one of the referees involved in last week's multitude of var errors will no longer officiate in the premier league. lee mason has left the referees�* body, the pgmol, by mutual consent. it comes days after his mistake during arsenal's 1—1 draw with brentford. mason, seen here in the centre, was the video assistant referee, but failed to draw the required guidelines to check for offside on ivan toney�*s equalising goal. pgmol chief refereeing officer howard webb contacted arsenal to acknowledge and explain the significant error that occurred. meanwhile, the football association

have announced they'll trial the use of referee body cams for the first time in the sport. the trial begins at grassroots level in middlesbrough this weekend and is being introduced as a measure to try to reduce abuse at officials. body cams have been used in rugby union for over a decade. the trial follows a bbc survey which revealed almost 98% of the referees who responded had experienced verbal abuse from spectators, players, coaches or managers. now, we'll see if the title race takes another twist tomorrow. manchester city are ahead of arsenal on goal difference after beating them on wednesday night. city are at nottingham forest and arsenal have a lunchtime kick—off at aston villa. arsenal's manager has criticised the tight schedule. when it's playing on wednesday night, you cannot play. i think that's like any competition. following the same principle, physiologically, that is very difficult to turn around

to get the best outcome and get reduce injuries for players. tiger woods has apologised for any offence caused after he gave his playing partner justin thomas a tampon during the opening round of the genesis invitational in california. woods described it as a prank. he didn't have a great time of things on the course today anyway, following his first round 69 with a three over par 7a, which included five bogies to finish on one over par overall. rory mcilroy is well in contention, though, making three birdies and just one bogey in his 69, which puts him on six under going into the third round. gloucester narrowly beat play—off rivals harlequins 28—26 in one of two matches in rugby union's premiership tonight. wales wing louis rees—zammit scored the winning try four minutes from time, after coming off the bench in his first game after a long injury lay—off. he should be fit for wales' six nations game against england next week. the result moves gloucester into third place in the table. elsewhere, bristol

comfortably beat newcastle. two games as well in the united rugby championship, and glasgow extended their unbeaten run to ten matches in all competitions after a hard—fought i7—ii home win over ulster. jack dempsey with the pick of their three tries. in the other match, munster thrashed ospreys 58—3. it's the opening week of the new superleague season and salford spoiled leigh's big return, winning the local derby 20—10. leigh, rebranded the leigh leopards, are back in the top flight after winning last year's championship, but salford were too much for them and their winning try came from the former leigh player ryan brierley. at the women's t20 world cup, ireland's hopes of reaching the semifinals are over after losing to the west indies in a match that went right down to the wire. batting first, ireland started well, but then collapsed, losing seven wickets forjust 21 runs, as they set their opponents 138 to win. there was a period where it looked like it would be enough, but an unbeaten 66 from hayley matthews guided the west indies to victory,

with just one ball to spare. that's all the sport for now. this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines on the main news stories for you at the top of the hours straight after this programme. we face a massive dilemma. last year was officially the uk's warmest year on record. london was burning, california's fuel choked, highly flammable forests, combined with drier conditions linked to climate change. swathes of land across southern pakistan have been turned into islands. national records have been broken in eight countries and regional records in three others. climate change is making extreme

weather more likely, so tackling it is more urgent than ever. but... prices are rising at their fastest rates for 40 years. _ food and fuel, that energy. all of us have seen the cost of living going up. cost of living. we buy less and we buy cheaper products. if they're not going to give us the wage rises, we can't- compete with inflation. the uk has been trying to lead the global effort to tackle climate change. it's time for humanity to grow up. but climate change is far from the prime minister's only concern. our country is facing a profound economic crisis. but warnings about the effects of climate change are getting louder. we are on a fast track to climate disaster. climate activists say there is no time to waste. if we don't end our contribution to climate change, we will see more frequent and extreme weather events.

so, here's the question — can britain afford to tackle climate change? let's start this journey with a phrase you need to understand — net zero. when we burn fossil fuels, we release carbon dioxide. some of it is taken up by plants as they grow. the oceans absorb a fair bit, but the rest goes up into the atmosphere. and carbon dioxide is a bit special. it traps the sun's heat. it's why we don't freeze during the night. but the more we put into the atmosphere, the warmer the world gets, which is where net zero comes in. the idea is we need to reduce emissions as much as we can, but at the moment, there are lots of things which we just

can't make carbon—free, things like concrete or aircraft. so scientists and engineers are trying to find ways to capture greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and store them away forever. the aim is the net result will be zero emissions, hence the name net zero. and back in 2019, the then prime minister theresa may made this promise. we will be ending our contribution to climate change by 2050 and legislating for a net zero emissions target. borisjohnson continued the effort and made climate policies a cornerstone of his premiership. the uk government has decided to become the world leader in low—cost, clean power generation. cheaper than coal, cheaper than gas. and all the major parties have put the net zero principle at the heart of their strategies. it's a rare consensus in british politics. aberdeen is the oil- and gas capital of europe. let us resolve today to now make it

i the net zero capital of the world. i trillions of dollars, yen, euros and pounds out of fossil fuels and into renewables. 100% clean power by 2030. so, what's the problem? well, a group of vocal tory mps say we are moving too fast. nobody knows what this costs. everyone says, "i love it, it's a great idea. here's the bill of it." and then the public starts saying, ah, why are we doing this "ah, why are we doing this when the uk is a 1% output of co2 and china is 30% and growing?" the net zero scrutiny group was set up by two prominent eurosceptics, craig mckinley and steve baker, who's a junior minister in the new government. young people in my constituency are at once learning to drive and also demanding green measures. i think they're going to be very disappointed when they discover they can't own a car, can't go on a holiday. we'll have expensive heating that comes up to a lower temperature.

they've been saying the net zero plans are too big, too hasty and most important, too expensive for voters to stomach. they claim to have up to 50 supporters in parliament, but wouldn't give us their names. the net zero scrutiny group says it isn't questioning whether climate change is real, but its leaders are closely associated with a think tank operating out of that building over there, the global warming policy foundation. now, it has been questioning the scientific consensus on climate change for years. the group says climate policy is a ticking time bomb in uk politics. we've been down this road before with brexit, and that's why i'm warning that we'll have a terrible political crisis if we don't sort it out. sound familiar? and guess who's taken up the issue? we want a referendum on whether the net zero agenda makes sense.

what are our demands? a petition calling for such a referendum was submitted to parliament last year, but it got fewer than 25,000 signatures. no major political party supports the idea either. nigel farage has made his career questioning established consensus so small as his campaign may be, is he onto something? how's things? things are all right if you can afford it. why a referendum on net zero? one of the reasons i've got involved in this debate is this — we've been busy for the last 15 years. we are exporting manufacturing jobs by having some of the most expensive electricity against america, against europe, against obviously the far east and our competitors. so, we exportjobs and we import energy. we could produce our own energy, which interestingly would be at a lower co2 output for the world. all i'm arguing is this. you know, am i saying that we should not move towards sensible forms of renewable energy now?

i'm not saying that. what i am saying is that if we think by closing down british manufacturing, if we think by not producing our own gas, coal that we still need for steel, etc, that we're somehow saving the world. it's a delusion and very expensive. we led the world into the industrial revolution that created this kind of huge production of carbon dioxide. why don't we leave the world out of it with new clean technology? become world beaters in a new industry? because number one, you can't do it at the moment without the back—up of substantial amounts of fossil fuel. and therefore the logic is, rather than importing it, we may as well produce it ourselves. the point i'm making in this discussion with you is not that i'm saying global warming is a nonsense, is not that i'm saying we should ignore our responsibilities to future generations. i'm not saying any of that. what i'm saying is what we're doing in the name of combating

it is making us uncompetitive and is not actually, in many cases, lowering global co2. well, there are two things... we can boast that co2 levels in this country are down 44%. the reason is we've exported much of it. we've actually that's because we switched from coal to gas, which is a much lower carbon carbon content, and we've started using lots of offshore wind. there are a couple of things. so let's on the broader point, you say we're begging ourselves, arguably, we're creating new industries, new renewable, clean industries and exporting and beginning to export the skills we've got here in the uk abroad. who's building the offshore wind turbines in america? british engineers. i tell you what, we're not exporting electricity, we're importing it. can you believe it? we import electricity, but that makes a lot of sense. i mean, why wouldn't you buy it if there's a surplus in france? the what the ukraine war has showed us actually is when it comes to energy, food, the things without which life, normal life of any kind can't continue,

there is an argument, even if it's a teensy bit more expensive. there is an argument for self sufficiency. on not being dependent on foreign regimes. it's so interesting. mr farage clearly thinks he's on to something. he clearly thinks that he can mobilise millions of people against net zero. so, you know, is a movement forming? is the momentum beginning to gather? i mean, to be honest, i'm not so sure. but let's be honest, the political elites here in britain massively underestimated the popularity of brexit. so, could the call for a net zero referendum become the springboard for a political movement? hey, esther, how are you doing? hey, justin, i'm good. esther webberfrom politico has been following the story closely. it does seem at the moment that there's been no kind of real

breakthrough kind of moment that has seen the campaign explode or really hit home. so, if you can contrast what's happened here with, say, the election in france, which was driven a lot by petrol prices. so, esther, you've written about the parallels between brexit and net zero. what do you think they are? first of all, you have the personnel. so, there's a kind of subset of the conservative party who are questioning how these policies are made and who has consented to them, just as there was with brexit. so, the campaigners are really looking at lower income voters and trying to sort of position them against what they call the kind of cosy elite consensus, and they're trying to use the same kind of wedge argument on net zero. has net zero got the traction that brexit had?

you see in polls, there's sort of general and rising support for the idea of tackling climate change by the government. but it's more of a split when you drill down into people's views on how those things should be paid for. and that's the kind of area that the sceptics are looking to get into. do you think the energy crisis that was brought about by the ukraine war, do you think that will dilute the commitment of politicians in westminster to net zero? well, it's really interesting, i think, about the dynamic of this current conservative party is we've had a lot of new mps elected in seats that had never been tory before, the so—called red wall. and people are seeing that perhaps

those mps are going to be sceptical of net zero. in fact, it's more mixed than that. and a lot of those mps see the net zero agenda as key to creating newjobs in places like the northeast. well, the net zero sceptics have certainly plugged into some serious concerns — the energy crisis, inflation, the cost of living. what about the costs of not zero? the costs of not decarbonizing our economy? that is certainly what lots of climate activists argue. hey, how are you doing?

great to see you. good to see you. thanks so much. nice electric car. fantastic. she is an energy and climate analyst. so, we are in the middle of a massive cost of living crisis. is this really the time to be pouring money into going net zero? fossilfuels, gas, oil, coal — they're nherently volatile markets. they cost an absolute fortune and they've driven up household bills by almost double already. that's simply unacceptable. fossil fuels are actually driving the cost of living crisis, and they're working against our national interest. so, what would we see if we didn't go net zero? if we don't go net zero, we don't end our contribution to climate change. and if we don't end our contribution to climate change, we will see more frequent and extreme weather events. we will see more extreme heat, flooding, which is going to cause untold damage to human lives, livelihoods, agriculture, biodiversity, our

infrastructure, our economies. the reality is is that every fraction of a degree matters. the sooner that we can end our contribution to climate change, the fewer of these devastating events that we'll have to tolerate. how much would it cost us not to tackle climate change? there are economic costs and there are human costs. we know that 200,000 homes and businesses on the coastline of england alone are at risk of rising sea levels by 2050, and this is already happening. but that's a human cost, but we will also see a cost to our economy. there's been estimates of around 7% of our gdp by the end of the century through climate impacts. you say it's worth the cost, worth investing in net zero. but the truth is, what is the point if other countries around the world much bigger emitters than britain — britain's just 1% of global emissions —

other countries aren't making the effort? what is the point of britain making the investment? last year alone, china built more offshore wind capacity in one year in 2021 than the uk as a whole over a decade. we are in a position where we can actually get ahead, develop the technologies, develop the net zero dividend not only for our citizens, but that we can then export across the world. it's a win—win. but what people like nigel farage say is, look, there's no democratic mandate. the public haven't been asked if they want to make these investments in tackling climate change, have they? there absolutely is a public mandate on this. we've seen it time and time again. climate change and environment is consistently in the top three concerns of the british public. going legislating for net zero, going for net zero policies was on the front page of the conservative party manifesto in 2019, which the public voted for. and we've polled the public on... but hold on, labour and the lib dems

all support net zero as well. there isn't a choice for the public. there was no one that they could vote for if they didn't support net zero. we've polled the public and we've seen that actually, rather than wasting time on a referendum by a factor of 2—1, they just want to see the government to get on with delivering their manifesto commitment to implement net zero. i mean, look around you now. the truth is these wind turbines aren't turning. renewable energy isn't a reliable source of power. the point of a future electricity system is that it's diversified. you have a huge range of sources. you've got onshore wind, you've got offshore wind, you've got solar, you'll have hydrogen. depending on the policy choices that are made, you may even have some nuclear, you may have some abated gas. but the reality is is that our electrical engineers, these are serious people who have been working on this issue for a very long time, and they know what they're talking about.

they're notjust some hippies protesting about climate change. they are saying that they can run on 100% renewables by 2035, which is the government target. so who are we to argue? even if we do transition to net zero, along the way, we're going to need to use some fossilfuels, yeah? so why not use domestic fossil fuels? why not exploit the resources in the north sea, the shale gas that we've got under our feet here, maybe? the north sea is a very mature basin. frankly, there's not really much more we can squeeze out of it. this isn't the 1980s any more where we had prolific supplies of gas. there are not 50 years worth of shale gas beneath our feet — actually, the best estimates say around six months worth at best — and to get at that is going to be hugely expensive, hugely disruptive, and the public simply don't want it.

as the bbc�*s climate editor, i'm often responsible for bringing some pretty terrifying warnings — warnings about the future of the places where we've built our lives, built our communities, which is why i've come to east yorkshire. this place already experiences some of the worst coastal erosion in europe. up to ten metres of coastline vanishes into the sea in a bad year. this is happening for a number of different reasons, but the rising sea levels and more extreme weather climate change will bring are likely to make the problem worse. now, how we get to net zero is an open question. depending on who you ask, you might get a different answer. but what most politicians from all the main political parties agree is the need to get there. and the science is clear on this —

reaching net zero and fast is our best hope of tackling climate change. hello. storm otto was the dominant force in our weather on friday. it brought some very strong and gusty winds to the northern half of the uk. a gust of 83 miles power on the coast of aberdeenshire. but further south, it was all about mild weather. temperatures at pershore in worcestershire got above 17 celsius, unusually mild for this point in february. that curl of cloud there on the satellite picture, that was storm otto, now quickly moving away eastwards. this is our next weather system

that's been bringing some rain and indeed some snow in places through the night. ice likely to affect some parts of scotland as we start saturday morning. but much of the rain pulling away eastwards. a lot of dry weather through the day on saturday. this band of clouds and some patchy rain for a time in the south of england, that will tend to clear. we will also keep this band of cloud and some patchy rain in central and southern parts of scotland and into northeast england. but elsewhere, some spells of sunshine, just the odd rogue shower. 6—7 degrees in northern scotland, 15 in the east of england. some of this rain turning a little heavierfor a time in eastern scotland and northeast england before clearing on saturday night. then a drier interlude before more rain starts to push in to the western side of scotland on sunday morning. a mild start to sunday for the majority. so, that rain in the west of scotland comes courtesy of this frontal system approaching from the atlantic. further south, high pressure keeping things mainly fine and dry, so split fortunes for the second half of the weekend. cloud and some rain across scotland, the rain heaviest over hills in the northwest.

a few spots of rain from the cloud into northern ireland, the far north of england. but further south, some high cloud turning the sunshine hazy, but essentially, a fine—looking day. quite breezy, quite windy in the north. quite breezy, in fact, quite windy in the north, and again, it's going to be mild — 10 degrees there for aberdeen, 13 the top temperature in london, and it stays mild into the start of the new week. we see frontal systems just running across the far north of the uk, high pressure to the south of us, often quite breezy, but we will be within this wedge of very mild air. so, some unusually high temperatures for the start of the new week likely to be up to 15 or 16 degrees in parts of the south. later in the week, though, it will turn a bit more unsettled and perhaps a little bit chillier as well.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. i'm nancy kacungira. five former police officers in the us plead not guilty to murdering the young black man, tyre nichols, last month. his mother demands justice. i want each and every one of those police officers to be able to look me in the face. they haven't done that yet. they couldn't even do that today. anger rises over shoddy construction in turkey, as survivors ask why so many buildings that should have withstood the earthquakes collapsed. in civilised countries, earthquakes happen and people don't die. unfortunately, in turkey, these kind of earthquakes happen every ten years and people die and they say it is a destiny. no, it is not a destiny.

the ukrainian president urges world leaders gathered