'What makes you think you understand how climate change works better than all of the world's scientific experts?'
The leader of Reform UK was dealt a humiliating hand on BBC Question Time after facing a backlash against his arguments on climate change and climate denial.
Richard Tice got owned by leader of the Green Party Carla Denyer during a lively exchange about what action needs to be taken to combat the climate crisis.
The leader of the right-wing populist party, who’s been known to make bizarre and inaccurate statements on climate science denial, instigated some eye rolls when he stated, “the climate has changed for millions and millions of years.. way before man-made CO2 emissions”.
He went on to face ridicule when questioned on his understanding of climate science and his lack of scientific background by Green Party leader and engineer by trade, Carla Denyer.
Host Fiona Bruce asked Tice for clarification on his views: “Are you denying that climate change has changed exponentially quickly in relatively recent years?”
Speaking on the panel, Tice argued that countries should be adapting to climate change, rather than trying to stop it, in a push against net zero policies, as he claimed sea levels will continue to rise and climate change will not stop as a result.
Fiona Bruce received claps from the audience when she asked Tice, “and the countries who are going to be underwater, how do they adapt?”
However Carla Denyer received further applause in her follow-up response. Having listened to Tice’s argument, the Green Party leader asked the Reform leader, “what’s your science background?”.
Tice is a multi-millionaire real estate CEO who became leader of Reform UK in March 2021,since then the party has been found to have received £135,000 from climate science deniers and fossil fuel interests. Scrapping the UK’s climate pledges by rolling back on net zero is a key pre-election topic for the Reform UK party.
Denyer went on: “What makes you think that you understand how climate change works better than all of the world’s scientific experts combined?”
Asked by Tice for evidence that net zero would help stop climate change, Denyer replied, “It’s an overwhelming majority of all the world’s experts on climate scientists who understand”.
Aiming for net zero emissions has been globally recognised and backed by a consensus of scientists as the best way to limit global warming and the effects of climate change.
Speaking on the panel, Denyer also gave a scathing assessment of the inaction of politicians to act on decades of warnings about climate change.
The Green MP said: “The news has been full of pretty alarming evidence that climate change is not a concern that is going to come down the track sometime in the future, it’s here right now.
“And the best time that we could have brought in the policies to tackle this was of course decades ago. We’ve known about climate change my whole life. Successive governments in the UK and internationally largely failed to do that. So the second best time to do it is right now.”
She added: “I’m an engineer by background. I didn’t want to be a politician, I’m in this because I realised the people in power making the decisions were not making the right ones to tackle this crisis.”
(Image credit: BBC Question Time)
Hannah Davenport is news reporter at Left Foot Forward, focusing on trade unions and environmental issues
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