Measures to combat climate change may be causing more damage than current global warming, Britain’s former environment secretary has said.
Owen Paterson, who was sacked in David Cameron’s reshuffle in July, attacked what he described as a “wicked green blob” of environmentalists for failing to explain the pause in global warming.
“There has not been a temperature increase now for probably 18 years, some people say 26 years,” he told a fringe event at the Conservative party conference. “So the pause is old enough to vote, the pause is old enough to join the army, the pause is old enough to pay its taxes.
“We were never told the pause was coming along, there are – as I understand it – about 30 different explanations for it and nobody explains why the pause is suddenly going to disappear and we’re going to get back on the track upwards.
“So I’m concerned that the measures being taken to counter projected dangers may actually may be causing more damage now than those dangers.”
He accepted there was “an element” of man-made climate change, but insisted that the climate “has always been changing”.