Wednesday 10 September 2014

Poll: Majority of Tory MPs reject man-made climate change

Nearly three-quarters of Conservative MPs do not accept that climate change has been proven to be caused by human activity, a new poll found.

Out of 119 MPs, including 57 Tories and 51 Labour MPs who responded to the poll, only 17 Conservative MPs agreed it was a scientific fact that climate change is largely manmade.

That’s in comparison to 34 Labour politicians, the poll found.

More than half (53%) of Conservatives agreed “there is a widespread theory that climate change is largely man-made but this has not yet been conclusively proved” and another 18% agreed that “man-made climate change is environmentalist propaganda for which there is little or no real evidence”.

For Labour, 12 MPs agreed with the former statement and only one with the latter, trade magazine PRWeek, which commissioned the poll, said.

Amber Rudd, a Tory MP appointed Energy Minister in Prime Minister David Cameron’s reshuffle earlier this year defended the party’s stance on climate change science.

She told the magazine: “Man-made climate change is one of the most serious threats that we face. In 1988 Margaret Thatcher, a scientist herself, put climate change firmly on the political agenda in her speech to the Royal Society when she said: ‘It’s we Conservatives who are not merely friends of the Earth — we are its guardians and trustees for generations to come.

“No generation has a freehold on this Earth. All we have is a life tenancy — with a full repairing lease. This government intends to meet the terms of that lease in full.”

The poll also found 68% of all MPs believe more should be done to raise awareness of environmental issues.