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Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay has challenged Nigel Farage to a debate on climate change, calling him a “con artist”, after the Reform UK leader hesitated to say he accepted the link between human activity and rising global temperatures.
BBC Radio 4 Today presenter Nick Robinson this week asked Farage if he accepted that climate change is at least partly man made.
Farage replied only that “it may well be”. When pushed by Robinson, Farage agreed to start the conversation from the premise that manmade CO2 emissions “are having a detrimental or at least warming effect on the world”.
Metastudies have shown that over 99% of climate scientists agree that we are experiencing anthropogenic climate change.
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The Sixth Assessment report for the Intercontinental Panel on Climate Change states that “Human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gases, have unequivocally caused global warming” and that “every increment of global warming will intensify multiple and concurrent hazards”.
Farage stated during the interview that the UK “makes no difference whatsoever” to climate change and argued that the UK should expand its gas production to become self-sufficient. He contended that reductions in the UK’s carbon emissions had made the UK poorer, and that the emissions had been exported to China and India through deindustrialisation.
Adrian Ramsay the co-leader of the Green Party told Byline Times that “Nigel Farage’s interview highlighted just how out of touch and dangerously misguided he is on climate and the need for a liveable future […] There are huge economic opportunities for us if we improve public transport, support our farmers to produce more food locally, improve home insulation, which will bring bills down”.
“Reform pose as the anti-establishment party. But nothing could be further from the truth. If you look at the fact that their leading figures are all rich millionaires, that they’ve got policies that are just designed to support the super-rich. They were very embodiment of the establishment and trying to pose as the friend of ordinary people”.
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Ramsay suggested that Farage’s views may be linked to the financial interests of his donors, labelling him a “con artist”
“Nigel Farage is a performer, a con artist. He will say or do anything. He will happily dance to a populist tune regardless of its impact. Let’s not forget he’s bankrolled by fossil fuel interests, climate deniers, and major polluters—taking in £2.3 million since the 2019 election.”
Ramsay added that if Farage refused his challenge for debate that it “would say a lot wouldn’t it that he’s not willing to. He’s not confident in being able to make his argument. It didn’t stand up the scrutiny of the Today program and it wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny in a debate”.
Reform UK did not respond to a request for comment.