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The leader of Reform UK’s flagship local authority, Kent County Council has denied man-made climate change exists and mocked climate science concerning the record-breaking extreme heat over the summer, in a fiery exchange on Thursday.
Reform’s Kent County Council leader, Cllr Linden Kemkaran, was accused of dismissing widespread public concerns about the climate crisis in the council chamber.
The outburst occurred during a meeting of the full council in Maidstone, after Councillor Stuart Heaver (Green Party) asked Cllr Kemkaran if she had any second thoughts about the Council rescinding the KCC Climate Emergency Declaration, given the scale of heat-related deaths over the summer.
Cllr Heaver noted UK Health Security Agency figures showing a significant increase on the 1,504 excess deaths observed in summer 2025 this year. Over 2,800 people have died in England and Wales due to record-breaking extreme heat over the summer, according to the official estimates.
Kent Fire and Rescue service attended more than 130 grass fires since July, and 2026 is on track to be the worst harvest since records began.
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The leader simply replied: “No.”
When pressed to expand on her answer, she was accused of “reeling off a list of debunked climate denial claims” by the Greens.
She told the chamber: “I will inject some much needed common sense into this conversation.”
She added: “Grass fires are not caused by an increase in temperature, but rather issues such as arson, poor land management practice, etc.”
While most UK wildfires are started by people rather than by the weather itself, what turns a spark into a serious fire is the condition of the vegetation, and that is driven by heat and drought. This summer much of the country was a dry tinderbox, with fires far more likely to combust and spread due to the extreme heat.
A Met Office study found that the damaging fires during the UK’s record-breaking 2022 heatwave were made at least six times more likely due to human-caused climate change.
The Claims Examined
The Reform leader then stated a list of debunked claims as fact.
She said: “[Greens] forget that the climate is always changing. It always has and it always will change. In Roman and mediaeval times the earth was two degrees warmer than it is today, for example. The earth is actually coming out of a mini ice age, Mr Chairman. There is only one way for temperatures to go.”
The climate does change through history, but humans are now the overwhelming driver of temperature increases.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is clear that “human influence on climate has been the dominant cause of observed warming since the mid-20th century.”
Glaciologist Jeff Severinghaus has told Carbon Brief that arguing natural change rules out human-caused change is “like saying that forest fires cannot be set by careless campers because lightning also causes forest fires.”
On her claim about “Roman and medieval times”, this is strongly disputed by most of the academic literature. The IPCC has found that in the last decade, global average surface temperatures have been higher than any multi-century average in the past 11,700 years (the Holocene). While there were warm periods in the eras that Cllr Kemkaran referred to, they were not global, and they were not 2°C warmer than today.
A major 2019 Nature Geoscience study found: “The largest warming trends at timescales of 20 years and longer occur during the second half of the 20th century, highlighting the unusual character of the warming in recent decades.”
Cllr Kemkaran’s claim about coming out of a “mini Ice Age” is also debunked. Global temperature increases need a physical cause, and there has been no major increase in non-human warming causes that would come close to explaining the rapid rise in global temperatures in recent decades.
The IPCC records that over the last 50 years, global temperature has risen at a rate unprecedented in at least the last 2,000 years.
Cllr Kemkaran added: “As for carbon dioxide, it is a trace gas essential for life on earth. To try and eliminate that would be hazardous for us all. In fact, members may not be aware that a number of recent studies appear to show that carbon dioxide has reached saturation point and therefore that additional gas has no effect on warming. I could go on, but I see no need to.”
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This is a deeply misleading claim – no reputable climate scientists, policy thinkers or campaigners want to remove all CO2 from the atmosphere. Net zero plans – including KCC’s rescinded climate declaration – are about stopping the addition of more CO2.
Humans now burn over 4,000 times the amount of fossil fuels burnt during 1776, before the industrial revolution, according to UC Berkeley, and resource extraction has more than tripled since 1970, including a 45% increase in fossil fuel use.
In 1950, the world emitted six billion tonnes of CO2. As Our World in Data notes: “Emissions have continued to grow rapidly. We now emit over 35 billion tonnes each year.” As CO2 is a greenhouse gas, trapping heat, this warms the climate.
Commenting after the exchange, Green councillor Stuart Heaver said: “Kemkaran claimed that ten times more residents died of cold than of heat, that grass fires were not related to extreme heat, that concern over climate change was based on ‘debunked science,’ that CO2 was a ‘trace gas’ and that ‘CO2 had reached saturation.’”
One opposition councillor could be heard shouting, “utterly shameful.”
“It was an extraordinary rant based on bigotry and nonsense,” said Cllr Heaver.
The leader of Kent Greens, Councillor Mark Hood, added: “The leader of Kent County Council not only denied climate change – she dismissed the concerns of local residents about the climate.”
“Perhaps even worse – she showed no concern or appreciation of the huge problems faced by farmers, firefighters and health workers who have had to struggle with the front line impact of the climate emergency in Kent.”
KCC Green group leader, Councillor Mark Hood, claimed the Reform UK administration at Kent “does not understand the science or listen to residents – it sticks its head in the sand and fiddles while the garden of England burns.”
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Exchange in Full
Cllr Stuart Heaver (Green): Thank you very much indeed, Chair.
Given that 2,877 people have already died in England and Wales due to the record-breaking extreme heat this summer, that Kent Fire and Rescue have attended more than 130 grass fires since July, and that 2026 is on track to be the worst harvest since records began. Has the Leader had any second thoughts at all about the Council rescinding the KCC climate emergency declaration?
Chairman Jeremy Eustace (Reform): Thank you Mr Heaver. Leader.
Council leader Cllr Linden Kemkaran (Reform): Thank you, Chair. No.
Chairman Jeremy Eustace (Reform): Thank you, Leader. Mr Heaver, do you have a supplementary?
Cllr Stuart Heaver (Green): I do, yes I do. Thank you very much, Chair.
Just so the Leader’s brevity could not be misinterpreted as lack of concern for health workers, firefighters, farmers and bereaved families in Kent who really suffered this summer, would she be kind enough to please expand slightly on why she thinks this summer was not clear evidence of a climate emergency? Or indeed whether she thinks it was an emergency but not her administration’s responsibility to do anything about.
Chairman Jeremy Eustace (Reform): Thank you Mr Heaver, leader.
Council leader Cllr Linden Kemkaran (Reform): Thank you Mr Chairman, with your permission I will inject some much needed common sense into this conversation.
Ten times as many people die from the cold than from heat and grass fires and grass fires are not caused by an increase in temperature, but rather issues such as arson, poor land management practice, etc.
Much of the annoyance of the doomsters and the climate catastrophes in the parties opposite, who often rely on this debunked science for their parties continued existence, in fact, without the climate scare, what use is the Green Party? We have to ask.
They forget that the climate is always changing. It always has and it always will change.
In Roman and mediaeval times the earth was two degrees warmer than it is today, for example.
The earth is actually coming out of a mini ice age, Mr Chairman. There is only one way for temperatures to go.
And as for carbon dioxide, it is a trace gas essential for life on earth. To try and eliminate that would be hazardous for us all.
In fact, members may not be aware that a number of recent studies appear to show that carbon dioxide has reached saturation point and therefore that additional gas has no effect on warming.
I could go on, but I see no need to.
I think I’ve made my point.
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