Julia Hartley-Brewer got expertly schooled on climate change by Question Time audience member

Julia Hartley-Brewer's comments on climate change backfired when a member of the audience jumped in and schooled her.

The radio broadcaster took to the Question Time panel on Thursday, where she discussed claims about net-zero and a push for more fracking and nuclear energy production.

When asked why the UK is still toying with domestic fossil fuel extraction, despite the climate crisis, the controverial commentator insisted the net-zero targets had been randomly plucked.

A member of the audience shouted: "It's not about a date, it's about a reduction in global atmospheric carbon emissions to reduce the global temperature rise."

Hartley-Brewer smugly asked what that would achieve, to which the woman explained it would minimise emissions and stop the eco-system from collapsing.

She continued: "This is a global problem, and it's not about individual targets – it's about everyone working together to reduce atmospheric carbon to reduce the rise in temperatures, so we don't see an escalation in eco-system collapse around the world, increases in volatility of weather patterns, flooding, forest fires, refugee crises, people moving. Climate change is a huge disaster."

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SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford then jumped in and backed Hartley-Brewer further into a corner.

Blackford said: "We just had a ScotWind round in the last few weeks and we're greenlighting 11 gigawatts of new offshore wind capacity. We have 25% of [Europe's] wind capacity on the Scottish shores … we could increase over the next 25 years our green energy in Scotland about five-fold from where we currently are. By the way, we can also provide the baseload with tidal, which can reduce that need for nuclear which has been talked about.

"We can make sure that we can deliver safe and cheaply, the green energy we need."

Viewers turned to social media to praise the audience member and commend her for her response. Others slammed Hartley-Brewer's arrogance.

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