Julia Hartley-Brewer dismissing climate fears as just 'weather' causes uproar

Worried about the climate? Don't be concerned, it is "just weather".

At least that is what Julia Hartley-Brewer thinks. On an appearance on BBC Question Time on Thursday evening when the journalist dismissed concerns about the climate and slammed protest groups like Just Stop Oil.

She said: “If you want to have limits on people’s ability to access fuel, if you want to make it more expensive to get a plane abroad, to use a car, to heat your home, you are going to be harming poorer people and you are going to be harming poorer people in the developing world.”

An audience member said her comments were “a bit ridiculous”.

She said: “The floods that have been happening in Pakistan, 30 million people displaced, climate refugees, that is our future.

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“And I think this summer should have shown everybody that we thought maybe it would be in 30 years’ time, 2050, but it’s happening right now and I think we really need to take action.”

“It’s called the weather,” replied Hartley-Brewer, causing further discontent on the panel.

Meanwhile, her comments came as the UN Environment Programme said the world remains “far behind” and is not doing nearly enough to reach any of the global goals limiting future warming.

“We had our chance to make incremental changes, but that time is over,” the UN’s Inger Andersen warned. “Only a root-and-branch transformation of our economies and societies can save us from accelerating climate disaster.”

With all this in mind, people on Twitter had... thoughts:

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