Julia Hartley-Brewer

Credentials

Background

Julia Hartley-Brewer is a British journalist, broadcaster and radio presenter. She hosts the weekday breakfast show on talkRADIO and is a columnist for The Telegraph.³ ⁴

In the early 2000s, she was the political editor of the Sunday Express, before becoming a radio presenter at LBC from 2010 to 2014. She frequently interviews climate science deniers and right-wing lobbyists on her radio programme, including Global Warming Policy Foundation advisor, Matt Ridley, and Head of Lifestyle Economics at the Institute of Economic Affairs, Christopher Snowdon.⁵ ⁶ ⁷ ⁸

In 2016, Hartley-Brewer campaigned to leave the European Union, urging readers in a Telegraph article to “trust yourself to take back control, and vote for Britain to leave the EU”. She spoke at the main rally celebrating the UK’s departure from the EU at the end of January 2020.⁹ ¹⁰

Hartley-Brewer sparked controversy in October 2019 when Jolyon Maugham QC, a tax barrister, accused her of publishing his home address leading him to receive death threats.¹¹

Stance on Climate Change

September 25, 2022

Hartley-Brewer quote-tweeted a user commenting on Labour’s proposed target of 100 percent low-carbon electricity by 2030, and added:

“The elephant in the room is that we can’t rely on solar or wind power to keep our lights on. We need fossil fuel and nuclear power as back-up to provide energy when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow. So we end up paying TWICE for the same energy. Brilliant 🙄”.¹²

In response to a user’s reply that “signifcant [sic] parts of our planet will become uninhabitable”, Hartley-Brewer tweeted:

“You’re hysterical. The planet is not going to become uninhabitable. Even the IPCC reports don’t predict such a laughable thing. Get a grip.”¹³ ¹⁴

In response to criticism from the first tweet, Hartley-Brewer replied:

“More of our planet will become habitable thanks to global warming. Human beings thrive in warm climates”.¹⁵

April 29, 2019

While speaking to an Extinction Rebellion member on her talkRADIO show, Hartley Brewer said:¹⁶

“I care about the environment, but I’ve actually looked into this in great detail, and I’m not signed up to the idea that the world is going to collapse, and the human race is going to die. I don’t believe a lot of the premises. Human impact on our environment we should absolutely do our best to tackle. However, it is an economic and political decision a lot of it. I don’t necessarily think we should roll back the industrial revolution and all the benefits that we’ve brought for mankind around the world, so that we can change the temperature of the planet by 0.001 degrees, no I don’t”.¹⁷

April 24, 2019

On Twitter, Hartley-Brewer wrote:¹⁸

“The climate changes. Humans may well be contributing to that change. The claims that we are hurtling towards the end of civilization/the human race/earth are all patently ridiculous.”¹⁹

September 22, 2014

Replying to a tweet accusing her of being a “flat earther on the subject of climate change”, Hartley-Brewer tweeted:²⁰

“I am not a flat earther. If there were any evidence that man is affecting climate change, I would accept that fact. There isn’t”.²¹

Key Quotes

April 11, 2023

In a TalkTV debate with a food campaigner, host Julia Hartley-Brewer conflated climate change with “weather” when arguing against eating seasonal fruit and vegetables.

Responding to the guest’s assertion that “you’ve got to think about climate change” when thinking about seasonal purchasing, Hartley-Brewer replied: “no I don’t.”

Hartley-Brewer continued, saying in relation to climate change patterns in Morocco: “it’s called weather.”

She later suggested that energy price increases were due to the Ukraine war, and “because we’ve had this absurd policy of net-zero and of course we’ve had [a] lockdown policy. Two policies which I completely fundamentally disagree [with].”²²

September 1, 2022

Discussing the rise in global gas prices in an interview with Shadow Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds on TalkTV, Hartley-Brewer argued that “one of the reasons we’re in part of this mess is because of net zero policies”.²³

She continued: “By going to net zero by 2050 without actually a plan for actually how to do this. I always said it was going to impoverish the country. It meant that we were less resilient to cope with the Ukraine crisis, the spike in energy costs there. Do you, in Labour, do you, Jonathan Reynolds, personally accept that net zero is part of the problem?”

May 18, 2022

In a TalkTV segment with Net Zero Watch’s head of policy Harry Wilkinson, who suggested that “there’s a really unhealthy conflation between the climate agenda and that relentless desire to reduce emissions”, Hartley-Brewer said that when it comes to people dying from pollution, “it’s the absence of fossil fuels that’s the problem, not the fossil fuels themselves”.²⁴

She continued: “There’s no doubt that a lot of the problems we’ve got in terms of high energy prices and the issue we’ve got now, is a failure to do long term investment in energy, other than renewables which are unreliable and still, pretty unaffordable.”

Hartley-Brewer called net zero: “one of the biggest issues in this government” and claimed that the policy was “voted for by a majority of MPs in this country after 90 minutes of debate”.

She described MPs’ net zero debate as “people pontificating absolute nonsense, un-fact based nonsense”, before adding that “this policy is going to be the economic ruination of this country, and no one ever lived longer and had a healthier life in a poorer country.”

April 1, 2022

In an appearance on the BBC’s Question Time, Hartley-Brewer said: “this move towards net zero at a randomly plucked date in 2050 – which by the way was decided by Parliament after a 90 minute debate, I’ve spent longer choosing socks than that for goodness sake – this is absolutely ridiculous.”²⁵

After being challenged by an audience member, Hartley-Brewer claimed that the UK achieving its net zero target would have “less than one percent of impact” because “our contribution to global warming from our own country is one percent of carbon emissions.”

October 16, 2019

Hartley-Brewer said to Sakina Sheikh, a climate justice activist:²⁶

“I know you’re a climate protestor, so facts probably aren’t your thing”.

On policing Extinction Rebellion, she said:²⁷

“The police have not been heavy handed enough”.

She also said:²⁸

“Our house isn’t on fire. That has no meaning, there is no science to back up that statement. That is a meaningless slogan”.

September 20, 2019

Hartley-Brewer spoke to co-leader of the Green Party Jonathan Bartley on her radio show. On Extinction Rebellion protests, she said:²⁹

“This is doomsday-cult scenario stuff, we shouldn’t be teaching our children to be afraid like this should we?”

On IPCC reports:³⁰

“Since 1979 we’ve had one of those warnings pretty much every couple of years, and we’re still here, the planet hasn’t warmed that much, and everything is still functioning, and we’re all still alive”.

On 3 degrees of global warming:³¹

“You say we’re on target for 3 degrees, but we also know that 3 degrees is at the very very top of the reasonable predictions being made, and that every single computer model that has predicted so far has always massively overestimated. We haven’t warmed anything like to the extent that we were supposed to have warmed by this stage”.

She also said:³²

“Fewer people now die from extreme weather events than they ever did”.

September 14, 2019

In response to a tweet accusing her of being a “terrible person” for her “attack on Greta”, Hartley Brewer tweeted:³³

“And that makes me a ‘terrible person’? I don’t have a glib attitude, I simply don’t sign up to the entirely fictitious climate ‘catastrophe’ madness. Most of the people on this planet don’t either. That’s a lot of terrible people for you to hate.”

July 31, 2019

Speaking to Green Party peer Baroness Jenny Jones on her talkRADIO show, Hartley-Brewer said: ³⁴

“In what way do we think there is any evidence to claim that this planet can’t sustain the population we’ve got right now, or indeed a bigger population with predictions of hitting 9 or 10 million before it plateaus out in the next say 50 years. What evidence is there that we can’t sustain this planet?”

She later said:³⁵

“I can’t imagine what it must be like to go through life, basically as part of a doomsday cult, thinking the world is in such a terrible position. I think, understandably be concerned about renewable energy, and replacing fossil fuels, and cleaner air, and polluting the seas, that all makes sense to me. But I find this idea that this view that human beings are effectively parasites on the planet, I think is such a depressing thought. I’m really glad I have a much more positive view of human life.”

April 16, 2019

Hartley-Brewer spoke to Amelia Womack, deputy leader of the Green Party on her radio show. On the UN’s 11-year deadline to prevent irreversible damage, Hartley-Brewer said:³⁶

“It’s been saying that for quite a long time”.

On ocean heating, she said:³⁷

“All the animals living in the ocean are not going to die, full stop”.

On the silence of governments, she said:³⁸

“Who’s not listening? We talk about environmentalism and climate change non-stop… how on Earth can you possibly claim with a straight face that the government isn’t listening”.

On net-zero, she said:³⁹

“Zero percent carbon emissions would mean, effectively, us going back to the stone age”.

August 1, 2016

Replying to Natalie Bennett, then leader of the Green Party, on Twitter, Hartley-Brewer said:⁴⁰

“But all the climate models so far have failed to predict anything correctly, so why trust them?”

June 4, 2015

Replying to a tweet by journalist Sunny Hundal, Hartley-Brewer said:⁴¹

“It’s not called ‘climate change denial’, it’s just questioning an as-yet unproven theory which is standard practice in science”.

Key Deeds

April 19, 2023

In an interview with former olympic rower Etienne Stott, Hartley-Brewer accused Greta Thunberg of having “hysterically prophesied” about the impacts of climate change, and added that ending fossil fuel use “means an end to life as we know it”. She continued: “Not just living in 2023, not going back to the 1970s. It means going back to living very meagre, very cold, very poor lives.”

Hartley-Brewer then accused climate activists of lying about IPCC findings regarding the effects of climate change on global economic output, saying the claims were “a load of nonsense”, following with “you want to collapse our economy by turning off fossil fuels”.⁴²

August 31, 2022

When discussing Pakistan’s extreme floods in a TalkTV interview with Asad Rehman, Hartley-Brewer disagreed with his assertion that the flooding was linked to man-made climate change, saying “there’s no doubt this is an absolute disaster of epic proportions”, but that “these sorts of disasters have happened on this scale before.”⁴³

When Rehman suggested that extreme weather events are on the rise due to climate change, Hartley-Brewer said:

“They are not happening on a bigger scale around the world and they are not having a greater impact. You know what, that is simply not backed up by the official international data. No I’m telling you, you can hear people saying this stuff as much as you want, the data is the data, facts are facts, they don’t care about what you feel.”

She continued: “You know how you deal with people being affected by climate change, such as it is a problem? You deal with it by countries getting richer and that is by using fossil fuels and that is about making countries richer, developing their countries, spending on infrastructure.”

When Rehman recommended the IPCC’s reports which have linked the vulnerability of countries like Pakistan to “the expansion of fossil fuels”, Hartley-Brewer replied that the reports are “quite wrong”, “don’t say that” and that “the actual facts are that extreme weather is not increasing”.

She concluded: “We’re just looking at the actual data provided in the scientific data. This stuff is freely available to the public and everyone can say their opinion and we can say these things, it’s not borne out by the actual data”.

July 20, 2022

In a TalkTV interview during aUK summer heatwave in which temperatures hit a record 40 degrees, Hartley-Brewer criticised a contributor who implied that fires across the UK were linked to the record heatwave, saying: “famously, famously, there were never fires before this week”.⁴⁴

She later added:

“The climate is changing. No one is denying climate change. The climate’s changed, we know that. We did move to climate change instead of global warming at one point when we didn’t see global warming. So everytime we see a fire, or there is a tornado, or there is a drought or there is a hurricane, that is now blamed on global warming, even though a lot of these things, these extreme weather events, they’re actually not increasing at all are they, which surely they should be?”

Hartley-Brewer continued: “We just focus on these things now. Everyone’s got an iPhone, we’ve got helicopters and we do 24-hour rolling news and we focus on these things, but it’s as if there’s never been a wildfire before in Europe or we’ve never had houses on fire in hot or cold weather in the UK.”

July 20, 2022

Hartley-Brewer began a TalkTV segment about fires during the UK’s record heatwave with Net Zero Watch’s head of policy, Harry Wilkinson, by asking: “were you aware that houses spontaneously combusted when it hit 40 celsius?”⁴⁵

Later on, Hartley-Brewer argued that: “no one sensible seriously thinks that we are going to be able to continue our lives without using gas”.

She continued:

“In terms of practical solutions, should we get more air-con? We redesign our homes, the new homes that are built. Railways, we adjust how those are adjusted for the different temperature ranges, as other countries which have different temperature ranges do for theirs. None of this is beyond the wit of man is it? […] again, it’s the idea that we’re all at the mercy of this as opposed that this is something we deal with.”

Hartley-Brewer also contested that climate change is influencing extreme weather events, saying “it’s almost like there’s variation naturally, isn’t there”, as well as claiming that the government’s net zero target, which she called a “hair-brained scheme”, was decided after “90 minutes of government debate in 2019”.

May 10, 2022

In a TalkTV segment discussing new UK state powers to police protests, Hartley-Brewer criticised public protests, saying:

“This idea – I hear it largely I think from younger people – that, ‘but if I feel strongly about this and the government isn’t listening and you’re not listening, I have the right to effectively force you to listen and force you to change your policy’. As opposed to the idea that you educate, you inform, you leaflet, you run a campaign, you run for office and you persuade people to your point of view, as opposed to bullying people.”⁴⁶

She added: “It’s this idea that: you feel strongly, I can’t then get to work. That is a seriously big issue.”

March 27, 2020

Hartley-Brewer claimed environmental campaigners had been “celebrating” the coronavirus pandemic, calling them “eco-fascists”. She drew particular attention to protest group Extinction Rebellion and “quasi-religious death cultists” for allegedly seeing COVID-19 as “something that’s been good for the planet”.⁴⁷

March 5, 2020

Hartley-Brewer invited Global Warming Policy Foundation advisor and Conservative hereditary peer Matt Ridley onto her radio show to discuss the government’s recently-announced cabinet-level climate change committee. During the interview, she said:⁴⁸

“It seems to me that we had 3 years of people being borderline hysterical about the economic effects of Brexit on our economy, and an awful lot of those very same people seem to be quite happy with what are going to be the effects on our economy of moving towards net-zero carbon emissions”.⁴⁹

February 24, 2020

Hartley-Brewer invited guests Harry Wilkinson and Benny Peiser onto her show to talk about their new report from the Global Warming Policy Foundation which claimed that net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 will cost the government £3 trillion.⁵⁰

October 10, 2019

Hartley-Brewer was on the panel for BBC’s Question Time. In a debate about protest group Extinction Rebellion, she said:⁵¹

“There is nothing in any of the science, nothing in any of the IPCC reports that suggests we’re heading towards a catastrophe, a crisis, mass extermination, or anything of the sort, this is scare-mongering of the worst kind”.⁵²

“The industrial revolution is the greatest thing that has ever happened to mankind. It has delivered longer, healthier, happier, more fulfilling lives for billions more people than anything else that has ever been achieved on our planet”.⁵³

“What we’ve got with Extinction Rebellion I’m afraid is not a sensible debate based on science or the facts, it is, in all intents and purposes, a sort of quasi-religious death cult, and I for one, think it is absolutely insane that people are listening to their absurd demands”.⁵⁴

“This is absolute nonsense; this is Malthus on crack-cocaine.”⁵⁵

August 4, 2019

In a Sunday Express column titled “Don’t panic about climate change, the end isn’t nigh”, Hartley-Brewer argued not to “sign up to the hysterical misery of the eco-lunatics such as Extinction Rebellion”.⁵⁶

She described the organisation as “doomsday cultists” and described their view as:⁵⁷

“…staggeringly at odds with the facts. The world is not about to end – climate change or no climate change. And the Earth’s population is not about to overburden our planet.”

She ended the piece saying:⁵⁸

“As we might once have said to the man with his ‘The End Is Nigh’ placard: ‘Cheer up, mate, it might never happen’”.

May 2, 2019

Hartley-Brewer retweeted Spiked writer Ben Pile who had described the Committee on Climate Change as “the epitome of post-Blair, Brown-Miliband era politics” in a Twitter thread. He went on to say in a separate tweet: “The CCC is not about tackling climate change or saving the planet. It is about reorganising society”.⁵⁹

In her retweet, Hartley-Brewer described the call for net zero emissions by the Committee on Climate Change as having “massive implications for all of us and how we lead our lives”.⁶⁰