It has been a busy time for climate news this week, even though summer has refused to make an appearance in the UK so far, with a dripping wet July giving way to an equally soggy August.

Of course, we shouldn’t confuse climate with the weather. The two things are very different, although that hasn’t stopped the more hysterical climate activists screaming that the end is nigh just because temperatures climbed above 30 degrees in southern Europe - as they have done every summer since Adam was a lad.

Those same activists reacted with fury when Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced during a visit to Scotland that the government was granting more than 100 new gas and oil drilling licences in the North Sea.

Labour’s Ed Miliband denounced the government’s “weak and confused” policy, although there is a great deal of confusion about what Labour itself will do when in power. They say they will not issue any new licences, but have refused to say whether they will revoke existing ones.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaking to the media during his visit to Shell St Fergus Gas Plant in Peterhead, Aberdeenshire. PIC: Euan Duff/PA Wire

Oxfam claimed the government had sent “a wrecking ball through the government’s climate commitments”, while Friends of the Earth said we should be concentrating on renewables rather than championing “costly and dirty fossil fuels”.

What was striking about this reaction was that none of them seemed to actually engage with the Prime Minister’s argument, which was very clearly put.

Mr Sunak said: “Even when we reach net zero in 2050, a quarter of our energy needs will still come from oil and gas, and domestic gas production has about a quarter of the carbon footprint of imported gas.”

He added it made “absolutely no sense” to import energy supplies with two to three times the carbon footprint of what we have got at home.

In other words the policies recommended by Labour and the climate activists of importing gas instead of producing our own, would increase carbon emissions and make climate change worse.

This wouldn’t be the first time that so-called green policies have made things worse. The most notorious example comes from Germany where the green lobby forced the closure of clean, low-carbon nuclear power plants in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in 2011.

To keep the lights on the Germans had to start burning coal, and not just any coal but lignite or “brown coal”, the filthiest fuel on the planet.

The result was an increase in carbon dioxide emissions of about 36 million tons per year - exactly the opposite of what these “green” policies were meant to achieve.

Meanwhile, the climate catastrophism is being cranked up to ever more absurd levels. For example, Antonio Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, delivered a blood-curdling speech recently where he said: “The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived.”

I am sorry, but this is simply ridiculous. The boiling point of water is 100 degrees Celsius, and temperatures that high would wipe out most, if not all, of life on the planet.

Scary eh? But is there actually any scientific evidence that temperatures are likely to reach those levels on earth? Absolutely none whatsoever. I am afraid this is little more than hysterical and irresponsible shroud waving.

Luckily, some real scientists were on hand to restore some sanity to the debate. For example the newly appointed chair of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Scottish-born Professor James Skea, explained clearly why the climate catastrophism adopted by Guterres and many environmental activists is counter-productive.

He said: “If you constantly communicate the message that we are all doomed to extinction, then that paralyses people and prevents them from taking the necessary steps to get a grip on climate change.”

Mr Skea added that we “should not fall into a state of shock” if global temperatures increase by more than 1.5 degrees, telling a German newspaper: “The world won’t end if it warms by more than 1.5 degrees. It will, however, be a more dangerous world.”

As the recent Uxbridge by-election and the controversy over the expansion of London’s ultra-low emission zone (ULEZ) demonstrated, support for action on climate change is widespread, but disappears like a puff of carbon-free smoke once it hits people in the pocket - as green policies inevitably will.

To get the public on board we need sensible, moderate policies, rooted in science, not the deranged extremism spouted by some activists.

Sensible, moderate climate policies are needed if you want to get the public on board - Bill Carmichael