Chair of Nuclear for Australia denies that calling CO2 ‘plant food’ means he is a climate denier

Dr Adi Paterson, pictured when chief executive of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, accused Nasa of ‘confusing public understanding by publishing ground surface temperatures’. Photograph: AAP

The chair of a leading Australian nuclear advocacy group has called concerns that carbon dioxide emissions are driving a climate crisis an “irrational fear of a trace gas which is plant food” and has rejected links between worsening extreme weather and global heating.

Several statements from Dr Adi Paterson, reviewed by the Guardian, appear at odds with statements from the group he chairs, Nuclear for Australia, which is hosting a petition saying nuclear is needed to tackle an “energy and climate crisis”.