One Nation says it’s the only party in Australia to question climate science. It should ask itself why

A campaign sign depicting One Nation leader Pauline Hanson. ‘This is like saying the Earth is flat,’ says scientist Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick of One Nation’s position on climate change. Photograph: Hollie Adams/Reuters

As the populist rightwing One Nation surges in the polls, its position on climate change is fixed firmly on the denial of decades of evidence showing the planet, and Australia, are getting hotter.

The science linking the burning of fossil fuels to rising temperatures is 130 years old and, as the evidence has stacked up, Australians are feeling it with increasing weather extremes.