The travel industry should fight back against the green propagandists or it will face further damaging government policies, the ITT conference was told.
Lord Bernard Donoughue, founding trustee of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, said he was not a global warming denier, just a questioner.
He said much of government policy was being driven by global warming zealots, but that the public mood was changing towards a more sceptical view.
Recent scandals over misuse of scientific data, the coldest winter in the UK for more than 30 years and the financial crisis were all working against the radical green agenda, Lord Donoughue said.
Activists pushing for more green policies “display often a Stalinist approach towards dissent”.
He said: “Despite the doubts, many western governments have already swallowed the global warming agenda and are committed to drastic targets to curb carbon emissions.
“It’s the degree, the extent and the speed we should be worried about. Those targets were not formed in order to have a measured reduction, they were formed
in a competitive political environment about who can be morally superior.
“Those targets maybe excessive relative to the proven scale of the problem and now are probably unachievable because the public won’t pay and in the current economic crisis are probably impossible to achieve.”