Tory MP writes letter to The 1975 complaining they take flights but also support addressing climate change

Climate-conscious rock group’s upcoming record features Greta Thunberg audio essay

A climate science-denying Conservative MP has been ridiculed for writing a letter attacking the band The 1975 for not travelling by yacht on their world tour.

David TC Davies, who has questioned in parliament whether carbon dioxide actually contributes to global warming, posted the letter on Twitter today, accusing the rock group of hypocrisy.

The 1975 recently released an audio essay by the Swedish climate change campaigner Greta Thunberg as the first track on their upcoming album and pledged to donate all the profits from it to Extinction Rebellion.

But Mr Davies said he wanted to know how they would travel to the far-flung locations of their upcoming world tour, which include Italy, South Korea, Thailand, Hong Kong and the US.

“Given your concern about a ‘climate emergency’, I just wondered how you are going to get to these places,” the MP for Monmouth wrote.

“Are you travelling to Asia on the Trans-Siberian Express? Or will you be sailing in a £4m super-yacht like your mate Greta?

“Do tell us. We must silence any mean-minded sceptics who think it’s a tad hypocritical to preach on the evils of carbon emissions one minute – then jet across the globe the next!”

The stunt has provoked derision online, with many on social media accusing him of wasting his time and taxpayers’ money.

Although the band members have not yet responded, The 1975’s manager Jamie Oborne replied: “So Parliament is suspended at the most important time in modern UK politics and the most pressing issue on this clown’s mind is looking for clout on Twitter.

“Enjoy your five minutes. @UKGovWales @GOVUK is this really the best we have?! I can feel a change coming and it feels good.”

On The 1975 track, Thunberg says: “We are right now in the beginning of a climate and ecological crisis, and we need to call it what it is: an emergency.

“We have to acknowledge that the older generations have failed. All political movements in their present form have failed, but homo sapiens have not yet failed.

“Everyone out there, it is now time for civil disobedience. It is time to rebel.”

The 16-year-old activist recently spent 15 days travelling across the Atlantic in a zero-emissions boat to visit the UN General Assembly meeting in New York.

She has foresworn all air travel, arguing the toll on the environment of burning kerosene is too great.

In her native Sweden she has helped promote the growing anti-air travel movement, known as flygskam, or “flight shame”.

A splinter group from Extinction Rebellion, who Mr Davies castigated in his Twitter letter for “blocking roads and preventing people from getting to work”, said this week they would fly drones around Heathrow next month in an effort to ground flights from the UK’s busiest airport.

The Heathrow Pause movement said they hoped as many as 50 people would join the protest with their own drones, but the Metropolitan Police have warned it will do “everything in its power to prevent and stop any such criminal activity”.