Measures to combat climate change may be causing more damage than current global warming, a former environment secretary has said.

Owen Paterson, who was sacked in David Cameron’s reshuffle in July, attacked what he described as a “wicked green blob” of environmentalists for failing to explain the pause in global warming.

“There has not been a temperature increase now for probably 18 years, some people say 26 years,” he told a fringe event at the Conservative party conference. “So the pause is old enough to vote, the pause is old enough to join the army, the pause is old enough