BoM rejects Abbott adviser climate claims

The Bureau of Meteorology has rejected several "incorrect" claims about climate change by Tony Abbott's chief business adviser.

Maurice Newman, chairman of the prime minister's business advisory council, wrote an opinion piece earlier this month claiming the UN was using global warming as a tool to create an "authoritarian world" with concentrated political authority.

Asked to assess assertions within the piece at a Senate estimates hearing in Canberra on Monday, the bureau's Director of Meteorology Rob Vertessy rejected some of the claims while labelling others as "incorrect" or "old red herrings".