The UK Independence Party has promised to ban the teaching of climate change in schools, if elected in May next year.

The party's 2010 manifesto included a pledge to ban Al Gore's Oscar-winning global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth from schools.

But this week UKIP Education spokesman MEP Derek Clark has said the party will go even further. Clark told Index on Censorship:

"We will still ban Al Gore's video for use in schools if I've got anything to do with it. I will not have much opposition within the party. It is, of course, not just this video which needs banning; all teaching of global warming being caused in any way by carbon dioxide emissions must also be banned. It just is not happening."

Dr Nick Eyre, Co-Director of the UK Energy Research Centre, said of the proposal: "It is anti-scientific nonsense - as well as a worryingly repressive approach to education. The very strong link between climate change and anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions is overwhelmingly accepted by the global scientific community, and has been for at least 25 years."

A recent IPCC report demonstrates a 95% certainty that human influence has been the dominant cause of warming since the middle of the last century.

A 2013 study by UK Energy Research Centre, however, showed that 46% believe that climate change is "partly caused by human activity", 22% believe that climate change is "mainly caused by human activity" and another 6% believe that climate change is "entirely caused by human activity". In total 74% of those surveyed believed that human activity is responsible for climate change.

Source: Index on Censorship