News Corp executive chairman Rupert Murdoch has said “there are no climate change deniers around I can assure you” after he was asked at the corporation’s AGM why his company gives them “so much airtime” in Australia.

Murdoch was speaking in New York on Wednesday when he received a question from a proxy for Australian activist shareholder Stephen Mayne.

Murdoch was asked about the company’s “stance on climate change”.

The questioner asked: “What do you believe is the global role of News Corp in the geopolitical climate? If you do believe in climate change, Mr Mayne is interested to hear why News Corp gives climate deniers like Andrew Bolt and Terry McCrann so much airtime in Australia?”

Murdoch responded with a promotion of his company’s corporate carbon reduction goals, saying “we have reduced our global carbon footprint by 25% six years ahead of schedule”.

Murdoch, 88, who was born in Australia, said News Corp was the first North American media company to commit to “science-based targets to limit climate change” and the company had cut its energy costs by US$18m ($26.5m) since 2014.

He also said his company was sourcing its print paper from certified sustainable sources.

Murdoch then added: “There are no climate change deniers around I can assure you.”

Bolt, a political commentator and blogger for News Corp Australia, is known for promoting the views of climate science deniers, and for his own attacks on “alarmists” and his derision of climate change science.

Bolt also has a nightly show on Sky News where he often interviews guests who reject that humans cause climate change.

Business writer McCrann is known for attacking the viability of renewable energy in his columns. In an interview on Sky News in early November, McCrann was responding to a question about a statement from 11,000 scientists warning of a climate emergency.

McCrann said: “I am sceptical of that word ‘scientist’. I think if you substitute ‘loon and hysteric’ then that is getting more accurately to the description of who these people are.”

A 2013 study of climate coverage in Australian newspapers found that one-third of coverage was sceptical and pointed to News Corp titles as the dominant factor.

At the time, News Corp said: “News Corp and its newspapers do accept the scientific consensus. There is no company edict on the line to take – editorial control rests with the editors.”

Murdoch himself has given conflicting messages over time on his view of the science and impacts of climate change.

In 2006, Murdoch appeared to shift his views away from scepticism, saying the planet “deserves the benefit of the doubt”.

Since then, his views appear to have reverted back. He told Sky News in 2014 that climate change should be treated with “much scepticism.”

In 2015, Murdoch tweeted from a flight over the North Atlantic where he spotted sea ice: “Global warming!”

Just flying over N Atlantic 300 miles of ice. Global warming! pic.twitter.com/loXwe7lwtK — Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) February 27, 2015

Later that year, Murdoch tweeted that a United Nations climate meeting would spark “endless alarmist nonsense”, and said he was a “climate change sceptic not a denier”.

A climate change skeptic not a denier. Sept UN meets in NY with endless alarmist nonsense from u know whom! Pessimists always seen as sages — Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) August 27, 2015

In October 2018, Bolt himself described Murdoch as a sceptic, claiming that many mainstream media outlets had stopped quoting Murdoch’s views on the issue since his 2006 statement.