The UN's damning report on global warming represents a massive blow to the collective dubbed "climate change deniers", according to Environment Secretary David Miliband.

Botanist David Bellamy, former Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson, scientists Pat Micheals and Dick Lindzen in the US, and weather forecaster Piers Corbyn in the UK have all claimed in recent articles and speeches that carbon dioxide is not responsible for the increase in global temperatures.

Mr Bellamy claimed in 2004 that the theory of man-made global warming was "poppycock" and argued the following year that instead of shrinking, as most scientists believed, the world's glaciers were advancing.

He famously asserted that "the link between the burning of fossil fuels and global warming is a myth".

In 2005, Mr Lawson wrote a letter to The Times criticising the Kyoto protocol and claiming that there were substantial scientific uncertainties surrounding climate change.

Mr Miliband said: "It is another nail in the coffin of the climate change deniers and represents the most authoritative picture to date, showing that the debate over the science of climate change is well and truly over."

Alan Thorpe, chief executive of the Natural Environment Research Council, said that "a handful of scientists, politicians and writers are still claiming humans are not responsible at all; we have got to kill off this notion so we can get on with the real work - protecting ourselves from future climate change".