Tony Abbott tells Heritage Foundation 'every extreme weather' is wrongly linked to climate change'
says zealots are wrongly using 'every extreme weather event' as undeniable proof of global warming, with the former prime minister denying it was the main cause of Australia's unprecedented bushfire crisis. Mr Abbott launched a stinging rebuke of eco warriors at an event for the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank, in Washington D.C. on Tuesday - where he also lauded US President 's first term in office. The former Liberal Party leader and volunteer firefighter said deadly bushfires were inevitable in Australia and pointed to the century-old Dorothea Mackeller poem 'My Country' which describes the country as a land 'of droughts and flooding rains'. Mr Abbott said climate change activists were almost 'religious' in their beliefs that global warming was to blame for the ongoing fires, which have devastated a record amount of land. 'I'm not one of those people who sees the current bushfires as confirmation of all we have feared about the changing climate,' he told . 'I see the current bushfires as the sort of thing we are always going to be prone to in a country such as ours.' Mr Abbott said those who believe climate change is the most important factor in extreme weather events use it as the reason for fires, floods and Hurricane Sandy - which devastated the Carribean in 2012. 'If you think climate change is the most important thing, everything can be turned to proof. I think that to many it has almost a religious aspect to it,' he said. Mr Abbott, Australia's 28th prime minister, led the country between 2013 and 2015 while served 19 years as a volunteer firefighter for the Rural Fire Service. He supported Prime Minister Scott Morrison's stance that climate change had some role in causing bushfires, and praised his response to the state of emergency caused by the fires. Mr Morrison said earlier this week hazard reduction was just as important in reducing bushfire risk as emissions reduction. The Prime Minister had been under fire for taking an overseas holiday in the early part of the bushfire crisis, which had killed almost 30 people and destroyed thousands of homes.