Climate showdown on Q&A between professor and senator-elect

Professor Brian Cox.

There was a climate change showdown on Q&A last night when Professor Brian Cox and One Nation senator-elect Malcolm Roberts were guests on the panel.

Here's the best bits from their exchanges for you.

The night began with an audience question to the British physicist, asking him to address Mr Roberts' request for proof of a human element in climate change.

Read and watch the ABC’s report on last night Q&A - "Professor Brian Cox takes on senator-elect Malcolm Roberts in climate change stoush.”

(Watching last night’s Q&A was embarrassing – my parliamentary representative (I didn’t vote for Malcolm Roberts, but the Australian people did and so he is ‘my’ representative!) made some ludicrous statements in accusing NASA of manipulating its climate science data and was openly questioning of one of the world’s leading public scientists, Professor Brian Cox.

Mr Roberts repeatedly retreated to shoring up his views with comments about “empirical evidence”, but was clearly unable to accept the unequivocal empirical evidence that smashed his arguments.

Sadly, that same Mr Roberts will play a critical role in deciding how Australia responds to climate change – Robert McLean).