Alberta Premier Danielle Smith surveys damage after the Jasper wildfire. Credit: Danielle Smith / YouTube
Speaking at the UCP annual general meeting, the Premier took shots at the federal government and vowed not to “budge an inch.”
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith pledged to “triple down” on conservative principles, including energy extraction and anti-trans policies at the Alberta United Conservative Party’s annual general meeting in Red Deer today in front of an energetic crowd of 6,000 people.
“We will build new pipelines, oil and gas facilities, petrochemical plants, hydrogen plants, and more because Alberta is an energy superpower, and we will not apologize for it,” said the premier, who was defiant against the federal government and any attempts to regulate energy and greenhouse gas emissions.
Taking a shot at the federal government Smith decried federal attempts at regulating carbon emissions during her speech.
“Justin Trudeau, Steven Guilbeault and their band of woke MPs have done everything they can to shut down Canada’s and Alberta’s most economically important industry as quickly as possible,” said Smith.
In a particularly spicy moment, the Premier dismissed federal environment and climate change minister Guilbeault’s “tantrums” and “green schemes,” suggesting that Alberta would not “budge an inch … EVER.”
Smith threatened to continue to block any legislation that affects the energy industry.
“We have already invoked the Sovereignty Act against Justin Trudeau’s reckless and unaffordable 2035 net-zero electricity regulations, which we will not enforce in Alberta,” she said.
Premier Smith denounced federal attempts at regulating carbon emissions during her speech at the UCP’s annual general meeting. Credit: Danielle Paradis
Premier Smith is facing a leadership review as a part of the AGM and met with members at an accountability session where they discussed past policy proposals including the proposal to ban solar farms on agricultural land.
Last year, the Alberta government imposed a seven-month moratorium on renewable energy projects after this policy proposal passed.
According to the Canadian Press, a webinar used as a part of the government’s engagement process said that Alberta is looking to prohibit wind and solar farms on irrigated land.
In the afternoon, the members will debate a policy resolution that would “recognize the importance of CO2 to life and Alberta’s prosperity” by abandoning “Net-Zero” targets and recognizing that CO2 is a “foundational nutrient to life.”
UCP members voted in favor of a resolution to “recognize the importance of CO2 to life and Alberta’s prosperity.” Credit: Danielle Paradis
Alberta’s United Conservative Party has passed a resolution to rebrand carbon dioxide — the chief gas whose overabundance in Earth’s atmosphere is causing the climate emergency — in a brazen display of climate science denial that harkens back to the 1990s fossil fuel industry playbook.
Resolution 12, which falls under the “environmental stewardship and emissions reduction” area of the policy discussion, will “recognize the importance of CO2 to life and Alberta’s prosperity.”
In approving the resolution, the UCP resolved to abandon the province’s net zero targets, remove the designation of CO2 as a pollutant, and further “recognize that CO2 is a foundational nutrient for all life on Earth.”
“We must prioritize policies that protect our economy and our way of life. CO2 is an essential nutrient for mass, driving growth and boosting plant production. According to the CO2 Coalition, higher CO2 levels have led to healthier crops and improved food security worldwide,” said a UCP member speaking in favour of the policy who cited the notorious CO2 Coalition.
The resolution passed by a wide majority.
UCP members vote in favor of Resolution 12. Credit: Danielle Paradis
A member who spoke against the bill, saying that just like like someone can drink too much water and experience water poisoning, too much CO2 can be bad. He was booed by the crowd.
The policy discussion took place in Red Deer, Alberta, where 6,085 UCP members and observers debated 33 policy resolutions at their annual general meeting. Earlier in the day, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith pledged to “triple down” on conservative priorities, including further expanding oil production and attacking Canadian climate policies.
As severaloutlets have reported previously, Resolution 12 flies in the face of the scientific consensus on climate change, and the party’s rationale for the resolution states a widely debunked claim that “the Earth needs more CO2 to support life and to increase plant yields.”
Carbon dioxide is the gas principally responsible for exacerbating the greenhouse effect, the consequence of which is global warming. Whereas carbon is a foundational building block of life on Earth, carbon dioxide is an asphyxiating gas whose atmospheric proportions are so high they’re disrupting the normal function of the carbon cycle.
The resolution was submitted by the members of the legislative assembly (MLA) representing the provincial ridings of Athabasca-Barrhead-Westlock (Glenn van Dijken), and Red Deer-South (Jason Stephan).
The argument that carbon dioxide is a “gas of life” has been a common yet easily refutable talking point popularized by climate change deniers and other right-wing extremists. One such group, the anti-wind energy group Wind Concerns, referred to carbon dioxide as a “gas of life” in an interview with DeSmog last year. Their leader, Mark Mallett, took credit for contributing to the anti-renewable energy moratorium instituted by Alberta UCP Premier Danielle Smith.
Climate scientists have long confirmed that increased CO2 in the atmosphere does not, as climate change deniers insist, create better growing conditions for plants.
The argument that carbon dioxide is beneficial for the environment appears to have first been made by the Greening Earth Society (GES) in the mid-late 1990s. GES was a creation of the Western Fuels Association, and it was later determined the two groups were one and the same. GES published the World Climate Report, a non-academic and non-peer-reviewed journal that served as a platform for climate change denial. They were transparent in acknowledging their funding from fossil fuel companies, and appear to have originated several talking points now common amongst climate change deniers, including those that advocate for increased atmospheric carbon dioxide, which would result in faster plant growth and greater agricultural yields.
In the “rationale” section of the resolution, the United Conservative Party document argues that “CO2 is a nutrient foundational to all life on Earth.”
While plants need both light and carbon dioxide to thrive, the over-supply of CO2 in recent decades is leading to plants being deprived of their nutrients. One biologist was quoted in a 2017 Politico article describing this as akin to “the greatest injection of carbohydrates into the biosphere in human history,” and that injection is diluting the nutrients in the food supply.
While the resolution notes that the “carbon cycle is a biological necessity,” it doesn’t appear the resolution’s sponsors are aware that increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere throws the carbon cycle off balance. This is precisely what’s causing the climate emergency: too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere combined with the destruction of natural carbon storage is destroying the carbon cycle as we know it. The proposed resolution is as contradictory as it is scientifically illiterate.
The resolution also states that current CO2 levels are around 420 PPM, which is described as being “near the lowest level in over 1000 years.” Where this idea comes from is not clear, but it is not supported by verifiable scientific evidence. To the contrary, CO2 levels were 34 percent lower than today in the year 1024, at about 280 PPM. CO2 levels have climbed steadily since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, though they have grown most aggressively since 1950. NASA estimates that, despite wide fluctuations over time, CO2 levels had not exceeded 300 PPM over the last 800,000 years, but have stayed above that level since 1950.
The argument that more CO2 will support life, increase yields, and “contribute to the health and prosperity of all Albertans” — as stated in the resolution — is not supported by scientific evidence. The opposite is a far likelier outcome. As the principal driver of the climate crisis and global warming, increasing CO2 levels will exacerbate droughts, wildfires, and floods, among other disasters, in turn resulting in loss of life and major disruptions to global supply chains. The consequent economic disturbances and their aftereffects will worsen the affordability crisis and result in increasingly negative economic outcomes for all, not just Albertans. Rather than stimulate Alberta’s agricultural sector, climate change will destroy it, and the evidence this is already happening is quite clear.
Another policy resolution is focused on the provincial government’s “scrap the cap” program. The policy builds on a previous resolution to repeal the carbon tax and instead: “Prohibit any consumer carbon tax or carbon pricing scheme or carbon cap and trade system from being implemented in Alberta.”
The resolution also proposes to support “any federal or interprovincial government’s efforts to “axe the tax” (the federal conservative campaign) by eliminating the federal carbon pricing backstop from being imposed on Albertans and Canadians.”
Other resolutions over the weekend have focused on print-based identification, and a requirement for in-person voting “to deal with all the voter fraud.”
Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage speaking at a Reform UK press conference on 3 June 2024. Credit: Reform UK / YouTube
The Reform UK leader is a vocal opponent of net zero policies, and has questioned the basis of established climate science
Pro-Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage has announced that he will be standing to be an MP at the upcoming general election and will be replacing Richard Tice as leader of the populist party Reform UK.
Farage, who says that he hopes to become “the voice of opposition” in Parliament, has long been a vocal opponent of climate action and a critic of climate science – campaigning for a referendum on the UK’s 2050 net zero emissions target.
When he was the leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), the party’s 2015 and 2017 election manifestos pledged to rip up green measures, repeal the UK’s Climate Change Act, withdraw from the 2015 Paris Agreement – the flagship deal to tackle global emissions – and support fossil fuel extraction.
These reflected Farage’s personal views on climate action. In 2015, he told the libertarian website Spiked: “I think wind energy is the biggest collective economic insanity I’ve seen in my entire life. I’ve never seen anything more stupid, more illogical, or more irrational.”
Farage is a presenter on GB News, the right-wing broadcaster that has regularly provided a platform to climate science denial and attacks on green reforms since it launched in June 2021.
Speaking on GB News in August 2021, Farage said that he was “very much an environmentalist” and that he couldn’t “abide things like plastics in our seas, pollution in our rivers.” However, on the issue of climate change, he added: “What annoys me though, is this complete obsession with carbon dioxide almost to the exclusion of everything else, the alarmism that comes with it, based on dodgy predictions and science.”
The world’s foremost climate science body, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has stated it is “unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land”, while scientists at NASA have found that the last 10 years were the hottest on record. Earth’s average surface temperature in 2023 was the warmest since records began in 1880.
The IPCC has also stated that carbon dioxide “is responsible for most of global warming” since the late 19th century, which has increased the “severity and frequency of weather and climate extremes, like heat waves, heavy rains, and drought”.
Farage has been a vocal critic of net zero. He has claimed that the policy is an “act of self harm” and has called for it to be scrapped.
He has said: “It will not bring economic benefits. It will make everybody a whole lot poorer. And yet the lemmings in Parliament are taking us towards an economic cliff,” adding: “I can’t think of an issue on which the public and politicians are more divided.”
In fact, politicians are markedly less in favour of climate action than the general public. New polling by YouGov for the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) has shown that almost two-thirds (62 percent) of the public believe the best way to achieve energy security is to reduce the use of fossil fuels and instead expand the use of renewable energy, compared to 48 percent of MPs.
The Climate Change Committee, which advises the government on its net zero policies, has estimated that the cost of achieving net zero will be less than 1 percent of UK GDP, while the government independent spending watchdog – the Office for Budget Responsibility – has said that, “the costs of failing to get climate change under control would be much larger than those of bringing emissions down to net zero”.
Farage has also claimed that, “If green technology is going to work, it ought to work without ordinary folk subsidising it” – referring to the government grants and investment dedicated to developing clean energy sources. The UK government has given £20 billion more in support to fossil fuel producers than their renewable energy peers since 2015.
Farage has also spread conspiracy theories about anti-pollution measures being used to control people’s lives.
In a video posted on Twitter, he argued that Mayor of London Sadiq Khan’s calls to reduce air pollution by cutting car engine use would pave the way to “climate lockdowns”.
He said: “Mark my words this isn’t going to end with 20mph zones and low-traffic neighbourhoods. No no. This is the beginning of climate lockdowns. We will have, in years to come, days where we’re told we can’t drive, we can’t do this, you can’t do that while Sadiq Khan is leading the way. Remember you heard it here first. Climate lockdowns.”
The Institute for Strategic Dialogue has highlighted how climate lockdown claims are part of “a conspiratorial narrative which claims that global elites are using climate change as a pretext to restrict individual freedoms and civil liberties.”
Farage and Reform UK
Farage used his announcement to state his belief that Labour will win the general election, which will be held on 4 July, and that the Conservative Party has “crushed itself”. With the Tories predicted to lose in a landslide, Farage appears to believe that he can lead a new right-wing movement.
The Reform leader was already a key figure in the party prior to today’s announcement, effectively owning the party as well as serving as its president. Reform operates as a private company without a democratic structure, so Farage’s majority shareholding meant that could have appointed himself as leader at any time.
Despite Farage failing to be elected as an MP when he stood in seven previous general elections, and Reform only winning two councillors in May’s local elections, polls indicate that Farage may succeed in becoming the MP for Clacton.
If this is the case, Farage will be advocating in Parliament for the anti-climate policies that have been proposed by his party.
Reform has called for the UK’s net zero emissions target to be scrapped, and has proposed holding a referendum on the policy – a campaign launched by Farage in 2022.
The party’s policy agenda states that: “Westminster’s net zero plans send our jobs and money overseas, making us net poorer and net colder”, adding that net zero policies are “net stupid”.
The party’s former leader Tice, who will now become its chairman, is a prominent climate science denier. Tice has claimed that “there is no climate crisis”, and has also expressed the view that “CO2 isn’t a poison. It’s plant food”.
Of the £2.5 million that Reform UK has received in donations since the 2019 election, around 92 percent (£2.3 million) of that income has been given by fossil fuel interests, polluting industries, or climate science deniers.
A mashup of three Epoch Times adverts posted on Meta. Credit: The Epoch Times / Meta
Campaigners have referred the Epoch Times to the UK advertising regulator for “stoking the climate culture war” on social media.
The pro-Trump Epoch Times has run hundreds of anti-climate social media adverts in Europe since the beginning of 2024 that have been seen millions of times, DeSmog can reveal.
Epoch Times accounts in Europe have run 425 adverts on Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter) that have attacked or undermined climate science, green energy, or climate action since the start of the year. These adverts have been run in the UK, Germany, Slovakia, and Bulgaria, appearing on social media feeds at least 2.3 million times across Facebook and Instagram, and 3.1 million times on X.
These anti-climate ads were active for 22 days on average on Meta platforms (Facebook and Instagram), while they were displayed for 9.5 days on average on X.
Four of the adverts posted by Epoch Times on Meta have now been referred to the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA), a UK watchdog, by the campaign group Global Witness. The group is calling for the ASA to open an investigation into whether the Epoch Times breached the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) Code and, if so, to ban these adverts.
The Epoch Times claims to be the fastest growing independent news outlet in the United States. It claims to host websites across 22 languages in 35 countries, publishing online and in print. The publication has gained a substantial online following in recent years, amassing more than 10 million followers across its various Facebook accounts.
Based in New York, the Epoch Times is affiliated with the Falun Gong new religious movement in China and is staunchly anti-communist. Though the source of its income isn’t publicly declared, former employees told the New York Times that the publication was financed “by a combination of subscriptions, ads and donations from wealthy Falun Gong practitioners.”
The publication has propelled itself on Facebook by filling its feeds with viral, feel-good videos alongside its often partisan news coverage.
According to NewsGuard, an independent company that rates the credibility of news sites, Epoch Times articles “frequently include distorted, misleading, or unsubstantiated claims.” The Epoch Times claims on its website that its reporters are “guided by the highest code of conduct and ethics”.
The Epoch Times spent at least $1.5 million on adverts in support of then Republican President Donald Trump from 2018 to 2019 – more than any group other than the Trump campaign.
The publication was banned from advertising by Meta following these revelations, and the social media company told DeSmog that it ”continues to enforce this ban”. However, a number of Epoch Times offshoots have been allowed to promote climate science denial across Europe this year.
Many of these adverts have explicitly questioned the contribution of carbon dioxide (CO2) to climate change. The adverts have featured statements including “Several climate scientists say CO2 is essential and higher levels are not a problem”, and “What if more CO2 is actually good for the environment?”
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s foremost climate science body, has stated that carbon dioxide “is responsible for most of global warming” since the late 19th century, which has increased the “severity and frequency of weather and climate extremes, like heat waves, heavy rains, and drought”.
The adverts ran for months, and reached millions of people, despite Meta’s pledge to tackle climate misinformation. Ten were removed prior to DeSmog contacting Meta, of which six were removed over a failure to include an appropriate advertising disclaimer.
“After sowing division and disinformation in the U.S., everyone in the UK should be alarmed that the Epoch Times is using the same playbook here,” said Nienke Palstra, campaign strategy lead at Global Witness. “We have already seen politicians trying to stoke a climate culture war and the Epoch Times is spending big to tap into this sentiment. We cannot allow the future of our planet to be put at threat for the political gain of extremists and populists.”
A spokesperson for the Epoch Times told Global Witness that scientists have always differed in their opinion on climate change and that “To ban different opinions does not help a civilised open society and erodes freedom of speech.”
Climate Denial Content
The bulk of the anti-climate adverts seen by DeSmog were posted by Epoch Times London, a Facebook page created in October 2023 that has fewer than 600 followers.
Many of the adverts posted by Epoch Times London questioned climate science, for example claiming that “the greenhouse effect is real but irrelevant”, and that “new studies undercut the ‘scientifically empty’ global warming narrative.”
One advert entitled “Scientists Expose Major Problems With Climate Change Data” was linked to an Epoch Times article that claimed climate change can be best explained by “natural variation”. The article also said that attempts to create a scientific consensus around human-caused climate change are the product of “deliberate fraud” according to “some experts.”
The same article quoted Willie Soon, a scientist who has cast doubt on climate science and who has openly admitted accepting research funding from fossil fuel interests.
A number of the Epoch Times London adverts suggested that the consensus on climate change is based on a wilful misinterpretation of evidence by the scientific community, asking questions such as “Climate change or data corruption? Experts question mainstream narrative.”
DeSmog’s analysis found that Epoch Times London ran at least 392 unique adverts on Meta since the start of the year that attacked or attempted to undermine climate science, green energy, or climate action.
Of those adverts, 146 were still active prior to DeSmog contacting Meta. According to an analysis of Meta’s ad archive, Epoch Times London has spent between £12,600 and £51,715 on its anti-climate advertising since the start of the year, with those adverts having been seen between 1.9 million and 2.5 million times. Meta has now blocked Epoch Times London’s ability to post adverts.
According to Companies House, Epoch Times London was incorporated in 2014. The publication drew criticism in the UK in 2020 for posting free editions of its paper to Brighton and Hove residents, the front page of which included claims that the Chinese Communist Party had deliberately covered up evidence of COVID-19’s existence.
Following complaints from constituents, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, the Labour MP for Kemptown in Brighton, publicly criticised the Epoch Times in the House of Commons and called on Royal Mail to stop posting its print edition.
Epoch’s European Operations
Elsewhere in Europe, DeSmog has seen evidence of anti-climate advertising from Epoch Times-affiliated accounts.
The most prolific source of these adverts has been the German Epoch Times account on X, which has run 61 anti-climate adverts since the beginning of the year, reaching at least 1.5 million people and appearing 3.2 million times on X feeds across the German-speaking world.
Of the adverts that made a funding declaration, all stated that they were paid for Epoch Times Europe Gmbh, a company that has existed in Germany since at least 2009 according to the country’s company register.
A number of these adverts directly questioned the role of CO2 on climate change, saying that “CO2, especially anthropogenic emissions, hardly play a role”, “Climate change: CO2 not to blame”, “Climate change is too complex to blame on CO2”, and “CO2 is the most expensive fraud in history.”
While there were fewer ads run on Meta in Germany than in the UK, they still generated at least 100,000 impressions, representing an ad spend of between €1,500 and €3,777.
An account run by German Epoch Times journalist Erik Rusch has also run at least 24 anti-climate adverts since its creation in January – though the adverts state that they were paid for by Rusch.
Some of the adverts run by Epoch Times Germany suggested that wind turbines produce nefarious health effects, including claims such as, “Don’t ignore the health effects: Doctor warns against wind turbines”, and “Wind energy under scrutiny: Dr Bellut-Staeck on the low-frequency risks to humans and animals.”
One of the German adverts quoted Fritz Vahrenholt, who is a scientific advisor to the UK’s leading climate science denial group, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF).
Other adverts promoted by the German Epoch Times, as well as Epoch Times London, quoted fellow GWPF advisor Richard Lindzen. In one of these adverts, Lindzen was quoted as saying: “If we could get rid of 60 percent of CO2, we would all be dead.”
Germany Epoch Times adverts also linked back to articles on its website, directing readers to the claim by climate science denier John F. Clauser that the perceived climate threat is a “dangerous corruption of science.”
Another advert quoted Lindzen as asking, “Is climate change the existential threat we’ve been led to believe?” and linked to an Epoch Times interview with Lindzen on its YouTube series “American Thought Leaders”.
Former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss was recently interviewed on this series, while a parallel series, “British Thought Leaders”, has interviewed a number of climate science deniers. Since the beginning of March, this series has featured Martin Durkin, Rupert Darwall, and GWPF advisor Gwythian Prins. These interviews were headlined: “The Science Simply Does Not Support the Ridiculous Hysteria Around Climate At All”, “This Obsession With Carbon Dioxide Emissions Has Led to Tragedy”, and “The World Is at War – The West’s Green Policies Are Playing Into Our Enemy’s Hands”.
Epoch Times Bulgaria has posted three anti-climate ads since the beginning of the year, one of which was entitled “scientists alarmed that there is no real evidence that CO2 is causing climate change”.
Meta has pledged to take action against false narratives on climate change, and the platform has committing to using a “suite of tools, such as fact checking and labels, to help combat climate misinformation.”
In May 2021, Facebook said that it would begin attaching informational labels to posts about climate change, directing users to the platform’s new “Climate Science Information Center”.
However, research conducted in 2022 by the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that Facebook is failing to flag at least half of climate misinformation content.
“Despite claiming to take climate misinformation seriously, Meta has a history of allowing climate disinformation posts with high-engagement to go unchecked,” said Ilana Berger, senior climate and energy disinformation researcher at the misinformation watchdog Media Matters. “If Meta is committed to combating climate disinformation on its platform, it must at the very least consistently enforce its existing policies.”
Meanwhile, following his takeover of Twitter in 2022, Elon Musk has slashed the number of staff who identify harmful content and misinformation. X did not respond to DeSmog’s request for comment.
“Climate misinformation threatens all of our futures – and with elections pending across Europe, the stakes could not be higher,” said Richard Wilson, director of the campaign group Stop Funding Heat. “But the same money that is fuelling this problem could also be the key to a solution. If enough advertisers speak out, and urge Facebook and Twitter to stop climate lies being promoted through their platforms, they will have to clean up their act.”
The Institute of Economic Affairs has its headquarters on Lord North Street, Westminster. Credit: Des Blenkinsopp (CC BY-SA 2.0)
A senior figure at the influential Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) think tank contributed to a new documentary that spread numerous myths about climate change.
Stephen Davies, an academic who has worked in educational outreach roles at the IEA since 2010, appeared several times in Climate The Movie: The Cold Truth – a new film directed by climate science denier Martin Durkin.
In the documentary, Davies claims that climate activists want to impose an “austere” life on ordinary people. “Behind all the talk about a climate emergency, climate crisis” is “an animus and hostility towards” working-class people, “their lifestyle, their beliefs and a desire to change it by force if necessary,” he says.
According to the website Skeptical Science, which debunks climate misinformation, Climate The Movie contains more than two dozen myths about climate change. The film suggests that we shouldn’t be worried about greenhouse gas emissions, because plants need carbon dioxide. “We’re in a CO2 famine,” one interviewee claims.
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s foremost climate science body, has stated that carbon dioxide “is responsible for most of global warming” since the late 19th century, which has increased the “severity and frequency of weather and climate extremes, like heat waves, heavy rains, and drought”.
Climate The Movie producer Thomas Nelson told DeSmog that “I see the misguided fight against carbon dioxide as being as crazy as fighting against oxygen or water vapour, and I think scaring innocent children about this is deeply evil”.
The IEA said that “Steve firmly believes that climate change is happening and carbon emissions are having an impact. His view that climate policy imposes costs, particularly on working-class communities, is entirely mainstream. IEA publications and spokespeople have supported action on climate change, including carbon pricing.”
A screenshot of Stephen Davies of the Institute of Economic Affairs in Climate The Movie: The Cold Truth. Credit: Climate The Movie / YouTube
In 2018, Greenpeace’s investigative journalism unit Unearthed revealed that the IEA had received funding from oil major BP every year since 1967. In response to the story, an IEA spokeswoman said: “It is surely uncontroversial that the IEA’s principles coincide with the interests of our donors.”
The IEA also received a £21,000 grant from U.S. oil major ExxonMobil in 2005.
The IEA has extensive influence in politics and the media. It was pivotal to Liz Truss’s short-lived premiership as prime minister, and has boasted of its access to Conservative ministers and MPs. During the year ending March 2023, the IEA appeared in the media on 5,265 occasions, a figure 43 percent higher than its previous peak in 2019.
The group has also received donations from a number of philanthropic trusts accused of channelling funds from the fossil fuel industry and helping to support climate science denial groups. The IEA is a member of the Atlas Network – an international collaboration of “extreme” free market groups that have been accused of promoting the interests of fossil fuel companies and other large corporations.
It’s not known if the IEA has received funding from BP since 2018.
The IEA is a prominent supporter of the continued and extended use of fossil fuels. The group has advocated for the ban to be lifted on fracking for shale gas, calling it the “moral and economic choice”. The IEA has also said that a ban on new North Sea oil and gas would be “madness”, has criticised the windfall tax imposed on North Sea oil and gas firms, and said that the government’s commitment to “max out” the UK’s fossil fuel reserves is a “welcome step”.
The IEA is part of the Tufton Street network – a cluster of libertarian think tanks and pressure groups that are in favour of more fossil fuel extraction and are opposed to state-led climate action. These groups are characterised by a lack of transparency over their sources of funding. The IEA does not publicly declare the names of its donors.
“From Brexit to Trussonomics, the IEA has consistently peddled and promoted destructive and damaging policies,” Green Party MP Caroline Lucas told DeSmog. “Yet perhaps nothing will prove more dangerous long term than the stream of climate denialism and calls to delay action that have been pouring out of Tufton Street for many years.
“Clearly the IEA is now ramping up its climate culture war and the Conservative Party has been following suit. The cross-party consensus on climate action we used to have in Parliament is under strain like never before.”
The IEA and Stephen Davies were approached for comment.
Climate The Movie
During the documentary, Davies suggests that action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is being used to limit the freedom of individuals. He claims that climate activists want to impose “a much more austere simple kind of lifestyle” on people “in which the consumption choices of the great bulk of the population are controlled or even prohibited.”
Davies adds that: “What you have here is a classic example of class hypocrisy and self-interest masquerading as public spirited concern. You could take these kinds of green socialist more seriously if they lived off grid, they cut their own consumption down to the minimum, they never flew. Instead you get constant talk about how human consumption is destroying the planet but the people making all this talk show absolutely no signs of reducing their own.”
The documentary also features an interview with Benny Peiser, the director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) – the UK’s leading climate science denial group. Peiser has previously claimed that it would be “extraordinary anyone should think there is a climate crisis”, while the GWPF has expressed the view that carbon dioxide has been mischaracterised as pollution, when in fact it is a “benefit to the planet”.
The film was favourably reviewed by commentator Toby Young in The Spectator magazine, who described it as “a phenomenon”. Young has previously said that he’s sceptical about the idea of human-caused climate change.
The IPCC has stated it is “unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land”, while scientists at NASA have found that the last 10 years were the hottest on record. Earth’s average surface temperature in 2023 was the warmest since records began in 1880.
The IPCC has also warned that false and misleading information “undermines climate science and disregards risk and urgency” of climate action.
The documentary also features Claire Fox, a member of the House of Lords who was nominated for a peerage by former prime minister Boris Johnson in 2020.
Fox used the documentary to claim that, by tackling climate change, people will be forced to pay more “to simply live the lives that they were leading”.
She suggests that supporters of climate action are trying to “take away what we consider to be not luxuries but necessities.”
The UK’s Climate Change Committee, which advises the government on measures to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, estimates that the combined policies will cost less than one percent of the country’s national output.
The Office for Budget Responsibility, the UK’s independent economic forecaster, has also said that “the costs of failing to get climate change under control would be much larger than those of bringing emissions down to net zero”.
Claire Fox and the GWPF were approached for comment.
A Charitable Cause?
The IEA is a registered charity, meaning that it receives generous tax breaks.
The group justifies this charitable status partly on the basis of its educational outreach programme, which aims to “equip tomorrow’s leaders with a deep understanding of free market economics”.
The IEA claims that: “Our aim is to change the climate of opinion in the long term and our work with students is a key part of this.”
In the year ending March 2023, the group claimed to have engaged with 3,500 students and 1,200 teachers via its seminars, internships and summer schools.
Formerly the IEA’s head of education and now a senior education fellow, Davies is a senior member of the group’s outreach programme. He is the first person listed in the IEA’s student speakers brochure, which advertises the IEA staff members who are available to speak at schools or universities.
The brochure also lists the IEA’s chief operating officer Andy Mayer, who has said that the government should “get rid of” its target of achieving net zero emissions by 2050, which he called a “very hard left, socialist, central-planning model”.
The non-profit Good Law Project recently made a complaint to the Charity Commission about the IEA, claiming that the libertarian group had breached charity rules. Namely, the Good Law Project claims that the IEA is in breach of rules stating that charities must avoid presenting “biased and selective information in support of a preconceived point of view”.
The Charity Commission rejected this complaint, stating that: “We have assessed the concerns raised and have not identified concerns that the charity is acting outside of its objects or the Commission’s published guidance.”
Good Law Project campaigns manager Hannah Greer told DeSmog: “It won’t be a surprise to anyone that the IEA is cementing its role as a major mouthpiece for climate change scepticism. It’s a huge scandal that the IEA is still allowed to peddle fringe views under the guise of being an ‘educational charity’ while benefiting from taxpayer subsidies.
“This has been allowed to happen because we have seen alarming and unambiguous regulatory failure from the Charity Commission – who have been presented with evidence of how the IEA is flouting charity law, but have chosen to look the other way.”
