In prioritising oil and gas over renewables, ministers are doing the bidding of the polluters. And we’ll all pay the price
Money for the criminals, prison for the heroes: this, in brief, is the government’s climate policy. If something is damaging to the public interest, it’s likely to be rewarde
Money for the criminals, prison for the heroes: this, in brief, is the government’s climate policy. If something is damaging to the public interest, it’s likely to be rewarded and subsidised. If it’s beneficial, it will find itself in a hostile environment.
This government represents the denouement of the Pollution Paradox: as dirty money has the greatest incentive to invest in politics, it comes to run the whole system. Across these 13 years of misrule, we have seen the perversities of Conservative government multiply and intensify.
Thursday was supposed to be “green day”, when the government, forced to act by a court ruling, would unveil a new, more detailed plan for achieving net zero emissions. Instead, the occasion has been rebranded “energy security day”.
The CEOs of jet fuel suppliers, gas turbine makers, oil and gas companies are among those who made large donations in the last quarter of 2022.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Credit: Number 10 Downing Street / Simon Walker, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
The Conservative Party has received more than £632,000 in new donations from individuals and firms tied to polluting industries, DeSmog can reveal.
New Electoral Commission records released today show that the bulk of the fossil-fuel linked funds came from Christopher Harborne, who donated £500,000 in the final quarter of 2022 – the joint-largest donation registered by the party during this period.
Further donations were made by a gas turbine manufacturer, a North Sea oil investor, a petrochemical engineering firm, and a peer with shares in major oil and gas companies.
The revelation comes at an important moment for UK climate policy. Sunak’s government is due to release an update to its net zero strategy next month after a High Court judge ruled it lacked sufficient detail.
The government recently opened up a new round of North Sea oil and gas licences for oil and gas exploration, at a time when the UN has warned that only drastic, immediate cuts to carbon emissions can avert a climate catastrophe.
Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion, said donations from polluting industries represented a “dangerous conflict of interest”.
Fossil Fuel Ties
Harborne is the owner of AML Global, an aviation fuel supplier operating in 1,200 locations worldwide with a distribution network that includes “main and regional oil companies”, according to its website. Harborne is also the CEO of Sheriff Global Group, which trades in private jets.
Before the pandemic, aviation emissions accounted for eight percent of the UK’s annual greenhouse gas emissions, according to the government’s Climate Change Committee, yet the government granted nearly £250 million in “free pollution permits” to the industry in 2021.
Harborne has also donated some £6.5 million to the Brexit Party – now Reform UK – whose co-founder Nigel Farage has called for a referendum on the government’s net zero targets and has labelled the focus on carbon emissions “alarmism”. Harborne has rarely spoken about the climate crisis, so the details of his personal views are unknown.
As revealed by DeSmog, Harborne also donated £515,000 to the Conservatives in the second quarter of 2022, when the party accepted a total of £651,000 from the aviation industry.
These donations landed in the same period as the government’s “Jet Zero Strategy”, published in July. The policy – which aims to cut UK aviation emissions to net-zero by 2050, allow travellers to fly “guilt-free” and supports further aviation sector growth – has been dismissed by environmental groups as “pure greenwash”.
Harborne and AML Global have been approached for comment.
Other Donors
The new Electoral Commission records show that the Conservatives received a further £15,000 in the final quarter of 2022 from Centrax Industries – a firm that specialises in manufacturing gas turbines. Centrax has now given more than £300,000 to the Conservatives since 2010.
DeSmog previously revealed that companies and individuals involved in North Sea oil and gas – including Centrax – donated a total of £419,900 to the Conservatives ahead of and during the government’s review into the future of the sector from July 2020 to March 2021.
Another Conservative donor in the final quarter of 2022 was Nova Venture Holdings, which donated £52,260. The company is wholly owned by Jacques Tohme, who describes himself as an “energy investor” on LinkedIn and lists his current role as co-founder and director of Tailwind Energy, an oil and gas company.
According to its website,Tailwind focuses on “maximis[ing] value in UK continental shelf (UKCS) opportunities”, an area which includes the North Sea. Serica Energy reportedly has an agreement in place to buy Tailwind, which is expected to complete in March. The acquisition will make Serica one of the 10 largest North Sea oil and gas producers.
A further £10,000 was given to the Conservatives by Alan Lusty – the CEO of Adi Group – adding to the £17,000 that he has given to the party since 2021. According to its website, Adi Group is a “leading supplier of engineering services to the petrochemical industry”. These services “add significant value to petrochemical engineering companies”, Adi says, though the firm claims “to work towards delivering a low-carbon economy” through its products. Adi also provides engineering services to the aerospace and automotive industries.
Finally, the Conservative Party received £50,000 from one of its peers – Lord John Nash – who also donated £5,000 to the local Wantage constituency party. According to his register of interests, Lord Nash holds shares in Royal Dutch Shell, the second largest investor-owned oil and gas company in the world by revenue, and BHP, the Australian-based mining, oil and gas firm.
Lord Nash, who has run several private equity funds, has donated more than £560,000 to the party since 2018.
The £632,260 accumulated by the Tories from fossil fuel interests and high polluters represents more than 13 percent of the party’s £4.8 million income during the final quarter of 2022.
Rishi Sunak himself received £141,000 from energy interests during his Conservative leadership campaign in the summer of 2022.
Jacques Tohme, Tailwind Energy, Centrax, Adi Group, Lord Nash and the Conservative Party have been approached for comment.
“The shift to a low-carbon economy is not just inevitable, it’s already happening. Yet the board is persisting with a transition strategy that is fundamentally flawed.”
A group of activist investors sued Shell’s board of directors on Wednesday for failing to “deliver the reduction in emissions that is needed to keep global climate goals within reach.”
ClientEarth, an environmental law charity and institutional investor in Shell, described the case as the first time a company board is facing a shareholder lawsuit for inadequately preparing to transition away from fossil fuels.
“Shell may be making record profits now due to the turmoil of the global energy market, but the writing is on the wall for fossil fuels long term,” Paul Benson, a senior lawyer at ClientEarth, said in a statement. “The shift to a low-carbon economy is not just inevitable, it’s already happening. Yet the board is persisting with a transition strategy that is fundamentally flawed, leaving the company seriously exposed to the risks that climate change poses to Shell’s future success—despite the board’s legal duty to manage those risks.”
The lawsuit, which is backed by large institutional investors that collectively hold 12 million shares of Shell, alleges that the oil giant’s 11 directors are violating the Companies Act, a U.K. law that requires corporate boards to “promote the success” of the business.
By failing to sufficiently manage climate risks and implement “an energy transition strategy that aligns with the Paris Agreement,” Shell is flouting its legal obligations, the lawsuit contends.
“Shell’s Board on the other hand maintains that its ‘Energy Transition Strategy’—including its plan to be a net-zero emissions business by 2050—is consistent with the 1.5°C temperature goal of the Paris Agreement,” ClientEarth notes. “It also claims that its plan to halve emissions from its global operations by 2030 is ‘industry-leading,’ however this covers less than 10% of its overall emissions.”
“It is in the best interests of the company, its employees, and its shareholders—as well as the planet—for Shell to reduce its emissions harder and faster than the board is currently planning.”
ClientEarth and its backers are asking the High Court of Justice in London to force Shell’s board to “adopt a strategy to manage climate risk in line with its duties under the Companies Act” and in compliance with a 2021 Dutch court ruling ordering the oil giant to cut its total carbon emissions by 45% by 2030.
“Long term, it is in the best interests of the company, its employees, and its shareholders—as well as the planet—for Shell to reduce its emissions harder and faster than the board is currently planning,” Benson said.
Jacqueline Amy Jackson, the head of responsible investment at London CIV—one of the institutional backers of ClientEarth’s lawsuit—said that “we do not believe the board has adopted a reasonable or effective strategy to manage the risks associated with climate change affecting Shell.”
“In our view,” Jackson added, “a board of directors of a high-emitting company has a fiduciary duty to manage climate risk, and in so doing, consider the impacts of its decisions on climate change, and to reduce its contribution to it.”
Shell said in response that ClientEarth’s suit “has no merit.”
ClientEarth filed its complaint a week after Shell announced that its profits doubled in 2022, surging to a record $40 billion as households across Europe and around the world struggled with high energy costs. The company said it returned $26 billion to shareholders last year through dividends and stock buybacks.
Earlier this month, the advocacy group Global Witness filed a complaint with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accusing Shell of “lumping together some of its gas-related investments with its spending on renewables to inflate its overall investment in renewable sources of energy,” misleading investors and authorities.
“Shell’s so-called renewable and energy solutions category is pure fiction,” said Zorka Milin, a senior adviser at Global Witness. “The company is living in fantasy land if it thinks fossil gas has any place in the much-needed energy transition. Shell’s business model has always been, and continues to be, overwhelmingly based on climate-polluting fossil fuels.”
Shell is also facing lawsuits from nearly 14,000 Nigerians whose communities have been devastated by the company’s pollution and oil spills.
Coal mine expansion has long been flashpoint for tensions over Germany’s energy policies
News of climate activist Greta Thunberg’s detention by police near the German village of Lutzerath has drawn further attention to controversial plans for a coal mine’s expansion, which she has labelled a “betrayal” by the government.
While perhaps the most recognisable, the Swedish campaigner is among thousands of people who have been compelled to take part in demonstrations at the North Rhine-Westphalia village in recent years, which has become a flashpoint for German climate activists seeking an end to fossil fuels.
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[A]ctivists argue that fossil fuels must remain in the ground to avert climate breakdown. Addressing some 6,000 protesters marching on Lutzerath on Saturday, Ms Thunberg called the mine’s expansion a “betrayal of present and future generations”.
“Germany is one of the biggest polluters in the world and needs to be held accountable,” she said, adding: “The most affected people are clear, the science is clear, we need to keep the carbon in the ground.
“When governments and corporations are acting like this, are actively destroying the environment, putting countless of people at risk, the people step up.”
‘Cease and desist’ letter signed by over 650,000 people sent to oil and gas CEOs follows removal of Greta Thunberg from coal protest
Hundreds of thousands of young climate activists have said they will continue “protesting in the streets in huge numbers” against fossil fuels, a day after Greta Thunberg was removed by German police from a condemned village atop a massive coal deposit.
In a cease-and-desist letter to the CEOs of fossil fuel companies, youth campaigners accuse them of a “direct violation of our human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, your duties of care, as well as the rights of Indigenous people”.
“This cease-and-desist notice is to demand that you immediately stop opening any new oil, gas or coal extraction sites, and stop blocking the clean energy transition we all so urgently need,” the letter says.
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The letter warns that failure to act would mean citizens around the world would consider taking “any and all legal action” to hold the companies accountable. “And we will keep protesting in the streets in huge numbers,” it says.
Signatories included Vanessa Nakate from Uganda, Greta Thunberg from Sweden, Helena Gualinga from Ecuador and Luisa Neubauer from Germany. They say: “It feels extremely difficult to keep hope alive in the face of climate devastation around the world. But our hope lies in people – in the millions of us who are determined to come together and demand action. It’s time to put these CEOs on notice – showing them that 2023 will be a watershed moment for accountability.”
