Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Companies and individuals linked to the fossil fuel industry donated more than $19 million to Donald Trump’s inaugural fund, new Global Witness analysis reveals. The analysis, based on itemised data published by the US Federal Election Commission, identified 47 individual donations from November 2024 to January 2025, accounting for around 7.8% of the total $245 million raised by the fund. Presidential inaugural funds are used to cover the costs of inauguration events, such as parades, galas and receptions.
Donald Trump used funds from his first inaugural fund in 2017 to organise a party at his own hotel, for which he was sued by the D.C. Attorney General. Of fossil fuel-linked donors, US oil giant Chevron made the largest contribution – $2 million – and was the joint fourth-largest donor overall. A string of other fossil fuel companies made donations of $1 million, including ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips and Occidental Petroleum. A Chevron spokesperson said that “Chevron has a long tradition of celebrating democracy by supporting the inaugural committees of both parties” and that they were “proud to have done so again this year.” None of the other companies mentioned above responded to our inquiries.
In his inaugural address, Donald Trump promised to “drill, baby, drill” and said that the US “will be a rich nation again, and it is that liquid gold under our feet that will help to do it”. In the following months, the President signed a blitz of Executive Orders aimed at boosting the fossil fuel industry and kneecapping federal climate action. These include:
Opening up federal lands and waters to fossil fuel exploration as official US policy and revoking several climate action policies;
Establishing a new group to advise his office on how to accelerate the ‘permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation, and transportation’ of oil and gas;
Removing regulations on coal production to revive the flagging industry; and,
Ordering the US Attorney General to quash state-level “polluters pay” laws that would push fossil fuel companies to pay their fair share of climate damages.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Global Witness Senior Data Investigator Nicu Calcea said: “It’s no surprise the oil and gas industry handed millions to Donald Trump for his inauguration, and they seem to have reaped a huge return on their investment.
“Every month that Donald Trump has been in power, we’ve seen a raft of anti-climate measures come out which are music to the fossil fuel industry’s ears. From plans to steamroll through dirty new coal plants, to the attempted quashing of ‘polluter pays’ laws that would hold oil giants accountable, it’s clear where his political priorities lie.
“While Trump sides with his friends in oil and gas, we must keep up the fight for a fair, green future – that means pushing for wind and solar where we live, backing polluters pay bills, and resisting the development of oil, gas and coal projects across the country.”
Many of the world’s worst environmental and human rights abuses are driven by the exploitation of natural resources and corruption in the global political and economic system. Global Witness is campaigning to end this. We carry out hard-hitting investigations, expose these abuses, and campaign for change. We are independent, not-for-profit, and work with partners around the world in our fight for justice.
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an insane, xenophobic Fascist.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that Reform UK has received millions and millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Geenpeace activists set up a billboard during a protest outside Shell headquarters amid the company’s profits announcement on July 27, 2023 in London, England. (Photo: Handout/Chris J Ratcliffe for Greenpeace via Getty Images)
“We cannot let countries and communities that have done the least to cause climate change pay the price for Shell’s greed,” one green group said.
A little more than a week after Earth endured its four hottest days on record, fossil fuel giant Shell announced higher second-quarter profits than expected at $6.3 billion.
The company also announced a new share buyback program worth $3.5 billion through September, CNBC reported.
“It is shameful that Shell, as one of the world’s largest and most profitable fossil fuel companies, continues to reap billions in profits off the back of its planet-wrecking oil and gas operations,” Chiara Liguori, the senior climate justice policy adviser at Oxfam Great Britain, said in response to the news. “At a time when the company should be taking strong action to cut emissions it is instead weakening its climate targets and continues to invest in new oil and gas projects, in favor of short-term shareholder returns.”
“That the profits of two companies alone can outweigh the GDP of six countries already being battered by the climate crisis lays bare the shameful inequity at the heart of the fossil fuel economy.”
Shell’s announcement covers the months of April through June 2024. While the company made 19% less than it did during the first three months of the year, it made $400 million more than London Stock Exchange Group predicted for the quarter, according to CNBC.
A Global Witness analysis concluded that Shell paid $23 billion to shareholders since June 2023. Every month in that same 13-month period saw temperatures averaging 1.5°C or more above preindustrial levels—the more ambitious temperature goal enshrined in the Paris agreement. Each month in that stretch was also the hottest of its kind on record.
“Wildfires raging across the Arctic Circle and temperature records breaking by the day should be a wake-up call,” Greenpeace U.K. said on social media. “But Shell continues to bank billions from digging up climate-wrecking fossil fuels.”
Shell’s announcement caps a month in which high global temperatures fueled a number of extreme weather events. July began with Hurricane Beryl forming as the earliest ever Category 4 and Category 5 Atlantic hurricane on record, before it devastated several Caribbean islands. Last week, a fast-moving wildfire forced more than 20,000 people to flee historic Jasper in the Canadian Rockies before it destroyed nearly a third of the town. The same week, Typhoon Gaemi dumped more than 1,000 millimeters of rain on Taiwan in less than 24 hours.
“As people flee wildfires in Canada, floods in Taiwan, and rebuild in the wake of Storm Beryl, Shell is doubling down on fossil fuels, U-turning on renewables, and profiting to the tune of billions from an intensifying climate crisis,” Alice Harrison, head of Fossil Fuel Campaigns at Global Witness, said in a statement.
Shell’s announcement also comes days after BP posted $2.8 billion in second-quarter profits.
Global Witness calculated that BP and Shell’s second-quarter profits combined would be enough to pay one-tenth of the $100 billion in climate-related loss and damage money that developing nations have requested by 2030.
At the same time, the two oil giants’ profits over the past year—£31.2 billion ($39.8 billion)—exceed the £27.7 ($35.3) billion combined gross domestic products of the six nations most impacted by Beryl: Barbados, the Cayman Islands, Dominica, Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Grenada, according to Global Justice Now.
“That the profits of two companies alone can outweigh the GDP of six countries already being battered by the climate crisis lays bare the shameful inequity at the heart of the fossil fuel economy,” Izzie McIntosh, climate campaigner at Global Justice Now, said in a statement. “People in the Caribbean devastated by the impacts of Hurricane Beryl are left to pick up the pieces, while rich shareholders and fossil fuel CEOs get to rake in the profits, removed from the chaos they’ve played a leading role in creating.”
The climate justice organizations called for governments to take action to stop fossil fuel companies before they can further destabilize Earth’s climate.
“We need accountability and a government that isn’t afraid to stand up to them—it can start by introducing measures to make these polluting megacorporations pay up for the climate damage they’ve caused in the Global South, as well as a fossil fuel phaseout,” McIntosh continued.
Harrison agreed: “We can’t keep letting polluters off the hook. Governments should be holding fossil fuel majors to account for the crisis they created and forcing them to pay for the damage they are inflicting on millions of families around the world.”
Oxfam G.B. and Greenpeace U.K. recommended policies for the United Kingdom—where Shell and BP are headquartered—specifically.
“As global temperatures and the huge costs of tackling the climate crisis continue to rise, the U.K. government has a chance to ensure those most responsible for contributing to global greenhouse gas emissions, like Shell, are held to account by taxing them more,” Liguori said. “This could help raise the vital funds needed to ensure a fair switch to clean, renewable energy in the U.K. as well as fulfilling our international commitments to support communities worst-hit by climate change to adapt and recover.”
Greenpeace concluded: “We cannot let countries and communities that have done the least to cause climate change pay the price for Shell’s greed. The new Labour government must prove it is different to its predecessor by reining in the fossil fuel giants and imposing bold new taxes on polluters to force them to pay their climate debts at home and abroad.”
Image of InBedWithBigOil by Not Here To Be Liked + Hex Prints from Just Stop Oil’s You May Find Yourself… art auction. Featuring Rishi Sunak, Fossil Fuels and Rupert Murdoch.
THE Tory government met representatives from the oil and gas sector an average of 1.4 times per working day in 2023, an investigation by Global Witness revealed today.
At least 65 fossil fuel organisations and industry bodies were identified as meeting with ministers over the year, according to the group.
Global Witness analysed data by Transparency International UK, looking at any organisation that “could be reasonably assumed to have the goal of influencing policy or legislation in the interests of a fossil fuel company and its shareholders.”
According to its findings, ministers met representatives from the oil and gas sector at least 343 times last year, up from 330 meetings held in 2022.
More widely, the group found that meetings between oil and gas lobbyists and the government have been steadily increasing over the past 11 years.
November 2023 saw record-high levels of meetings when the government met oil and gas lobbyists at least 63 times, equivalent to almost three meetings every working day, the campaigners said.
The Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill, which would mandate annual licensing of new oil and gas fields in the North Sea, was introduced the same month, they noted.
The end of November also marked the start of the UN climate change conference Cop28 in Dubai.
United Arab Emirates’ minister of industry and CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, speaks at an event in Houston on March 6, 2023. (Photo: Mark Felix/AFP via Getty Images)
“Make no mistake, COP28 was hijacked by the interests of the fossil fuel industry,” said one campaigner.
A new analysis released by human rights and anti-corruption group Global Witness on Wednesday left no room for doubt, said one campaigner, that the host country of last year’s United Nations climate summit, the United Arab Emirates, prioritized fossil fuel interests over the planet.
“Make no mistake, COP28 was hijacked by the interests of the fossil fuel industry,” said Patrick Galey, senior investigator for Global Witness, referring to the 28th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The analysis showed that the UAE’s Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) used the COP28 presidency of its CEO, Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, to seek deals worth nearly $100 billion with oil, gas, and petrochemical companies in at least 12 countries.
BREAKING 🚨
Our latest investigation found ADNOC sought $100B worth of oil deals while their CEO was president of the COP28 climate summit.
Fossil fuel firms, said Galey, “weren’t content simply to block or stall genuine climate policy but used the opportunity to pursue more climate-wrecking oil and gas deals.”
Al Jaber previously denied that ADNOC used COP28 to further its business interests after a leak of briefing documents that instructed the company to discuss fossil fuel deals with at least 16 states that were present at the talks.
According to Global Witness, the company sought deals with at least 11 of those countries and at least one other that had not been included in the leaked documents.
The group’s investigation found that the UAE redoubled its investment in oil and gas in Egypt in 2023, the year Al Jaber presided over COP28. ADNOC finalized a deal with TotalEnergies Marketing Egypt, purchasing a 50% stake in the company for a reported $200 million—resulting in the UAE now jointly operating 240 service stations across the country and contributing to its record profits posted in 2023.
Other deals sought by ADNOC with COP28 participants include a joint venture with BP to buy a 50% stake in NewMed Energy in Israel and multiple bids for a stake in Braskem, the largest petrochemical producer in Latin America. The company is part-owned by Brazil’s state-run oil and gas producer Petrobas.
ADNOC also finalized deals worth an estimated $17 billion with Lukoil in Russia and Wintershall in Germany to develop the Hail and Ghasha gas field in the UAE.
Global Witness’ findings bolstered a report by the Center for Climate Reporting and the BBC in November, which showed Al Jaber used his position at COP28 to push for fossil fuel deals with foreign governments.
The report confirms the worst fears of climate campaigners, who were incensed in early 2023 when Al Jaber was named the president of the U.N.’s largest annual climate conference and warned of conflicts of interest due to his position at the helm of ADNOC.
As it turns out, said Galey, “the UAE knew exactly what it was doing and was not let down—COP28 seems to have been molded towards the benefit of its state oil company.”
“As depressing as it is dystopian, climate talks must never be allowed to create more climate chaos,” he added.
The analysis was released weeks after U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) led 24 Democratic lawmakers in writing to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House Senior Advisor John Podesta, urging them to support conflict of interest guidelines ahead of COP29, which is scheduled to take place in November in Baku, Azerbaijan.
With Mukhtar Babayev, the country’s ecology and natural resources minister who worked for a state-owned oil and gas company for more than 20 years, set to preside over the conference, Galey said that “COP28 seems to have provided other petrostates with a sinister playbook to copy and paste from.”
“As the UAE passes the baton onto Azerbaijan, we are now looking at the possibility of consecutive COPs being hijacked for the interests of big polluters and their profits,” said Galey, noting that scientists have warned the planet is “dangerously close” to heating that exceeds 1.5°C.
Global Witness pointed to recently announced plans to partially privatize the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) ahead of COP29, “with its downstream and petrochemical subsidiaries made available to help attract foreign investments.”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who signed the letter spearheaded by Merkley and Schakowsky, said Global Witness’ report “is a disturbing warning about the potential for further fossil fuel corruption at COP29, which incredibly will also be hosted by another fossil fuel executive.”
“I will continue urging the U.S. and UNFCCC to adopt new policies to prevent these absurd conflicts of interest that frustrate the international community’s work to address the urgent threats of climate change,” she said.
Global Witness reached out to ADNOC, SOCAR, and COP29 for comment regarding its investigation, and was told that ADNOC is working to “secure, reliable, and responsible supply of energy to support a just, orderly, and equitable global energy transition and that allegations regarding Al Jaber’s deal-making at COP28 are “false, not true, incorrect, and not accurate.”
A COP29 spokesperson said Azerbaijan is “100% committed to bringing countries together with the ambition of keeping the 1.5° target within reach.”
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), said in a statement Wednesday that Babayev should be removed “from any leadership role at COP29.”
“It is an absolute scandal that the UNFCCC has two years running put an oil and gas executive in charge of this event,” she said, “thus putting foxes in charge of the henhouse.”
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.”
