Reform UK leader Nigel Farage speaking in Aberdeen. Credit: Reform UK / YouTube
Nigel Farage’s party was told by Offshore Energies UK to rethink its plan to thwart clean energy.
LIVERPOOL – The UK’s largest oil and gas trade body has criticised Reform UK’s plans to “turn off the tap” on renewable energy.
Nigel Farage’s party has tried to present itself as the oil and gas industry’s closest ally, vowing to “drill, baby, drill” in the North Sea and scrap the windfall tax on excess profits, while meeting with oil executives, and courting donations from the sector.
However, on a panel at the Labour Party’s annual conference in Liverpool on Monday (29 September), a spokesperson for Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) criticised Reform’s plans to end state support for clean energy.
Natalie Coupar, communications and marketing director at OEUK – members of which include fossil fuel giants BP, Shell, ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies, and Equinor – said the group is “apolitical” but gives “hard truths to all parties”.
She said: “One of the things we’ve been saying to Reform very much is, you know, if you’re going to turn on the taps for oil and gas, there’s almost really no point if you’re just going to turn off the taps to renewables.
“That doesn’t help. We need to keep both those streams open.”
According to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), the UK’s net zero economy grew by 10 percent in 2024, employing almost a million people in full-time jobs.
Coupar also said it was essential to “hold the consensus on tackling climate change and growing our energy future”.
A panel at 2025 Labour Party conference sponsored by Offshore Energies UK (OEUK). Credit: DeSmog
Reform’s Oil Campaign
Reform has vowed to stop all government subsidies for renewable energy, and has pledged to block solar and onshore wind farms in the local authorities it controls.
In May, the party’s deputy leader Richard Ticesaid: “Whether it’s planning blockages, whether it’s judicial reviews, whether it’s lawsuits, whether it’s health and safety notices, we will use every available legal measure to an extreme way in order to frustrate these people.”
Tice – who has said “there’s no evidence that man-made CO2 is going to change the climate” – met with senior oil executives in May and promised to approve new drilling licences “on day one” of a Reform government.
Last month, he pledged to overturn the UK’s ban on fracking for shale gas, which he calls “treasure beneath our feet”, and told the industry to “get ready”.
In April, Reform party treasurer and a billionaire property developer Nick Candy said he was trying to secure donations from oil and gas executives, claiming to have raised £100,000 from one, though this has yet to appear on Reform’s donations register.
As DeSmog has reported, 92 percent of Reform’s funding between the 2019 and 2024 general elections came from climate science deniers or those with highly polluting interests – a total of £2.3 million.
Since his election as an MP last year, Farage has spoken at a string of events in the U.S. organised by radical groups backing U.S. President Donald Trump’s pro-fossil fuel agenda. Last December, Farage launched the UK-EU branch of the Heartland Institute, a U.S. climate denial think tank.
Speaking at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London in February, Farage claimed it was “absolutely nuts” for CO2 to be considered to a pollutant. However, he added: “I’m not a scientist. I can’t tell you whether CO2 is leading to warming or not, but there are so many other massive factors.”
Climate scientists at the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s leading climate science body, have stressed that “it is a statement of fact, we cannot be any more certain; it is unequivocal and indisputable that humans are warming the planet”.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Nigel Farage reminds you that he’s the man that brought you Brexit and asks what could possibly go wrong.
U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright handpicked the five contrarian scientists who authored a controversial new climate report.Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Researchers say DOE report cherry-picks data to downplay threat of greenhouse gases
The last assessment of the state of climate science from the United Nations’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published in its final form 2 years ago, was a monumental effort, with 721 volunteer scientists synthesizing all available published research. Yesterday, the Department of Energy (DOE) released its own climate assessment, as part of a campaign by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to overturn its landmark endangerment finding from 2009, which found that burning fossil fuels endangers public health and established carbon dioxide as a pollutant EPA could regulate. But the DOE report—called A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate—had fewer authors than IPCC’s: just five.
Handpicked by DOE Secretary Chris Wright, a fossil fuel entrepreneur, the authors are well known to climate scientists. Although the members of this Climate Working Group all hold scientific doctorates, they hold contrarian views on climate science that are out of step with the mainstream. The report, assembled in months, argues that some of the warming attributed to fossil fuel burning is instead driven by natural cycles or variability in the Sun, and that sea level rise has not been accelerating. Climate researchers say the authors cherry-picked evidence and highlighted uncertainties to achieve the net effect of downplaying the impacts of climate change. “This shows how far we have sunk,” says Naomi Oreskes, a historian of science at Harvard University. “Climate denial is now the official policy of the U.S. government.”
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.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, and deputy leader Richard Tice. Photo: Sipa US / Alamy
The anti-net zero party has been bankrolled by oil and gas investors, aviation entrepreneurs, and those who reject climate science.
Reform UK has received more than £2.3 million from oil and gas interests, highly polluting industries, and climate science deniers since December 2019, amounting to 92 percent of the party’s donations.
This week, Nigel Farage confirmed he would be returning as leader of Reform and standing in the general election, threatening to split the already fragile Conservative vote. His populist party, which campaigns to “scrap all of net zero”, claims to represent ordinary people against out of touch elites.
Yet Reform’s official register of donations reveals the party is bankrolled by rich businessmen who reject climate science or make money from polluting industries.
In the past 12 months, Reform has received £200,000 from First Corporate Consultants. The firm is owned by Terence Mordaunt, a director and former chair of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), the UK’s leading climate science denial group.
The GWPF has in the past expressed the view that carbon dioxide has been mis-characterised as pollution, when in fact it is a “benefit to the planet”. Mordaunt himself told openDemocracy in 2019 that “no one has proved yet that CO2 is the culprit” of climate change.
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s top climate science body, has stated that it is “unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land”. It 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”.
Reform has also received more than £500,000 since the last election from Jeremy Hosking, whose investment firm Hosking Partners had more than $134 million (around £108 million) invested in the energy sector at the close of 2021, two thirds of which was in the oil industry, along with millions in coal and gas.
Hosking previously told DeSmog: “I do not have millions in fossil fuels; it is the clients of Hosking Partners who are the beneficiaries of these investments.”
Since December 2019, Reform has also received £465,000 from Christopher Harborne, owner of AML Global, an aviation fuel supplier 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.
Aviation emissions accounted for eight percent of the UK’s annual greenhouse gas emissions before the pandemic, according to the government’s Climate Change Committee.
In response to DeSmog’s request for comment, Harborne posted a lengthy statement on the AML Global website. He said: “I am not a climate science denier and … I do not seek to influence any government through donations or lobbying regarding their policies on climate change or in favour of corporate interests.”
Harborne added that “there is overwhelming scientific evidence that human activity and in particular the use of hydrocarbons as an energy source is accelerating climate warming due to the greenhouse effect.”
Reform has also received more than £1.1 million in donations from Richard Tice, a property millionaire and the party’s leader until this week. Tice has now become the party’s chairman.
In addition (and not included in the overall figures for this analysis), Reform has received more than50 loans collectively worth around £1.4 million from a company called Tisun Investments, which is owned by Tice, since the start of 2020.
Tice is one of the UK’s most prominent climate deniers, his presenting role on the right-wing broadcaster GB News to attack net zero policies and the science behind them. Tice has claimed that “there is no climate crisis” and expressed the view that “CO2 isn’t a poison. It’s plant food”.
DeSmog has also revealed that the governing Conservative Party has received £8.4 million since December 2019 from oil and gas interests, highly polluting industries, and individuals who have expressed or supported climate science denial.
“No political party should be taking any money from fossil fuel interests whatsoever,” Caroline Lucas, until recently the Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion, told DeSmog.
Reform’s Climate Science Denial
Reform’s platform on climate change conforms to the views and business interests of its major donors.
The party’s manifesto falsely claims that “scientists disagree as to how much” humans have had an impact on global warming.
A number of climate consensus studies conducted between 2004 and 2015 found that between 90 percent and 100 percent of experts agree that humans are responsible for climate change. A study published in 2021, which reviewed over 3,000 scientific papers, found that over 99 percent of climate science literature says that global warming is caused by human activity.
Reform wants to develop new oil and gas fields in the North Sea, open onshore fracking sites across the country, end the windfall tax on oil and gas companies, and “restart opencast coal mines using the latest cleanest techniques”.
The party has campaigned for a referendum on the UK’s 2050 net zero emissions target, and supports scrapping the policy entirely.
Farage himself also has a long history of opposing green reforms and criticising established climate science.
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.”
Reform’s only MP, Lee Anderson, who defected from the Conservative Party in March, has repeatedly attacked the government’s net zero policies, arguing in February 2024 that a net zero UK “wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference to the Earth’s atmosphere”.
Anderson is also a vocal backer of new oil, gas, and coal extraction in the UK. In 2022 he supported the government’s decision to approve a new coal mine in Cumbria – the UK’s first new coal mine for 30 years.
A Reform UK spokesman said: “Climate change is real, Reform UK believes we must adapt, rather than foolishly think you can stop it. We are proud to be the only party to understand that economic growth depends on cheap domestic energy and we are proud that we are the only party that are climate science realists, realising you can not stop the power of the sun, volcanoes or sea level oscillation.
“The deniers are those who continually gaslight the public into thinking you can stop these powerful natural forces. We must use the energy under our feet, rather than send our money and jobs abroad.”
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.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.Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.
Is climate action a lost cause? The United States is withdrawing from the Paris Agreement for the second time, while heat records over land and sea have toppled and extreme weather events have multiplied.
In late 2015, nations agreed through the Paris Agreement to try to hold warming well under 2°C and ideally to 1.5°C. Almost ten years later, cutting emissions to the point of meeting the 1.5°C goal looks very difficult.
But humanity has shifted track enough to avert the worst climate future. Renewables, energy efficiency and other measures have shifted the dial. The worst case scenario of expanded coal use, soaring emissions and a much hotter world is vanishingly unlikely.
Instead, Earth is tracking towards around 2.7°C average warming by 2100. That level of warming would represent “unprecedented peril” for life on this planet. But it shows progress is being made.
How did we get here?
Global greenhouse gas emissions have risen since industrialisation began around 1850. Carbon dioxide (CO₂) is far and away the most common greenhouse gas we emit, while methane and nitrous oxide also play a role. These gases trap the sun’s heat in the atmosphere, preventing it from radiating back out to space.
In 2023, 41% of the world’s energy-related CO₂ emissions came from coal, mainly for electricity generation. Some 32% came from burning oil in road vehicles, and 21% from natural gas used for heating buildings and industrial processes.
The world is certainly feeling the effects. The World Meteorological Organization confirmed 2024 was the hottest year on record, temporarily hitting 1.5°C over the pre-industrial era. In turn, the world suffered lethal heatwaves, devastating floods and intense cyclones.
Extreme weather hit hard in 2024. Pictured: Flooded houses after Cyclone Debby hit Florida. Bilanol/Shutterstock
How are we tracking?
In 2014, the world’s peak body for assessing climate science – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – began using four scenarios called Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). These four big picture climate scenarios are based on what actions humanity does or doesn’t take. They comprise:
rapid climate action, low emissions (RCP 2.6)
two scenarios of some action and medium emissions (RCP 4.5 and 6.0)
no action, high emissions (RCP 8.5).
The numbers refer to how many more watts of heat strike each square metre of the planet.
Of these four, only the RCP 2.6 scenario is compatible with the Paris Agreement’s goal of holding climate change well under 2˚C.
But Earth is tracking towards somewhere between RCP 2.6 and 4.5, which would translate to about 2.7°C of warming by 2100.
IPCC experts also developed five pathways of possible social, economic and political futures to complement the four scenarios.
Of these pathways, we are tracking closest to a middle of the road scenario where development remains uneven, the intensity of resource and energy use declines, and population growth levels off.
While effective, these scenarios are now more than a decade old and need to be updated. In response, my colleagues and I produced the One Earth Climate Model to outline rapid pathways to decarbonise. We set an ambitious carbon budget of 450 gigatonnes of CO₂ before reaching net zero – a pathway even more ambitious than the RCP 2.6.
The US, European Union and China together represent about 28% of the global population, but are responsible for 56% of historic emissions (926 gigatonnes) . The pathways compatible with 1.5°C give them a remaining carbon budget of 243 Gt CO₂. China would require the largest carbon budget to reach decarbonisation.
For this to happen, by 2050, the world would have to be 100% powered by clean sources and phase out fossil fuel use. This would limit global warming to around 1.5°C, with a certainty of just over 50%. We would also have to end deforestation within the same timeframe.
Emissions peak – are we there yet?
Emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases have still not plateaued, despite sharply increasing renewable electricity generation, battery storage and lower-cost electric vehicles.
But there has been real progress. The EU says its emissions fell by 8.3% in 2023 compared to 2022. Europe’s net emissions are now 37% below 1990 levels, while the region’s GDP grew 68% over the same period. The EU remains on track to reach its goal of reducing emissions by at least 55% by 2030.
Australia’s emissions fell by 0.6% last year. The country is now 28.2% below June 2005 levels, which is the baseline set for its Paris Agreement goal of a 43% reduction by 2030.
In the US, emissions are still below pre-pandemic levels and remain about 20% below 2005 levels. Since peaking in 2004, US emissions have trended downward.
The world’s largest emitter, China, is finally cutting its emissions. Huge growth in renewables has now led to the first emissions drop on record, despite surging demand for power. This is good news. For years, China’s domestic emissions remained high despite its leading role in solar, wind, EVs and battery technology.
China produces almost one-third (31%) of the world’s energy-related carbon emissions – not least because it is the workshop of the world. Every cut China makes will have a major global effect.
According to the IPCC, limiting warming to around 1.5°C requires global emissions to peak before 2025 at the latest. It now looks like the peak may occur this year.
Despite daily negative news, the decarbonisation train has left the station. In 2024, renewables accounted for more than 90% of growth in electricity production globally. Electric vehicles became cost competitive, while heat pumps are developing fast and solar is on a winning streak.
So, is it too late to save the climate? No. The technologies we need are finally cheap enough. The sooner we stop climate change from worsening, the more disasters, famine and death we avert. We might not manage 1.5°C or even 2°C, but every tenth of a degree counts. The faster we make the shift, the better our climate future.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and Reform UK treasurer Nick Candy in front of an oil extraction site. DeSmog collage. Credit: GB News / YouTube / Damien Goodyear / SOPA Images / Alamy
Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is attempting to raise money from the fossil fuel industry, the Financial Times has revealed.
The newspaper reports that Reform UK treasurer Nick Candy – a billionaire property developer – has been launching a drive to raise funds from wealthy offshore donors in low-tax jurisdictions including Monaco, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Switzerland. Expatriates registered to vote in the UK can donate to UK political parties, as can foreign individuals with a business in the country.
Part of this drive has involved soliciting donations from oil and gas executives. Candy told the Financial Times that an energy executive had donated £100,000 to the party last week, and pledged to give up to £1 million. Candy added that Reform was targeting oil and gas donors who are “very disillusioned” with current UK government policies.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer yesterday said: “homegrown clean energy is in the DNA of my government”, as he pledged to accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to renewables. While the UK’s oil and gas reserves are dwindling, the country’s green economy grew by 10 percent in 2024.
By contrast, Reform advocates for clean energy policies to be scrapped, including cancelling the UK’s commitment to achieving net zero emissions by 2050.
“This is textbook Nigel Farage,” said Ami McCarthy, head of politics at Greenpeace UK. “While he may enjoy cosplaying as a ‘man of the people’, in reality, Reform’s agenda is a shopping list of policies that will turbo-drive the profits of the very richest.
“Taking money from fossil fuel execs whilst pushing their misinformation will keep families tied to volatile oil and gas with sky-high energy bills, and further climate breakdown for our children and grandchildren.
“By going cap in hand to fossil fuel firms and millionaires in offshore tax havens, Farage is making it very clear who he’s working for: his elite mates, not us.”
Reform UK and its senior figures have repeatedly questioned basic climate science. Speaking at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in February, while admitting that he knew little about climate science, Farage claimed it was “absolutely nuts” that CO2 is considered to be a pollutant. He also suggested on the BBC’s Today programme this week that climate change may not be caused by humans.
Farage’s deputy Richard Tice, who has donated substantial sums to the party in recent years, has claimed that “CO2 is not poison; it’s plant food”.
In reality, authors working for the world’s foremost climate science body, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), have said that “it is a statement of fact, we cannot be any more certain; it is unequivocal and indisputable that humans are warming the planet”.
The IPCC has also stated that carbon dioxide pollution “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” – all of which “will put a disproportionate burden on low-income households and thus increase poverty levels.”
As revealed by DeSmog, Reform received at least £2.3 million from fossil fuel interests, polluters and climate deniers prior to the 2024 general election campaign – equivalent to 92 percent of its funding during the period.
“This is further evidence that Reform is copying Donald Trump and pretending that climate change does not exist,” said Bob Ward, Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics. “But the reality of making the UK more dependent on fossil fuels is that we would be more at the mercy of international markets and so would have energy that is more insecure, more unaffordable and more unsustainable.”
Reform UK treasurer Nick Candy has been attempting to extract cash from fossil fuel executives.
Led by Donkeys poster quotes Nigel Farage “Brexit has failed”Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
