Crooked Bough News Round-up

— Gulf Royal Family Banks Over €70 Million in EU Farming Funds

 

at 5/6/26 11:00pm

The UAE’s ruling royal family is benefiting from tens of millions in EU subsidies to grow crops destined for the Gulf, it can be revealed. A new cross-border investigation, shared with The Guardian, found that subsidiaries controlled by the Al Nahyans collected over €71 million (£61 million) in just six years for farmland it controls in Romania, Italy and Spain. The Al Nahyan family is the second richest in the world, with an estimated wealth of more than $320 billion (£235 billion), mostly derived from the emirates’ vast oil reserves.  Subsidies under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) make up a third of the EU’s entire budget, paying out around €54 billion (£46.6 billion) each year to farmers and rural areas across the bloc. But an unknown proportion of this ends up in the hands of foreign investors — including those controlled by autocratic states. DeSmog, in partnership with El Diario and G4Media, reviewed data for thousands of CAP beneficiaries between 2019 and 2024, tracing 110 European subsidy payments to a network of companies and subsidiaries controlled by the UAE’s Al Nahyan family and one of its sovereign wealth funds, ADQ. The largest of these payments came through the Romanian agricultural company Agricost, which owns the EU’s single largest farm, measuring 57,000 hectares, five times the size of Paris. EU farm subsidies disproportionately benefit large landowners. In 2024 alone, Agricost received €10.5 (£9 million) in direct payments — more than 1,600 times the amount collected by the average EU farm. Campaigners have expressed alarm that the UAE, which has been widely condemned for jailing activists, criminalising homosexuality and multiple allegations of torture – repeatedly denied by the UAE – benefits from regular EU farm payouts. The Al Nahyans and companies named in this article did not respond to multiple requests for comment. ADQ declined to respond.  Subscribe to our newsletter Stay up to date with DeSmog news and alerts Name -- Email Address What content do you want to subscribe to? (check all that apply) All International UK Sign Up (function($){ $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-us').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619D07B21962C5AFE16D3A2145673C82A3CEE9D9F1ADDABE965ACB3CE39939D42AC9012C6272FD52BFCA0790F0FB77C6442'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-vdrirr-vdrirr'); }); $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-uk').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619BD43AA6813AF1B0FFE26D8282EC254E3ED0237BA72BEFBE922037EE4F1B325C6DA4918F8E044E022C7D333A43FD72429'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-ijkidr-ijkidr'); }); })(jQuery); The findings come as policymakers debate the future of the subsidy scheme. In July, the European Commission published a proposal for the next round of CAP payments for 2028 to 2034 — which could cap land-based payments to €100,000 per farmer each year. The proposal has been met with fierce opposition from European ministers, some MEPs, and industry lobby groups. A spokesperson for the European Commission told DeSmog via email that it believed income support through CAP payments “should be better targeted including by reducing and capping payments for the bigger farms, and is calling on the European Parliament and Council to support its proposed changes to the subsidy system. “The CAP is not helping EU farmers; it continues to enrich the wealthiest landowners,” said Faustine Bas-Defossez, director for nature, health and environment at the Brussels-based advocacy group the European Environment Bureau. “And now, even worse, it is fuelling autocratic regimes.” window.addEventListener("message",function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}}); Agricultural Acquisitions The Al Nahyans are the most powerful monarchy in the United Arab Emirates, which is made up of seven federated states, each with its own royal family. At the helm is Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, leader of Abu Dhabi and president of the UAE. In just over 15 years, the Emirati dynasty has established itself as a major global agricultural player, acquiring swathes of land and agribusiness companies across Africa, South America and Europe. The UAE now controls around 960,000 hectares of farmland worldwide. This expansion forms part of the Emirates’ wider food security strategy, aimed at securing supplies for a country where high temperatures, water scarcity, and sandy soil make growing crops a major challenge. The UAE currently imports up to 90 percent of its food. The investigation found that in the EU, the expansion has been channelled through three main companies — in Spain, Italy and Romania.  Agricost, Romania’s vast farm, was bought by the Al Nahyans in 2018 for an estimated €230 million (£198 million) through Al Dahra, the UAE agribusiness group. Al Dahra was founded by the president’s brother Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, before Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, ADQ, purchased 50 percent of the firm in 2020. No information on Al Dahra’s current ownership structure is publicly available, but DeSmog understands that it remains linked to individuals on the board, which is chaired by Sheikh Hamdan Bin Zayed, and his son, Sheikh Zayed Bin Hamdan Al Nahyan, who is married to the UAE president’s daughter. Since 2012, Al Dahra has also acquired multiple farm companies in Spain, responsible for over 8,000 hectares of land. Together, these received more than €5 million (£4.3 million) in CAP subsidies between 2015 and 2024, DeSmog found. The UAE’s Spanish and Romanian farms both cultivate alfalfa and other crops for animal feed, with the majority of produce designed for export, including to the Gulf. Al Dahra holds a long-term contract with the UAE government to supply animal feed for the country, partly used for its rapidly growing dairy sector. In 2022, sovereign wealth fund ADQ also purchased Unifrutti, a fruit producer with an estimated worth of $830 million (£610 million). According to DeSmog’s analysis, Unifrutti’s Italian farms received at least €186,000 in CAP subsidies in the three years following the sale.  The size of payouts to the UAE reflects major issues with the way CAP subsidies are calculated, which are largely based on the area of land farmed. The European Commission’s proposal to cap direct payments would impact only a fraction (0.5 percent) of the EU’s top landowners, who currently capture 16 percent of the entire CAP budget. The UAE’s receipt of EU subsidies is “a scandal hiding in plain sight”, says Thomas Waitz, an Austrian Green Party MEP and party coordinator for the agriculture committee. “Ninety-nine percent of real European farmers receive less than €100,000 in subsidies. That money was never meant for fossil fuel dynasties, it’s meant to strengthen real European farmers.” Credit: eldiario.es Al Nahyan Control The subsidised farms make up just one strand of Al Dahra and ADQ’s agricultural push in Europe — an expansion which includes grain mills in Greece and Bulgaria, as well as massive dairy farms in Serbia. Despite technically being state-owned, ADQ is closely controlled by the UAE’s ruling royal family, experts say.  “There is no clear boundary between the state and family coffers,” Marc Valeri, associate professor in political economy of the Middle East at the University of Exeter, told DeSmog. “This is a very authoritarian and centralised regime, and the difference between state budgets and family budgets is completely blurred.” The UAE has some of the largest sovereign assets in the world — as of 2025 its seven wealth funds hold almost $2.5 trillion (£1.84 trillion).  These assets are largely managed by close relatives of the president. Between 2023 and January 2026, ADQ was chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the president’s brother and the country’s national security advisor. Tahnoon is known as the “spy sheikh” over accusations that he has orchestrated cyberwarfare against dissidents, and individuals and institutions overseas, including in the UK. Tahnoon has never publicly addressed these claims. Since January, ADQ has become part of Abu Dhabi’s newest sovereign wealth fund Limad Holding, which is chaired by the Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan — the president’s eldest son and likely successor.  ‘Monopoly’ The subsidies traced by DeSmog may provide just a snapshot of the total EU payments benefiting Gulf royals, due to patchy official data and a lack of transparency by UAE corporations.  All EU countries are required to publish information on the farms and farm owners receiving CAP subsidies. However, the entries only name the direct recipient — making it difficult or sometimes impossible to identify the ultimate owners and investors benefiting from the funds. Unifrutti, for example, owns farms in Sicily and the Almeria region of Spain, but no information about the subsidies received by these companies could be found.  Experts say that these kinds of large-scale foreign investments have contributed to major shifts in the EU’s farming landscape.  Official figures show that the EU lost 5.6 million farms between 2005 and 2023, the vast majority of which were small-scale, with many bought out by larger producers. Romania saw the greatest decline of all member states. In Spain, farmers selling alfalfa to be processed by Al Dahra said that the company’s control over the region poses major risks for their income.  “Here in the village they have a lot of power; we all end up having to go through Al Dahra. They set the price, and that’s that,” Josep Ripoll, a farmer in Fondarella, Catalonia, home to Al Dahra Europe’s headquarters, told El Diario.  “It’s a monopoly — [we have to] take it or leave it. I was much better off before they arrived.” Christian Henderson, lecturer in modern Middle East studies at the University of Leiden, says that these kinds of large-scale foreign investments in land can also pose major challenges for countries like Romania, which has been hit by a major cost of living crisis in recent years, with soaring food prices. “What does it mean for a society when [agricultural] resources are turned over to foreign investors? Most of the commodities are immediately exported.” Morgan Ody, general coordinator of the smallholder union La Via Campesina and a vegetable farmer in Brittany, France, describes the flow of subsidies to the UAE as “a waste of public money”.“This is not how European citizens want their money to be spent — these farms aren’t even producing food for them,” she told DeSmog. “This kind of scandalous spending of EU money shows the failure of the current CAP system, where payments are based on the farm area. We need to refocus CAP on land workers, on those who work the land and produce food.” This investigation was published in partnership with eldiario.es and G4Media.Fact-checking and additional reporting by Brigitte WearEditing by Phoebe Cooke The post Gulf Royal Family Banks Over €70 Million in EU Farming Funds appeared first on DeSmog.

[Category: Energy]

— Nigel Farage Has Accepted £2 Million Since Becoming an MP

 

at 5/6/26 1:32pm

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has banked more than £2 million in earnings and gifts since becoming an MP, DeSmog can reveal. Farage has come under fire in recent days for failing to declare a £5 million gift from major Reform donor Christopher Harborne prior to the 2024 general election, potentially in violation of parliamentary rules. Despite this tax-free handout, Farage has used his time in Parliament to earn millions from second jobs, speaking events, and trips abroad. DeSmog’s analysis shows that Farage has registered more than £2 million in financial interests since July 2024, when he was elected as the MP for Clacton. Subscribe to our newsletter Stay up to date with DeSmog news and alerts Name -- Email Address What content do you want to subscribe to? (check all that apply) All International UK Sign Up (function($){ $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-us').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619D07B21962C5AFE16D3A2145673C82A3CEE9D9F1ADDABE965ACB3CE39939D42AC9012C6272FD52BFCA0790F0FB77C6442'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-vdrirr-vdrirr'); }); $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-uk').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619BD43AA6813AF1B0FFE26D8282EC254E3ED0237BA72BEFBE922037EE4F1B325C6DA4918F8E044E022C7D333A43FD72429'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-ijkidr-ijkidr'); }); })(jQuery); His principal employer has been the right-wing broadcaster GB News, which has now paid Farage £700,000 since July 2024. The Reform leader – who presents a show on GB News – registered another £40,662 from the outlet last week. This income has been received on top of Farage’s £94,000-a-year public salary. He also listed a new gift from South African businessman Avi Lasarow, who gave the Reform leader three tickets to a boxing match on 4 April worth £1,749. Nigel Farage is a multi-millionaire who is out for himself and working for the interests of his super-rich friends,” a Green Party spokesperson said. “His whole career has been focused on personal gain and public division. He is failing his constituents and has no positive plan to help ordinary people with the cost of living crisis, housing or improving public services.” Since becoming an MP, Farage has accepted £272,000 in gifts, including several private jet flights to the United States, and F1 tickets provided by the Abu Dhabi government. “That Farage has amassed £2 million from personal earnings and gifts while a sitting member of Parliament should concern anyone who thinks an MP’s job is to represent their constituents,” said Kamila Kingstone, a senior campaign lead at Spotlight on Corruption. “It’s a systemic issue and highlights a wider failure of the rules that are supposed to ensure integrity in public life. It risks blurring the lines between public service and private interests, creating the perception – and in some cases a reality – that some politicians are in it for themselves.” DeSmog revealed in April that over 70 percent of Farage’s patrons are based abroad – including Harborne, the Thailand-based crypto investor who has gifted flights and accommodation to Farage worth £85,453 since July 2024. Harborne, who owns a jet fuel supplier, has donated £22 million to Reform on top of the £5 million that he gifted to Farage before the 2024 general election. His contributions to the party are now in jeopardy after Labour introduced new rules that cap political donations from overseas residents to £100,000 a year. In response, Harborne has committed to finding a loophole through which he can donate even larger sums to Reform. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” he told The Telegraph – adding: “I don’t believe the government has a right to stop me, and they won’t.” Reform UK is the UK’s leading anti-climate party, with several of its senior figures – including Farage – having denied basic climate science. The Reform leader has claimed it’s “absolutely nuts” for CO2 to be considered a pollutant, while his deputy Richard Tice has called it “plant food”. “The government urgently needs to impose tougher limits on MPs’ second jobs,” Kingstone added, “so that the public can be confident that their representatives are working in the public interest rather than to line their own pockets.” Reform and Farage were approached for comment. A version of this article was published by The Guardian. The post Nigel Farage Has Accepted £2 Million Since Becoming an MP appeared first on DeSmog.

[Category: Energy]

— Former BC Premier Gordon Campbell: Carbon Capture ‘Doesn’t Work’

 

at 5/6/26 8:25am

For years, Canadian officials and oil industry backers have pitched carbon capture and storage (CCS) as the solution that would allow Alberta’s oil sands — and the nation’s proposed west coast pipeline — to proceed with a lower climate impact. Now, in a speech at this year’s Canada Strong and Free Network (CSFN) conference in Vancouver, keynote speaker and former British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell warned the costly, troubled technology has failed to deliver, undercutting a central justification for billions in public subsidies and new oil infrastructure. This reporter was there in person at the April 24 CSFN gathering. Formerly the Manning Centre for Building Democracy, the CSFN self-describes as supporting “conservative and libertarian activists and ideas in Canada”. Imagine a MAGA-adjacent gabfest featuring speakers mostly cheerleading extractive industries or fear-mongering about First Nations rights. My already low expectations were not exceeded.  However, there was an unexpected utterance of truth from Campbell, who was the first elected leader in North America to bring in a carbon tax. And what does he think about the technology being touted to clean up ballooning emissions from the Alberta oil sands and justifying a new pipeline to the BC coast?  “Its time to take off the blinders. Carbon capture and storage is something weve talked about in Canada for more than a generation, more than 25 years,” he told the conference. “Weve invested billions of dollars trying to convince ourselves that carbon capture and storage will work. It doesnt work. It costs money. And that money is money that we take out of other potential productive resources that we could have for Canadians.” Campbell was certainly not suggesting that fossil fuel extraction be scaled back. His comments instead pointed out that pretending to solve emissions problems with expensive and ineffective carbon capture and storage is an unwise waste of scarce public resources. This unusual truth-bomb from a public figure stands in stark contrast to the theater playing out in Alberta and Ottawa, where CCS is being heavily promoted and backed by billions in public money as a panacea for oil sands climate costs.  Even a Pathways Alliance co-founder is now publicly coming out against the CCS project in a recent Globe and Mail op-ed, equating long-delayed efforts by the oil patch to limit its massive carbon emissions with a cash-strapped household wasting money on a vacation or meal deliveries. Is Big Oil now pivoting away from a marquee carbon capture project it never intended to build? Subscribe to our newsletter Stay up to date with DeSmog news and alerts Name -- Email Address What content do you want to subscribe to? (check all that apply) All International UK Sign Up (function($){ $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-us').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619D07B21962C5AFE16D3A2145673C82A3CEE9D9F1ADDABE965ACB3CE39939D42AC9012C6272FD52BFCA0790F0FB77C6442'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-vdrirr-vdrirr'); }); $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-uk').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619BD43AA6813AF1B0FFE26D8282EC254E3ED0237BA72BEFBE922037EE4F1B325C6DA4918F8E044E022C7D333A43FD72429'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-ijkidr-ijkidr'); }); })(jQuery); Meanwhile the government of Prime Minister Mark Carney claims that the $20 billion CCS project  being promoted by the Pathways Alliance will make “Alberta oil among the lowest carbon intensity-produced barrels of oil in the world.” This multi-billion-dollar boondoggle has been offered as a “grand bargain” between Ottawa and Alberta to facilitate a new bitumen pipeline outlined in their now-overdue memorandum of understanding. This confident public posturing was made despite internal briefing notes accessed by DeSmog showing Pathways had “…few front end engineering (FEED) studies done and initial cost estimates based on very limited project information”. DeSmog previously reviewed 12 large scale CCS projects around the world and found “a litany of cost-overruns and missed targets, with a net increase in emissions.” Only 50MT of CO2 are sequestered each year by CCS, representing a mere 0.1 percent of global greenhouse gases.  A recent study published in the prestigious journal Nature showed that a shortage of suitable geological formations worldwide limit CCS to mitigating only a puny portion of dangerous emissions. And even if injecting all production emissions underground was somehow perfectly effective, it would do nothing to alleviate the other 80-90 percent of downstream tailpipe greenhouse gases. Such shaky fundamentals have apparently had little impact on government enthusiasm for throwing billions in public money towards dubious CSS schemes. The federal government has committed to covering half of the $20 billion estimated cost of the Pathways CCS project in tax credits, and the Alberta government is pledging to shovel billions more towards the highly profitable members of the Pathways Alliance.  Pathways Alliance companies — recently renamed as the Oil Sands Alliance —  include Canada Natural Resources Ltd, Cenovus, ConocoPhillips, Imperial Oil, MEG Energy, and Suncor, representing 95 percent of Alberta’s bitumen production. These giants enjoyed $37 billion in combined profit in 2023 and will reap billions more in windfall profits with oil above $100 per barrel due to Trump’s war on Iran.  A Generous Transfer Provision A good yardstick of whether the Pathways project is credible is revealed in action, not words. Despite years of public spin and lobbying by Pathways members, the largest bitumen producers still stubbornly refuse to pony up any of their own money towards beginning construction even as Canadians struggle with historically high prices at the gas pump.  If carbon capture is so safe, why has the oil patch lobbied to wash its hands of long-term CCS liabilities? In a system unique to Alberta, the province assumes the long-term risks associated with CO2 storage once a closure certificate has been issued, a concession to the oil industry described as one of the most “generous transfer provisions” of any CCS scheme in the world.  Documents obtained by the Narwhal also revealed that Pathways Alliance president Kendall Dilling asked Ottawa for “assurance that the Pathways pipeline, hub and capture projects would not require a federal review under the Impact Assessment Act.”  In Alberta, regulators allowed the largest CCS project in the world to be broken into over 120 separate proposals to avoid triggering a provincial environmental assessment. Does this kind of maneuvering inspire confidence?  Not for local residents facing risks of a potentially deadly CO2 leak from a pipeline rupture, as occurred in Sataria, Mississippi where 49 people were hospitalized in 2020. Rural Albertans living close to the proposed 600 kilometre CO2 pipeline from the oil sands to Cold Lake have recently come together in an unlikely alliance of farmers and Indigenous leaders opposed to the Pathways project called “No CO2 Pipelines.”  “Thousands of Albertans like me live directly in this project’s ‘hazard zone’”, said Penny Fox, No CO2 Pipelines co-founder, in a press release.  “In an explosion, people in our communities are facing anything from breathing issues to brain damage to instant death. So I have one question for the Prime Minister: if you wouldnt live next to this pipeline, why should we?”  “We’re talking about hundreds of kilometers of pipeline that pass directly through areas where we live, hunt, fish and exercise our treaty rights”, Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation has said. “This project endangers our people, our land, our water and wildlife. And yet there has been no consultation, no information sharing, and no formal environmental assessment.” Gordon Campbell makes a good point. The Pathways project will cost the taxpayers billions and do nothing to contain the vast majority of ultimate oil sands emissions. Other Canadian industries have managed to cut greenhouse gases by one quarter since 2005, while bitumen producers have seen their emissions explode by 143 percent over the same period.  Why should highly profitable oil industry laggards still expect public handouts before cleaning up their own mess?  The post Former BC Premier Gordon Campbell: Carbon Capture ‘Doesn’t Work’ appeared first on DeSmog.

[Category: Energy]

— Event | How Climate Denialism Is Evolving With Trump in Office

 

at 5/5/26 12:07pm

Hosted by Covering Climate Now Thursday, May 7 12:00 p.m. EDT REGISTER In April, a climate denial conference hosted in Washington, D.C., and boasting US Environmental Protection Agency head Lee Zeldin as a keynote speaker signaled a new era in US politics: from a slow but growing embrace of climate science in federal policy to outright rejection of the scientific consensus. Join Covering Climate Now for a special webinar, with DeSmog reporter Rei Takver alongside Manon Jacob, Climate Digital Investigation Reporter for Agence France-Presse, and Maxine Joselow, Climate Policy Reporter for The New York Times, as they explore how the Trump administrations overt embrace of climate denialism in Washington is creating a permission structure for more denial at the highest levels of government in the US and beyond. Rei will discuss her story, co-published with The Guardian, Climate Deniers Expected More Resistance to Trump’s Fossil Fuel Blitz, which covers Donald Trumps assaults on the legal foundation for U.S. regulations on global warming emissions, and how climate deniers have been celebrating what they claim is the “silent” acquiescence of billionaires, Democrats, climate activists and even reporters to the president’s aggressive pro-fossil fuel agenda. “In my 26 years of being focused on climate, I’ve never seen anything like this. Trump is gutting everything they ever stood for,” Marc Morano, a long-time climate denier, said in January at the “World Prosperity Forum,” a five-day event in Zurich, Switzerland, Rei reports. The World Prosperity Forums sponsor was The Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank that has been at the forefront of spreading climate disinformation for decades, and was also a contributor to Project 2025, the policy blueprint for President Trump’s second administration. “Billionaires are silent. Democrats in Congress have been silent. Climate activists. There has been no push-back on this,” Morano said — and he may have a point, according to some experts who research the climate denial movement. Join in on Thursday, May 7, at 12:00 p.m. EDT for this virtual conversation about the Trump administration’s embrace of climate denialism, what that could mean for the future of US climate policy, and how to cover it You won’t want to miss it. Register and submit your questions here. The post Event | How Climate Denialism Is Evolving With Trump in Office appeared first on DeSmog.

[Category: Energy]

— Heartland Institute Podcast Questions Whether All Americans ‘Should Have the Right to Vote’

 

at 5/5/26 8:23am

A prominent ultra-conservative think tank with a long history of climate denial and close ties to the Trump administration is questioning whether all Americans should be allowed to cast ballots in elections.  “Look, I’m going to say something very controversial: Not every adult over the age of 18 should have the right to vote,” Jim Lakely, communications director of the Heartland Institute, said during an early April episode of the group’s In the Tank podcast.  Heartland was a contributor to Project 2025, the policy blueprint for Trump’s second term.  “We did not have universal suffrage when the framers of the Constitution founded this country. It varied a little bit state-to-state, but basically you had to be a white man. You had to be an owner of property, and a certain amount of property, and that pretty much was only white men,” Lakely said. “Were never going back to that, of course, and I wouldnt actually argue for that. But theres something to be said for the way they set that up on purpose, and it was because they wanted only people who have a stake in the country — mainly the people paying taxes to support the government — should have the franchise and be able to select the direction of the government. Lakely’s comments, which DeSmog has quoted in full at his request, came just days before Heartland hosted a two-day conference in Washington, D.C. keynoted by Lee Zeldin, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Zeldin has been floated to replace Pam Bondi as Trump’s attorney general.  Zeldin praised the Heartland Institute, which has long been at the forefront of spreading climate disinformation and strongly backed the EPA’s recent repeal of the “endangerment finding,” the Obama-era determination that under-girded the federal government’s authority to limit climate-heating air pollution. It was time to “celebrate vindication” of the group’s decades of anti-climate campaigning, Zeldin said. Subscribe to our newsletter Stay up to date with DeSmog news and alerts Name -- Email Address What content do you want to subscribe to? (check all that apply) All International UK Sign Up (function($){ $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-us').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619D07B21962C5AFE16D3A2145673C82A3CEE9D9F1ADDABE965ACB3CE39939D42AC9012C6272FD52BFCA0790F0FB77C6442'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-vdrirr-vdrirr'); }); $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-uk').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619BD43AA6813AF1B0FFE26D8282EC254E3ED0237BA72BEFBE922037EE4F1B325C6DA4918F8E044E022C7D333A43FD72429'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-ijkidr-ijkidr'); }); })(jQuery); All Americans should be worried that a top Trump cabinet official openly lauded a group that questions universal suffrage, said climate scientist Michael Mann, the director of the Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania.  “Heartland’s authoritarian, anti-democratic agenda is now exposed for all to see,” Mann told DeSmog in email. “The assault on climate action and the assault on democracy are one and the same, an effort to advance the authoritarian agenda of fossil fuel interests and the politicians in their pay.”  When approached for comment, the EPA told DeSmog: “Administrator Zeldin is doing something genuinely different at EPA, refocusing the agency on its core mission of protecting human health and the environment and exercising its statutory authority as written, not as expansively reimagined in prior years. Administrator Zeldin will continue advancing President Trumps agenda on behalf of the Americans who elected him to do exactly that.” ‘Reduce the Franchise’ During the podcast, Heartland senior fellow S.T. Karnick backed up Lakely’s comments about voting. “The original plan in America was that votes would go one vote to each property-holding family,” Karnick said. “That has been hacked away at throughout the decades and for a two and a half centuries now.” “Now, can you go back?” he added. “Well, anythings possible, but it wouldnt be the same country were living in in any way to start to reduce the franchise.” Karnick said that an alternative solution would be to “repeal the doggone 17th Amendment,” the 1913 addition to the Constitution that established the direct election of U.S. senators, and return to having senators elected by state legislatures. “It would be a way of pulling away from the popular votes,” he said.   Heartland Research Fellow Linnea Lucken and Editorial Director Chris Talgo also appeared on the podcast. During the Heartland podcast, Lakely made the false claim that the use of mail-in ballots during the COVID-19 pandemic created “quite a bit” of “easy natural election fraud,” saying that “if you could go to the grocery store, if you could go to a BLM [Black Lives Matter] march, you can get in line at your local polling place and vote and participate in the election.” When DeSmog approached Lakely for comment about this last claim, Lakely responded: “I stand by that.”  Zeldin, a longtime Trump supporter, has previously endorsed similar claims. Following Trump’s loss of the 2020 election to Joe Biden, Zeldin — then a House member representing New York’s 1st Congressional District — “sided with Republicans who were amplifying doubts about its legitimacy,” according to The New York Times, and shared ideas with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on how to discredit Biden’s win. On January 6, 2021, Zeldin voted against certifying the election results. The following year, while running as the Republican candidate for governor of New York, Zeldin was disqualified from getting his ticket an additional ballot line for the Independence Party, because nearly 13,000 of the petition signatures his campaign submitted to the state elections board were photocopied duplicates.  Soon after taking over the EPA in 2025, Zeldin promised that the agency would begin “driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion.” Since then he has revoked billions in climate funding, slashed thousands of EPA staff, and rolled back dozens of clean air and water protections.  In his Heartland keynote address, Zeldin argued that these rollbacks were “what the American public voted for” when they re-elected Trump.  The EPA chief praised the Heartland audience for being “right there on the front lines” of opposition to the endangerment finding. “I appreciate all of you for having the thoughtfulness years and decades ahead of your time.” Attorney General Zeldin? If Zeldin replaced Bondi, he would oversee the Justice Department’s defense of his EPA actions in court, including lawsuits by states and environmental groups over the endangerment finding repeal. “The Supreme Court, in my opinion quite correctly, would say that the EPA should not be putting forth trillions of dollars in regulations without there being a vote in Congress,” Zeldin said in his speech, adding that members of Congress are “the ones who, as recently as this upcoming November [mid-term elections], put their name on the ballot, go before the people, and the American public will decide who in this republic will represent them.” Zeldin’s record of election denial would fit right in at the top of the current Justice Department. Since Trump took office, the department has shifted from enforcing voting rights laws — including scrutinizing whether states are conducting fair elections and prosecuting threats against election officials — to investigating alleged voter fraud. Most of the lawyers working in the Voting Section of the agency’s Civil Rights Division have left, according to reporting by Wired, and many of their replacements have ties to election denial groups. Right now, Trump’s cratering approval ratings with voters paint a grim picture for Republicans in the November elections  — but as part of his efforts to manipulate the mid-terms, the Trump Justice Department has been openly coming to their aid.  Under former AG Bondi, the department began collecting voter data from cooperative states — and suing dozens of states to get more — apparently hoping to direct purges of the rolls. The FBI in January raided an election office and seized 2020 voting records in Fulton County, Georgia, which Trump lost, although It’s well-established that voter fraud is very rare in the United States, and didnt happen in 2020. A number of red states have already answered Trump’s call to create more House seats for Republicans by redrawing their election districts. Now more are on the way because in late April the Supreme Court’s conservative majority gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965, handing down a ruling that effectively lets states redraw their election districts in ways that weaken the voting power of Blacks and other minorities. Within hours of the decision, several southern states began taking steps to create election maps that will increase the number of Republican House seats. Badge of Dishonor The Heartland Institute, which has denied that humans are driving climate change, calling it a “delusion,” has boasted of its “strong” ties to “big individuals” in the Trump administration. During Trump’s first term, as DeSmog reported at the time, Heartland advised the EPA on staffing and policy decisions. “They recognized us as the pre-eminent organization opposing the radical climate alarmism agenda and instead promoting sound science and policy,” said Tim Huelskamp — a former Republican congressman who was then leading Heartland — in 2018.  Heartland also advised a member of the administration’s National Security Council, longtime climate denier William Happer, on how to discredit the fact that burning fossil fuels was driving dangerous levels of global heating. When Trump announced in 2017 that the United States would withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, he invited Heartland’s then-CEO Joseph Bast to attend the announcement at the White House. The Heartland Institute received at least $676,000 between 1998 and 2007 from U.S. oil giant ExxonMobil. It has received donations from Republican donors in the Mercer family, as well as foundations linked to the owners of Koch Industries – a fossil fuel giant and a leading sponsor of climate science denial. “What a badge of dishonor it is to be a keynote speaker at this plutocrat-funded propaganda event masquerading as a ‘conference,” Mann said to DeSmog, referencing Zeldin’s ties to the group. “Polluting interests can only advance their agenda of a fossil fuel-dependent America by keeping Republicans in power.” The post Heartland Institute Podcast Questions Whether All Americans ‘Should Have the Right to Vote’ appeared first on DeSmog.

[Category: Energy]

— How Canada’s LNG Push is Benefiting Trump and Shortchanging Indigenous People

 

at 5/1/26 1:02pm

In mid-April, Indigenous leaders from British Columbia traveled to Ottawa to protest against the federal government’s aggressive support for fossil fuel expansion. Mark Carney’s Liberal government is fast-tracking multiple LNG projects in British Columbia, including the recent approval of Enbridge’s $4 billion natural gas pipeline expansion. Securing Indigenous support for fossil fuel projects has been a cornerstone strategy of Canada’s oil and gas sector in recent years, with companies promising considerable benefits on the one hand while highlighting Indigenous involvement as an aspect of corporate responsibility on the other. Not everyone is on board however, and Indigenous communities have been some of the most vocal opponents of major Canadian energy projects, including Union of BC Indian Chiefs representative Kitisha Paul, who argued at the Ottawa protest that fossil fuel expansion is causing the “deterioration of our land, our water.”  Kai Nagata, an energy campaigner with the B.C.-based environmental non-profit Dogwood, has spent years working with Indigenous communities on the front-lines of opposition to new oil and gas infrastructure, a role that’s included deep research into the benefit agreements offered by industry as well as the foreign investors set to cash-in from new gas pipelines and export terminals. In an extensive Q&A with DeSmog, Nagata illuminates some of the tensions around promises of Indigenous participation in new fossil fuel projects, and the ways in which these supposedly “nation building” projects are tied to the U.S. and the MAGA movement. Subscribe to our newsletter Stay up to date with DeSmog news and alerts Name -- Email Address What content do you want to subscribe to? (check all that apply) All International UK Sign Up (function($){ $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-us').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619D07B21962C5AFE16D3A2145673C82A3CEE9D9F1ADDABE965ACB3CE39939D42AC9012C6272FD52BFCA0790F0FB77C6442'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-vdrirr-vdrirr'); }); $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-uk').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619BD43AA6813AF1B0FFE26D8282EC254E3ED0237BA72BEFBE922037EE4F1B325C6DA4918F8E044E022C7D333A43FD72429'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-ijkidr-ijkidr'); }); })(jQuery); This interview has been edited for length and clarity. To what extent are Indigenous communities participating in the development of new fossil fuel infrastructure in British Columbia? Coastal GasLink, a gas pipeline built across Northern BC, has zero percent Indigenous equity ownership. Sixty-five percent of the pipeline is owned by KKR, which is a New York private equity firm, and 35 percent remains with TC Energy Corporation.   The LNG Canada terminal in Kitimat has zero percent Indigenous ownership, as it’s owned by Royal Dutch Shell and a consortium of Asian oil companies, some of which are state-owned. The financing for these projects came from U.S., Canadian, Japanese and some Chinese banks. So the investors, the shareholders, the owners, and indeed many of the senior project staff and people involved in engineering and building the thing are not even Canadian, let alone Indigenous.  The only LNG project that has Indigenous ownership right now in BC is Cedar LNG. So the Haisla Nation has a 50 percent stake in the terminal, but theyre buying the gas from Coastal GasLink, which is owned by KKR. And KKR also has a midstream infrastructure partnership with Pembina Pipelines, which is the Haisla’s partner on Cedar LNG. So theyre not outside the orbit of KKR by any means. With Prince Rupert Gas Transmission pipeline (PRGT) or the Ksi Lisims project, which are being advanced by this Texas company [Western LNG] with Wall Street investors, they’ve really been at pains to make it seem like this is an Indigenous-owned project. Thats how its been pitched by the provincial government. And thats just not true.  (Author’s note: filings with the BC Environmental assessment office show Western LNG is the primary owner and operator of the Ksi Lisims project). Companies are riding this wave of concern over the poor treatment of Indigenous people historically in Canada and the need to make that up to them.Theyre calling this ‘economic reconciliation’: heres an opportunity for a small number of your governing elite to cash in, with hopefully some long-term benefits for the broader population on your reserve or in your nation. Can you speak more to the kinds of agreements companies have signed with Indigenous communities? Every deal is different, and theyre all secret. So thats the first sign they might not stand up to scrutiny. During the initial negotiations around the PRGT, which was back in 2014, you had band councils and hereditary chiefs signing impact benefit agreements. That was the same era as Coastal GasLink. Prior to that era of projects, the older model involved people from industry coming into Indigenous communities and saying “you people need to get out of the way now, the bulldozers are coming.” Recognizing that that approach carried material risk for projects, the energy companies started crafting impact benefit agreements. They follow a similar template, basically an Indigenous community gets some limited financial benefits upfront. They get a promise of ongoing financial benefits, often very modest, but in return, they have clauses that are pretty draconian, like you have to prevent any of the members of your Indigenous group from speaking out against this industry or this project, and that can include on social media. How do you get people to agree to that? If your chief and council signs a closed-door deal with a pipeline company, it may contain clauses like your band members cant shit talk this project on Facebook. That came out of a leaked benefit agreement that was signed with Coastal GasLink. The chief and council werent sure if it was a good idea. So they put it out to a plebiscite and the community voted against it. Then they said there were ‘problems with the process’, so they took it to an in-camera vote. The council was split down the middle, so the chief himself passed the tie-breaking vote. It actually came down to one guy—the band chief—after a democratic majority of band members rejected the deal. And the deal contained disparagement clauses. If community members disparaged the industry, the community could be held financially liable. I would characterize that as coercive. That’s not a deal anyone should sign. But when you have no leverage and when you’ve been dealing with the effects of poverty for 150 years, theres a lot of immediate needs that these projects promise to fulfill. Like what? Kitselas First Nation recently signed an impact benefit agreement with Western LNG, the company developing the PRGT pipeline. They’re going to find some spaces for child care on the reserve, so that more people can go to work. But childcare is a provincial responsibility. Except for First Nations. So you have a situation where theyre being deprived of services the non-Indigenous population receive from the provincial government, and are then forced to sign very one-sided deals with industrial projects to fund those basic social services.  You create a situation where it feels like a pretty good deal if the pipeline goes through and you get a little revenue and maybe some childcare too. Obviously youre gonna take the deal where you get something instead of nothing. What are the risks of pursuing these projects for Indigenous partners? Theres some really big risks around LNG right now, like whats happening in global markets in Asia and Europe. Who carries those risks? Which investors are first in line to be paid? Which creditors are first to line if things go wrong? You might be the last in line to recoup your investment depending on the structure of the deal. The trend is that the lawyers and the industry consultants—the people who jump from project to project around the world and arrange these big financing deals—they get paid right away. They dont stick around to build the project. And Im concerned by the fact that this current crop of LNG projects are all backed by Wall Street, because Wall Street doesnt know anything about building pipelines or operating energy infrastructure. But they do know how to ride a bubble. They know to make money into other money, and they know how ruthlessly exploit a dying industry. Don’t forget, what we call ‘private equity’ today used to be called ‘leveraged buyouts’. And that may sound high-minded and complicated financial stuff, but really it’s just the same core business it was 40 years ago: either you turn around a troubled asset, or you fire all the workers and sell off the parts. Vulture capitalism is a key component of private equity. What happens when Indigenous communities resist projects, like in the case of Wet’suwet’en Hereditary chiefs and land defenders opposing the Coastal GasLink project Pipelines in particular come with a whole playbook and a set of actors which are very practiced in operating in conflict zones and sites of recent political or environmental upheaval. The companies that are building PRGT include Bechtel, which is a major U.S. military contractor, and one of the biggest privately-owned companies in the world. They manufacture weapons, build defense installations, and they do oil and gas work in shall we say the ‘imperial borderlands’, contested spaces. Theyre deeply integrated with the U.S. security state and with U.S. foreign policy. And they have a playbook for dealing with the ‘restive local tribes’ or any other local community that might give the Americans a hard time over their globe-spanning infrastructure. We saw an example of this with the Wetʼsuwetʼen when they contested Coastal GasLink. The company that bought the pipeline, KKR, has its own internal intelligence division, which is run by David Petraeus, whos the former CIA director and was prior to that a top-ranking general who literally wrote the U.S. Armed Forces manual on counterinsurgency warfare. And if you read his book, you see there’s a lot of familiar tactics that we saw adapted to Northern BC. We saw veterans of the War on Terror step in and take control of a physical space in a way that was new to people covering Canadian resource extraction projects. You had American, British, Belgian, South African mercenaries essentially working as private security for the pipeline who were really directing the actions and collecting intelligence and evidence for the police who just got called in to do the hands-on stuff and make the arrests. I would characterize what we witnessed there as a corporate counter-insurgency. Do you view Indigenous participation in new fossil fuel projects part of the marketing scheme or a guarantee against another Wetʼsuwetʼen crisis? Both the federal and provincial levels of government are doing all they can to de-risk these projects and entice these very small communities with limited fiscal capacity to invest in these multi-billion dollar projects which include loan guarantees and other kind of bespoke deals around transmission line access and that kind of thing.  They’re bending over backwards to make these projects work because they know that [between the] combination of Indigenous ownership and the green branding around electrified LNG terminals, most people in Vancouver who see one news article will think “oh, a First Nation has decided to build a gas terminal in a place I’ve never visited. Sounds like they’re trying to protect the environment and its good to see native people get a stake in these projects after being on the sidelines for so long, good for them.” In the case of the Haisla nation that has ownership over Cedar LNG, It’s up to them to determine whether these projects benefit their community, but we do need to consider how much information—and the quality of the information—the public, Indigenous or otherwise, has when making these decisions. In the small towns of Northern BC, there’s really no media scrutiny to speak of. The energy companies send their press releases to the local newspaper, the focus of which is how many jobs will be created, but there’s really no scrutiny of what the impact will be. And many of these decisions are happening behind closed doors anyways. We only find out the terms if they leak. What was the calculus for investors in wanting to develop these projects? Apollo Global Management invested in Western LNG and the development of the Ksi Lisims terminal back in 2018. They got in on the ground floor at a time when there were low LNG prices worldwide. There was a down cycle starting in about 2015, 2016, where we saw a huge wave of these projects get canceled because the markets werent there yet. The prices didnt take off until Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and that’s what kicked off the current gold rush. Some of these people had the idea of using an emerging technology—modular floating LNG terminals—as a way to both lower the risk and lower the cost. The floating terminals are basically converted LNG bulk carriers, which can be moved around the world and hooked up wherever they’re needed. Instead of building a massive onshore terminal, the floating terminals are built in Korea and they can be hooked up in series to expand capacity. Apollo saw the potential in that, not just the export terminals, but there are equivalent facilities that are built on ships for the import of LNG, which Apollo also invested in, in the same year. They really saw the opportunity for vertical integration in emerging markets where people need access to reliable electricity. And this is the cheap modular way to do it. Leon Black is the former CEO who made that call and who got Apollo Global Management to be the first major Wall Street backer of the Ksi Lisims project, and its the only project that Western LNG has ever developed. The company was incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in Texas, but its only ever existed to develop this project in BC. You have talked about how the backers of the Ksi Lisims project are tied to the MAGA movement, can you tell me more about this?  Steve Schwartzman, who runs Blackstone, (the other major investor in this project) is a top-10 donor to Trump. He’s bankrolling the MAGA movement. He’s a major advisor and donor to Trump, who is steering and financing what I would characterize as like an authoritarian political movement that is taking over institutions in the U.S. and openly wants to annex Canada for its resources. It puts the question of Indigenous ownership in perspective, given the players. I really dont think that they have the best interests of local people in their minds as theyre structuring these deals. Theyre not here on a charitable project. The reason why they would empower the companies that theyre invested in to strike these deals with local First Nations is to give them the kind of political cover they need to get permits and authorizations and the loans. The post How Canada’s LNG Push is Benefiting Trump and Shortchanging Indigenous People appeared first on DeSmog.

[Category: Energy]

— Fertiliser and Grain Bosses Bank $66 Million Selling Shares During Iran War

 

at 4/30/26 6:45am

Senior executives, directors, and major investors from the world’s largest fertiliser and grain companies have sold shares worth more than $66 million (£49 million) during price hikes linked to the Iran war, DeSmog can reveal. Since the outbreak of the conflict in February, provoked by a U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign in Iran, fertiliser prices have increased by almost 45 percent – leading wheat producers in Australia to pare back planting, and some UK farmers to warn they may not sow for the summer season, risking soaring global grain prices. The increased costs come after Iran blocked the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping route. Around one-third of the world’s fertiliser, 20 percent of liquefied natural gas, and 25 percent of seaborne oil usually passes through the strait. The vast majority of chemical fertilisers are made from fossil fuels.  DeSmog’s new analysis found that insiders at three firms – fertiliser giants CF Industries and Nutrien, and grain company Archer Daniels Midland – have sold shares worth tens of millions since the outbreak of the conflict. As commodity prices have increased, so have the share prices of the world’s largest fertiliser and grain companies. In March, Nutrien saw its share value grow by over 50 percent, and CF Industries by nearly 40 percent. Although grain company shares have increased less markedly, they have also shown an upward trend. DeSmog found that Kenneth Alvin Seitz, the CEO of the world’s largest fertiliser company, Nutrien, sold shares worth almost $5 million (£3.7 million) in March 2026 after the outbreak of the Iran war, making a $1.8 million (£1.3 million) profit on the transaction. Three senior vice presidents at Archer Daniels Midland also banked nearly $8.5 million (£6.3 million) selling shares. The Financial Times reported last month that insiders at CF Industries sold more than $30 million (£22 million) in shares after Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz on 2 March. DeSmog’s analysis found that, in total, insiders at the firm have sold almost $50 million (£37 million) of shares since the war began. In the U.S., Canada and, some European countries, publicly traded corporations must declare the sale of shares by insiders, including senior executives, board members, significant shareholders, and their close family members. The findings come weeks after the United Nations’ World Food Programme warned that the conflict in the Middle East could push roughly 45 million more people into acute hunger. In the UK, food prices will rise by “at least” nine percent this year, according to warnings from the country’s Food and Drink Federation in late March. “These findings are outrageous, but we shouldnt be surprised,” said Mónica Vargas Collazos, head of the global programme at Grain, a sustainable food campaign group. “When there are conflicts or other supply shocks, these companies use their monopoly power to jack up prices, extract mega profits, and enrich shareholders. Farmers and consumers pay the price.” All the companies and individuals named were approached for comment, and there is no suggestion that they breached any rules or laws. Subscribe to our newsletter Stay up to date with DeSmog news and alerts Name -- Email Address What content do you want to subscribe to? (check all that apply) All International UK Sign Up (function($){ $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-us').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619D07B21962C5AFE16D3A2145673C82A3CEE9D9F1ADDABE965ACB3CE39939D42AC9012C6272FD52BFCA0790F0FB77C6442'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-vdrirr-vdrirr'); }); $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-uk').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619BD43AA6813AF1B0FFE26D8282EC254E3ED0237BA72BEFBE922037EE4F1B325C6DA4918F8E044E022C7D333A43FD72429'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-ijkidr-ijkidr'); }); })(jQuery); Fertiliser Boom Bosses also cashed in during the Ukraine war. DeSmog’s findings reveal that insiders at five of the world’s largest fertiliser and grain companies – also including Bunge and Mosaic – sold shares worth nearly $515 million (£380 million) during price hikes liked to both the Iran and Ukraine wars. W. Anthony Will, CEO of the world’s third largest fertiliser company CF Industries until January, sold shares worth over $150 million (£111 million) during price spikes linked to the conflicts. Will acted as an advisor to CF Industries until mid-March, and remains on its board. Insiders at Archer Daniels Midland sold more than $90 million (£67 million) during the two wars, while insiders at Bunge unloaded shares for over $175 million (£129 million) during price spikes tied to the Ukraine war. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 caused fertiliser prices to quickly peak, followed by further increases between August and December as Russia’s squeeze on Europe’s gas supply caused fertiliser manufacturers to pause some operations. Insiders at CF Industries banked just under $180 million (£134 million) in share sales in the year following the invasion. Jennifer Clapp, food security expert with IPES-Food, and a professor at the University of Waterloo, Canada, told DeSmog that the findings underlined the need to move away from fossil fuels in food production. “This crisis has revealed, in all too vivid terms, just how dependent our food system is on fossil fuels,” she said. “It is long past time to break free from this insecure oil-addicted model, and shift to more ecological forms of farming and more local, territorial food systems.” Pie share salesInfogram Big Beneficiaries In total, DeSmog identified 11 months where the Ukraine and Iran wars contributed to soaring fertiliser and grain prices. Insiders sold 45 percent more shares in these 11 months than in the three intervening years combined. Company executives often pre-plan sales and acquisitions ahead of time to demonstrate that they are not trading based on insider knowledge or gaming the market. Of the 136 sales analysed, only 28 were linked to these plans – suggesting that the vast majority were deliberate, in-the-moment decisions based on high share prices. Beneficiaries included CF Industries’ Christopher Bohn, the company’s current CEO, who sold more than 150,000 shares for over $13 million (£9.6 million) in February and August 2022. He was the company’s chief financial officer at the time. Other beneficiaries included an executive vice president CF Industries who sold shares worth nearly $30 million (£22 million) during key moments of the Ukraine war. Executives and board members are often awarded shares by firms as part of compensation plans. CF Industries awarded W. Anthony Will, its then CEO, more than 150,000 shares on 28 February 2022 at the end of a three year compensation plan.  As part of compensation packages, companies can also give executives and directors the right to buy shares for several years at a fixed price, incentivising the individuals to increase their value. In multiple transactions, insiders were able to use this arrangement to purchase shares below market price, and then sell them for a significant profit. Alongside his freely awarded shares, Will also purchased more than 1 million shares at below market price on 28 February. He then sold over 1.2 million shares worth $100 million (£74 million) the same day – four days after the Ukraine war broke out. In one transaction, on 25 February 2022, the day after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, CF Industries’ Christopher Bohn purchased more than 100,000 shares under price guarantees dating back as far as 2014. He sold these shares at up to double the price – making $4 million (£3 million) in profit. Grain Prices Global wheat prices could rise by 4.2 percent if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed for a sustained period, according to the Kiel Institute. Rising grain prices have been caused in part by disruptions to oil and gas supply – increasing the cost of fertilisers and therefore of intensive food production. Archer Daniels Midland and Bunge are part of the “ABCD” firms that collectively control more than 70 percent of the global grain market. In 2022, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the value of shares in the two companies increased by almost a third. Share salesInfogram Beneficiaries included Juan R. Luciano, CEO of Archer Daniels Midland, who purchased 300,000 shares at below-market price before selling them for almost three times the value in October 2022. He made a $18 million (£13 million) profit from the transaction. The transaction was pre-planned, but will have been scheduled to take place on a particular date or once share prices reached a certain high.   Archer Daniels Midland’s share price soared in October 2022 – the month when Russian leader Vladimir Putin upped threats to leave the Black Sea Grain Deal, which allowed for the safe export of grain, food, and fertiliser from Ukrainian ports. The single biggest wins were made by Paul J. Fribourg and Continental Grain, a private investment firm and agribusiness conglomerate led by Fribourg and established by his family. Fribourg was a board member at Bunge until the end of 2022. He and Continental Grain sold shares worth nearly $170 million in March 2022, although they also appear to have begun selling off part of their stake in the months prior to Russia’s invasion. Bunge told DeSmog that “Continental Grain has no current ownership position and exited its stake in Bunge in 2023.” A spokesperson added that “Bunge’s role is to help keep essential food, feed and fuel supply chains moving safely and reliably, in compliance with all applicable laws.” Fact checked by Brigitte Wear The post Fertiliser and Grain Bosses Bank $66 Million Selling Shares During Iran War appeared first on DeSmog.

[Category: Energy]

— Revealed: Reform’s £24 Million from Fossil Fuel Interests

 

at 4/30/26 2:27am

Reform UK has received £24 million from oil and gas interests, accounting for more than two thirds of its total income, DeSmog can reveal. Led by Nigel Farage, the party is calling for new North Sea oil and gas drilling ahead of UK-wide elections in May on the ill-founded claim that it will cut energy bills. DeSmog’s analysis reveals that 67 percent of Reform’s funding to date has come from donors with financial interests in fossil fuels, totalling more than £24 million. A further £2.4 million has been donated by individuals who have disputed basic scientific facts about climate change. “What these extraordinary numbers make clear is that Reform is less a political party and more a very highly paid public-facing lobby group for oil and gas interests,” said Jolyon Maugham, executive director of the Good Law Project campaign group. Subscribe to our newsletter Stay up to date with DeSmog news and alerts Name -- Email Address What content do you want to subscribe to? (check all that apply) All International UK Sign Up (function($){ $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-us').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619D07B21962C5AFE16D3A2145673C82A3CEE9D9F1ADDABE965ACB3CE39939D42AC9012C6272FD52BFCA0790F0FB77C6442'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-vdrirr-vdrirr'); }); $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-uk').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619BD43AA6813AF1B0FFE26D8282EC254E3ED0237BA72BEFBE922037EE4F1B325C6DA4918F8E044E022C7D333A43FD72429'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-ijkidr-ijkidr'); }); })(jQuery); The biggest chunk (£22 million) has been gifted by Thailand-based crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, whose firm AML Global sells jet fuel, which is made from crude oil. More than half (£12 million) of this figure was donated in 2025. Another £1.7 million has come from hedge fund boss Jeremy Hosking, whose investment firm Hosking Partners has $440.8 million (around £326.5 million) invested in oil, gas, and coal. As revealed by DeSmog, Hosking Partners has ramped up its fossil fuel investments in recent months during the war in Iran, which has caused energy shortages and windfall profits for oil giants. Reform has received more than £2 million from its deputy leader Richard Tice, a property millionaire who has denied that man-made carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are causing climate change – instead calling it “plant food”. Farage has himself claimed it’s “absolutely nuts” for CO2 to be considered a pollutant. The party has also accepted £230,000 from management consultancy First Corporate Consultants, whose owner Terence Mordaunt is a former chair of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF). The GWPF is the UK’s foremost climate denial group, and has claimed CO2 emissions are a “benefit to the planet”. In total, Reform has received almost £26.7 million from climate deniers and fossil fuel interests since it was set up by Farage as the Brexit Party in 2019 – roughly three quarters (74 percent) of its total £36 million income. IN NUMBERS: Reform’s smoggy £26 million Christopher HarborneFossil fuel interest£22,190,000Richard TiceClimate science denier£2,257,919Jeremy HoskingFossil fuel interest£1,718,000Terence MordauntClimate science denier£230,000Ashley Mark LevettFossil fuel interest£200,000Jacques J. TohmeFossil fuel interest£50,000TOTAL£26,652,919 Reform – which is leading UK-wide polls at 25 percent – has vowed to “scrap net zero”, end subsidies for wind and solar power, approve new oil and gas exploration, lift the ban on fracking for shale gas, and open new coal power plants. The party has doubled down on these policies during the Iran war. Earlier this month, Tice called for the UK to extract “every last drop” of oil and gas in the North Sea, and described new drilling as “our patriotic duty”. Green Party MP Ellie Chowns told DeSmog: “When you receive nearly two thirds of your funding from vested interests, it is no surprise you dance to their tune. “This exposes precisely why Reform wants to promote fossil fuels and undermine the green transition to renewables that would provide us with cheaper, secure energy.” New climate modelling has indicated that a critical Atlantic current is significantly more likely to collapse than previously thought, while scientists have warned of a “rapidly closing window” to limit temperatures rises to 1.5C and avoid the worst impacts of climate change. In March, the UK’s independent Climate Change Committee said the entire cost of cutting emissions to net zero by 2050 would be less than a single fossil fuel price shock – two of which have been experienced by the UK in the past five years. Meanwhile, a report by the New Economics Foundation last year concluded that Reform’s anti-renewables agenda could cost 60,000 jobs and wipe £92 billion off the economy. “It isn’t exactly a shock to discover that the party most reliant on fossil fuel funding is also ignoring climate science and claiming that more drilling will solve all of our energy problems,” Angharad Hopkinson, political campaigner for Greenpeace UK, told DeSmog. “But can they continue to hold that line as Trump’s war in Iran makes it more and more obvious that our dependence on oil and gas gives control over our energy prices to dictators and petrostates with no loyalty to the UK?” Hopkinson added: “Reform is trying to walk a tightrope, presenting themselves as the party of patriotism while working to preserve foreign influence, rather than saving Britain money by switching to home-grown renewable energy and taking back control.” Reform was approached for comment. Reform’s Fossil Fuel Donors Reform’s biggest donor is crypto investor Harborne, whose company AML Global supplies aviation and maritime fuel to a distribution network that includes “main and regional oil companies”, according to its website. As reported by Private Eye, the price of jet fuel has doubled since the start of the war in Iran, which would benefit Harborne’s business interests. One of AML Global’s past clients is the U.S. military, which made payments worth £115 million to AML Global’s Hong Kong division between 2020 and January 2026. It’s unclear if the U.S. military is still a client.  Harborne and AML Global didn’t respond to DeSmog’s request for comment. In response to a similar enquiry in 2024, he posted a lengthy statement on the AML Global website, stating: “Firstly, I am not a climate science denier and secondly, I do not seek to influence any government through donations or lobbying regarding their policies on climate change or in favour of corporate interests.” However, Harborne is by far the biggest donor to the UK’s leading anti-climate party. In addition to his £22 million in donations to Reform, The Guardian has revealed that he gave £5 million personally to Farage before the 2024 general election. Copy: Farage’s foreign moneyInfogram DeSmog analysed Electoral Commission data going back to Reform’s founding, along with company accounts and investment registers. Reform has also received £1.7 million from hedge fund boss Hosking, whose firm Hosking Partners has extensive fossil fuel holdings. Its latest filings at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission show the hedge fund has $369.7 million (around £273.7 million) invested in oil and gas companies, and $71 million (around £52.6 million) invested in coal firms. Hosking’s total fossil fuel investments increased by almost 54 percent in the first three months of 2026. 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.”  Reform also received £50,000 last year from Nova Venture Holdings. The company’s sole director, Jacques J. Tohme, is an oil executive with a long history in the industry. He is founder and managing partner at Samos Energy, which finances oil and gas projects in Southeast Asia. He previously founded Tailwind Energy – later merged with Serica Energy – an oil and gas company which operated in the North Sea and which “transacted” with Shell, BP, and ExxonMobil. In November, the party accepted a further £200,000 from Ashley Mark Levett. He currently sits on the board of Monaco-based company, Levmet – a global commodities trader whose interests include fossil fuels. Climate Denier Donors Reform has also received more than £2.5 million from donors who have promoted climate science denial.  The party’s deputy leader Tice has provided £2.3 million via his companies TISUN investments, Britain Means Business, and Leave Means Leave since the party’s founding in 2019. Tice has described carbon dioxide as “plant food”, and told Sky News: “There’s no evidence that man-made CO2 is going to change the climate. Given that it’s gone on for millions of years, it will go on for millions of years.” The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s leading climate science body, has said it is “unequivocal” that human influence has caused “unprecedented” global warming. Tice has been accused of hypocrisy for calling renewable energy “a massive con” while fitting solar panels and electric vehicle charging stations on his commercial properties. In 2023, Reform received £230,000 from First Corporate Consultants, a company owned by Terence Mordaunt, who chaired the GWPF from November 2019 to October 2021. The GWPF has claimed that carbon dioxide has been “mercilessly demonised” when in fact it should be “two or three times” higher than current levels. In reality, the IPCC has said CO2 emissions are causing dangerous climate change, fuelling extreme weather, crop failure, and excess deaths around the world. Despite their opposition to climate science and their fossil fuel donations, Reform MPs represent some of the constituencies most at risk from extreme heat and flooding, including Farage’s constituency of Clacton and Tice’s seat of Boston and Skegness. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage looking at the floodwater in Burrowbridge, Somerset.Credit: PA Images / Alamy Other Big Donors of Note Outside the scope of this analysis is Zia Yusuf, a multi-millionaire former tech entrepreneur and Reform’s home affairs spokesman, who has donated £206,000 to the party. While he has attacked climate action, Yusuf has not explicitly denied the role of man-made CO2 emissions to global warming. Yusuf donated to Reform ahead of the 2024 election, after which he was appointed as the party’s chairman. Following the election, Yusuf attacked the Labour Party’s clean energy policies, saying: “Labour champagne socialists are restricting supply of the cheapest form of energy for ordinary citizens.” He has called net zero “religious madness” and described North Sea oil and gas as “a gift from god”. He welcomed Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president in 2024 as a rejection of “net zero fanaticism”. The same year, Reform received £247,000 from David Lilley, a metals and mining executive and a director at the investment firm Drakewood Capital. The company holds a 20 percent stake in VSA Capital, which claims to have “a deep knowledge of mining and oil and gas” and which provides banking and brokerage services to the industry.  Lilley – an old friend of Farage – is also a director of Resolute 1850, a Reform-linked think tank rebranded as the Centre for a Better Britain. It was launched last year by right-wing academic James Orr to “support Reform with policy development, briefing and rebuttal”. Orr joined Reform as head of policy in February, having previously been a senior advisor to the party. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and home affairs spokesperson Zia Yusuf. Credit: ZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy Reform has received a further £990,000 from property billionaire Nick Candy, who is Reform’s treasurer and who claims to have sought party funding from oil and gas executives.  As DeSmog has reported, Candy also has financial interests in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a Gulf petrostate. In late 2024, his firm Candy Capital entered into a “strategic joint venture partnership” with Modon Holding, which is chaired by a board member of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). Between 2023 and 2025, the party accepted £95,000 from Panther Securities, a property investment company chaired by former UKIP donor Andrew Perloff, who has blamed rising inflation on climate policies and defended climate science deniers. In June 2022, Perloff wrote: “Whilst they [scientists], of course, could be correct that global warming is happening, I feel it is worrying that those with different opinions are often prevented from presenting them for consideration.” Reform has also received £36,000 from Heathrow Airport, which was found to be the world’s second most carbon-emitting airport in 2019. Heathrow has also donated to Labour and the Conservatives in recent years. Farage’s Millions Alongside these donations, Farage has received £664,000 since July 2024 from the anti-climate broadcaster GB News, which employs him as a presenter. The platform is co-owned by Paul Marshall, whose hedge fund had £1.8 billion invested in fossil fuels as of June 2023. As revealed by DeSmog, Farage has received gifts from the UAE, and has been lavished with £150,000 worth of flights to give speeches to U.S. anti-climate groups.  Last year, Farage helped launch a UK-Europe branch of the Heartland Institute, a U.S. climate denial group which has described itself as “the world’s most prominent think tank supporting skepticism about man-made climate change”. In total, Farage has received almost £2 million in earnings and gifts since his election in 2024, including £675,000 from foreign sources. The post Revealed: Reform’s £24 Million from Fossil Fuel Interests appeared first on DeSmog.

[Category: Energy]

— ‘Mad Men Fuelling the Madness’: Meet the Advertising CEOs Boosting Big Oil

 

at 4/30/26 12:05am

For years, advertising executives have largely escaped criticism for glossing the images of major polluters. But as climate protestors turn up at ad agency offices and dozens of U.S. states file lawsuits accusing oil companies of deliberately spreading disinformation, the industry is coming under increasing scrutiny. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has called ad execs working with the fossil fuel industry “Mad Men fuelling the madness.” Now, a new DeSmog report reveals which advertising companies have helped oil giants ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, and Shell spend a collective $1.5 billion on buying U.S. ad space since the Paris Agreement to tackle climate change in 2015. Below we’ve ranked their CEOs — the real life “Mad Men” — according to the estimated amount of oil company ad spend serviced by their company on their watch. (Click on the portraits to read a profile of their firm). Note: Two of these companies — IPG and Omnicom — merged in November but have been considered separately as they were individual entities throughout the analysis period. Mark Read, who stepped down last year amid nosediving profits, was one of the more outspoken ad industry leaders on climate change, despite WPP consistently having the most fossil fuel clients of any advertising company in the world under his leadership. In 2022, Read argued against a burgeoning industry movement to divest from fossil fuel clients, telling an audience of financial analysts: “We are there to support them on [their energy] transition.” Since then, an ad made by WPP agency VML has been banned by the UK advertising regulator for misrepresenting Shell’s business as greener than it actually is; a U.S. Congressional committee report cited a series of ExxonMobil ads made by WPP agency Group SJR as examples of greenwashing; and campaigners lodged a complaint (yet to be ruled upon) with the OECD alleging WPP had broken guidelines on climate and human rights. At the time, a WPP spokesperson said, “Contrary to the claims being made, we adhere to the highest regulatory standards in our work for clients.” The longest serving CEO in this list, John Wren has overseen Omnicom’s lucrative longstanding relationship with ExxonMobil — which has a long history of funding climate science denial. Most notably, a group of Omnicom ad agencies developed ExxonMobil’s long-running algae-fuel ads. Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on advertising a “climate solution” that few experts believed would ever leave the lab. Omnicom’s acquisition of IPG in November means Wren’s combined oil and gas client list is now the longest of any advertising CEO in the world. Although Omnicom has made some promises to reduce its operational emissions, the firm has never made any public move under Wren to restrict the nature of its work for the fossil fuel industry. An accountant by trade, Michael I. Roth’s 15 years at IPG saw the company sign with ExxonMobil in 2011. Since then, a group of IPG media-buying agencies have managed hundreds of millions of dollars worth of ad space for the oil giant to help it reach its desired target audiences. Roth’s reign also saw IPG become the go-to advertising partner for Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil company — although those ad dollars are not included in this analysis. Roth left IPG in 2020, having earned nearly $200 million across 15 years, according to executive intelligence firm Equilar. When inducting him into the American Advertising Federation Hall of Fame, the federation described him as “a champion-level voice for what is good and right.” Arguably the most famous (and richest) man in the ad industry. WPP’s founder Sir Martin Sorrell turned wire basket maker Wire & Plastic Products into the biggest advertising company in the world — and until recently the biggest provider of communications services to the fossil fuel industry. Sorrell was knighted in 2000 for his contributions to the business world. By 2015, his annual salary was over $90 million. He eventually left WPP in a cloud of controversy over allegations of personal and financial misconduct. A Financial Times investigation at the time said anonymous interviews with WPP staff painted “a picture of routine verbal abuse of underlings and a blending of Sir Martin’s corporate and private life”. Sorrell denied all the allegations against him.   “I strongly believe that a brand that [does] not invest into this [clean energy] transition will be out of business in 10 years,” declared Yannick Bolloré in August 2023. The following month, Havas won a multimillion-dollar contract to handle Shell’s global ad placement strategy. Shell had U-turned on its renewable energy targets in favour of maintaining oil and gas production just months earlier. Insiders told DeSmog at the time that employees were taken aback, having watched Bolloré cultivate a personal brand of caring about the climate (though the deal was less surprising if you knew the Bolloré family’s business empire is partly built on transporting oil). Facing Extinction Rebellion die-ins at the Havas offices and the loss of a climate-focused client, the youngest “Mad Man” on this list has dug in, repeating in various interviews that “the most effective change comes from within.” In the end, four Havas agencies ended up losing their B-Corp certifications for ethical businesses over the Shell deal, and Havas had to warn investors the reputational damage could impact its financial performance. Dentsu’s CEOs have tended not to make personal statements in the media on advertising’s relationship with the fossil fuel industry. Nevertheless, under Hiroshi Igarashi’s leadership, Dentsu took a significant step when it decided to quietly publish its “advertised emissions” in an investor risk report — representing the amount of carbon pollution associated with the uplift in sales resulting from its advertising campaigns, such as an airline ad leading to greater demand for flights. Dentsu found these were 32 times higher than the emissions from its core operations, such as powering its offices. Igarashi has shown no sign of moving Dentsu on from its lucrative contracts with Chevron and Shell — two of 18 fossil fuel clients Dentsu currently serves, according to research by industry campaign group Clean Creatives. Toshihiro Yamamoto started his career with Dentsu back in 1981. A full 26 years later, the Dentsu veteran replaced the outgoing Tadashi Ishii as CEO, tasked with steadying the ship after Ishii left in a cloud of controversy. Yamamoto’s five years in charge saw the Japanese ad giant add Shell to its client roster, when its business-to-business ad agency Merkle gained control of a share of the hundreds of millions the oil giant spends on advertising each year. By the time Yamamoto departed in 2021, Dentsu had upped its fossil fuel contracts from five when he started his tenure to at least 11, according to DeSmog research. In September 2022, Philippe Krakowsky announced an “industry first” climate policy that would restrict its work with fossil fuel companies. The new policy didn’t apply to existing clients. In an internal memo at the time, Krakowsky — like Read and Bolloré — told staff, “it is important to be in the room” with clients such as ExxonMobil to “positively impact their business transformation journeys.” Since Krakowsky sent this email, ExxonMobil has said it plans to increase production by more than a million barrels a day by 2030 and build four new gas projects. In August, a DeSmog investigation published with the Financial Times revealed allegations from staff that IPG was in breach of Krakowsky’s climate policy, after leaked documents showed it was helping Saudi Aramco — the world’s biggest oil company — target government policymakers. IPG and Krakowsky did not respond to the allegations. Krakowsky became the Chief Operating Officer at Omnicom in November after IPG was bought by its New York rival, a deal which earned Krakowsky a $48.6 million payout. Under Tadashi Ishii, Dentsu led Chevron’s advertising strategy in the U.S., making ads that painted the oil giant as a steward of the environment and promoted speculative climate solutions like carbon capture. One ad from 2012 said “protecting people and the environment is a core value” at Chevron. In 2013, Ishii oversaw the $3.2 billion purchase of UK ad agency Aegis.  The Aegis acquisition saw Dentsu inherit major fossil fuel contracts not included in the analysis, such as French oil giant TotalEnergies. Note: Big Oil ad spend figures for each CEO only cover the years they were in charge from the 2015 Paris Agreement onwards, even if they were in the job prior to this. Art by Sabrina Bedford. Design by Sari Williams. The post Mad Men Fuelling the Madness: Meet the Advertising CEOs Boosting Big Oil appeared first on DeSmog.

[Category: Energy]

— Revealed: British Ad Giant’s Billion-Dollar Greenwash of U.S. Oil Industry

 

at 4/30/26 12:03am

British advertising conglomerate WPP has helped oil companies ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and BP spend an estimated $1 billion on ads in the United States since the 2015 Paris Agreement to tackle climate change, a new report shows.  The figure is nearly twice the respective amounts linked to U.S. rivals Omnicom and Interpublic Group (IPG), which merged in November. London-based WPP was the leading advertising group serving America’s oil industry over the past decade, according to the analysis by DeSmog.  During this period, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and BP had employed “deceptive and misleading” communications strategies designed to thwart policies to tackle the climate crisis by curbing the use of fossil fuels, a congressional investigation concluded in April 2024. WPP’s services — from developing ideas for ads and designing logos, to securing ad space and analysing target audiences — were “crucial” to maintaining the oil industry’s public image, current and former WPP employees said. WPP is estimated to have earned millions of dollars a year from this work. “The UK prides itself on climate leadership, and yet WPP, the supposed jewel of the British advertising industry, is facilitating dangerously misleading advertising in the U.S.,” said Victoria Harvey, holder of a PhD in the ad industrys response to the climate crisis from the University of East Anglia, who reviewed DeSmog’s methodology. “By creatively articulating the deception from big oil and gas, WPP has set the climate agenda back and continues to do so,” Harvey said. ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and BP spent an estimated combined total of $1.5 billion on buying U.S. ad space such as TV slots and social media feeds since the Paris Agreement, according to the analysis. That’s roughly equivalent to running ads on every billboard in New York’s advertising hotspot Times Square every day for the last decade. WPP’s global network of subsidiary advertising agencies made an estimated two-thirds’ worth of those ads, the analysis found. WPP, which is one of Britain’s biggest companies by revenue and also works with clients such as Coca-Cola and Unilever, was the only major ad company to partner with all four oil giants on advertising projects during this time. This work may have breached a policy WPP adopted in 2022 not to accept projects that may “frustrate” the goals of the Paris Agreement, the current and former employees said, since the oil majors were committed to increasing oil and gas production and promoting speculative climate solutions. A version of this article has been published by the Guardian. WPP agencies Ogilvy and Wavemaker have both worked on U.S. campaigns for BP and Chevron respectively which received misleading advertising complaints, for taglines such as “We see possibilities in planes that fly on garbage.” Neither complaint was taken forward, although BP voluntarily withdrew its ads. A 2022 U.S. Congressional committee report cited several ExxonMobil ads made by WPP’s Group SJR as examples of greenwashing, including one that compared fossil gas paired with renewable energy to “a peanut butter and jelly sandwich”. An ExxonMobil ad featuring peanut butter and jelly made by WPP agency Group SJR, shown on Twitter (now X). (Credit: University of Oxford Climate Litigation Lab) Staff who raised concerns about this work have been told by seniors that they are helping clients communicate about their shift to cleaner business models, the WPP employees said. But many who have worked on these projects fear they serve primarily to deflect criticism from polluters. WPP clients BP and Shell have both weakened their own climate targets in the past three years. At the same time, their advertising output has pivoted to promoting the necessity of fossil fuels, a report published in March by industry campaign group Clean Creatives found. BP’s 2023 campaign “And, not or” suggested that renewables should exist alongside oil and gas rather than replace them. The campaign included ads saying BP was reducing the climate impact of oil by running wells on electricity in Texas’ Permian Basin. In a Shell YouTube ad run in October, a drone inspector identified as Tori describes how she is “helping provide American energy security” by carrying out safety checks on a drilling platform. “We heard that a lot internally, that we were influencing them in the right direction,” said a former employee who worked on projects for BP at WPP branding agency Landor. “In reality, whatever BP decides to do, we would just deliver it.” WPP and the other ad agencies mentioned did not respond to requests for comment. Shell declined to comment. BP, ExxonMobil and Chevron did not respond to a request for comment. Piece of the Pie Advertising companies do not publish details about how much their clients spend on ad space, and increasingly avoid publicising their fossil fuel contracts. To generate its estimates, DeSmog mapped the dozens of ad agencies that have worked for the four oil companies, using public sources such as staff social media profiles and industry award listings, confidential information shared by employees, and previous research by DeSmog and Clean Creatives. These contracts were then cross-referenced with ad spend estimates obtained from market research platform MediaRadar by the University of Oxford’s Climate Litigation Lab. Most of the oil majors’ U.S. ad spend was channelled via subsidiaries of the handful of advertising holding companies that dominate the industry globally. After WPP, Omnicom and IPG, Tokyo-based holding company Dentsu ranked fourth in terms of its exposure to this ad spend ($255 million) and Paris-based rival Havas ranked fifth ($230 million). (Credit: Sari Williams/DeSmog) The analysis did not seek to capture the millions of dollars the fossil fuel industry spends every year advertising in countries outside the U.S., as well as on lobbying, branding, public relations, and other marketing activities. Advertising industry insiders say momentum around climate initiatives has slowed over the past few years as competition from big technology companies and artificial intelligence (AI) has squeezed margins. New WPP CEO Cindy Rose is due to present her strategy to reverse declining profits at the company’s annual general meeting on May 8. A preview in February did not mention sustainability. Under previous CEO Mark Read, WPP committed to reduce carbon emissions and prevent greenwashing, including via the policy adopted in 2022 “not to take on any client workdesigned to frustrate the objectives of the Paris Agreement.” But employees claim these moves have changed little.  There are concerns that WPP’s ongoing work with Shell, BP, and Chevron may breach the policy because many of these clients’ ads have distracted from or justified fossil fuel expansion, according to six current and former employees, who spoke to DeSmog anonymously for fear of professional repercussions. New fossil fuel projects planned by the companies are incompatible with the Paris goal to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees and prevent catastrophic climate change, scientific assessments have found. “I dont think theres anything that WPP could possibly be saying for BP or Shell that would adhere to the policy,” said a former director at two WPP agencies in New York. In total, WPP has held at least 82 contracts with the fossil fuel industry around the world since the start of 2025, according to industry campaign group Clean Creatives. More than a quarter of those contracts relate to work wholly or partially targeted at U.S. audiences. Experts say that the impact of WPP’s moves to lower carbon emissions by reducing employee travel and powering buildings with green energy is outweighed by its work for polluters. “By shaping public narratives, increasing consumption, and normalising fossil fuel use, agencies like WPP can significantly influence emissions far beyond their operational footprint,” said Alexis McGivern, a researcher on corporate climate policy at Oxford Net Zero, a research group at the University of Oxford. WPP ad agencies Ogilvy and VML have led BP and Shell’s respective advertising strategies since at least 2000, DeSmog found. Ogilvy devised BP’s “Beyond Petroleum” campaign in 2000. It also popularised the concept of the “carbon footprint” through a series of BP ads in 2004 which sought to emphasise individual responsibility for reducing emissions.  Screenshot from a Shell YouTube ad featuring a drone inspector identified as Tori, 19 October, 2025. (Credit: University of Oxford Climate Litigation Lab) Today, WPP agencies such as Ogilvy are still “deeply embedded” in BP’s advertising process and have some staff dedicated solely to working on BP projects, according to the former Landor employee. In 2020, BP briefed seven WPP agencies — including Ogilvy, Landor, and VML — to create a new brand strategy to tackle the company’s image as “the bad guys,” according to a WPP document obtained by investigative outlet Drilled. Subsequent U.S. ad campaigns launched by BP repeatedly promoted the company’s “#netzero” goals and said it supported regulation to limit methane emissions, despite BP having successfully lobbied the U.S. government to roll back such rules, an investigation by Unearthed found. “WPP has had oil clients for decades, whether they were promising to go green or not,” said one former partner at a WPP agency, who has worked on Shell campaigns. “That tells you everything you need to know about whether we are actually trying to change things.” Risks Rising for Protecting Polluters Pressure is building on advertising companies to acknowledge their role in delaying climate action by protecting the reputations of polluters. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has urged ad agencies to drop fossil fuel clients, calling ad executives “Mad Men fuelling the madness.” The OECD, an intergovernmental economic organisation, is considering a complaint against WPP filed by climate and human rights campaigners in February last year. At the time, a WPP spokesperson said, “Contrary to the claims being made, we adhere to the highest regulatory standards in our work for clients.” Protesters have since targeted WPP’s Thames-front offices in London with banners reading “climate criminals”. The “increased reputational risk associated with working on client briefs perceived to be environmentally detrimental” could affect revenue, WPP said in its 2025 sustainability report. Climate activists from Extinction Rebellion protest outside WPPs offices in London, June 25, 2025. (Credit: Extinction Rebellion) Legal risks are rising, too. In a first-of-its-kind ruling in October, a Paris court found French oil giant TotalEnergies misled consumers by saying it had put “climate at the heart of its strategy” during a 2021 rebrand, despite continuing to heavily invest in new oil and gas projects. WPP agency Wavemaker advised TotalEnergies on where to buy ad space for the rebrand campaign but was not named in the case. In January, Michigan state filed the latest of dozens of U.S. lawsuits being brought by local and federal governments against ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, and other oil companies accusing the companies of climate deception and disinformation. So far, a U.S. court is yet to find against an oil company in such a case. The companies deny any wrongdoing, arguing that the courts are the wrong venue to determine climate policy. “In the context of increasing litigation to recover substantial damages for the escalating costs of climate change on the basis of oil majors’ deceptive activities, doing large amounts of the same companies’ advertising work does not seem legally advisable,” said Johnny White, a lawyer at environmental law firm Client Earth, which advised on the TotalEnergies case. Additional reporting by Kathryn Clare and Ellen Ormesher The post Revealed: British Ad Giant’s Billion-Dollar Greenwash of U.S. Oil Industry appeared first on DeSmog.

[Category: Energy]

— Inside the Plot to Cover Europe with Gas-Powered AI Data Centres

 

at 4/29/26 11:12am

As the UK and EU debate how to source the vast quantities of electricity they’ll need to power their grand visions of home-grown artificial intelligence (AI), the gas turbine sector is confident that governments will soon follow the lead of the United States – by clearing the way for Big Tech to embrace natural gas. “Sooner or later there will be a wake-up call for the EU”, said Francesco Ciccola of American gas turbine manufacturer Mitsubishi Power Aero. DeSmog spoke to Ciccola last month at Datacloud Energy Europe, a tech energy conference dedicated to “defining Europe’s AI power strategy, held in Brussels, Belgium.  San Francisco-based Global Energy Monitor, a research and advocacy group that tracks global fossil fuel developments tied to data centres, says that Mitsubishi Power Aero is a major provider of turbines for the AI boom in the U.S. “This new administration in the U.S., they give you a workshop of reality”, said Ciccola, a Europe-based sales director for the manufacturer, which sponsored the conference. “It’s typical, this buffer in time between U.S. and Europe, in everything.” After the event, Ciccola told DeSmog that “Mitsubishi Power’s mission is to help create a future that works for people and the planet by advancing innovative power solutions that support decarbonization while delivering reliable energy.” He added: “Any remarks made at Datacloud Energy Europe were intended to describe observed market conditions and customer demand, not to comment on or advocate for any political or regulatory approach. “Mitsubishi Power Aero operates in full compliance with all applicable permitting, planning, and regulatory requirements in every jurisdiction where we do business. References to differences between markets were descriptive of timing and demand dynamics only.” Across the U.S., President Donald Trump has championed fossil fuel-powered AI, while tech giants are planning, constructing, and operating their own gargantuan, energy-voracious new AI data center complexes with off-grid gas power plants. Tech companies including Meta, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Nvidia, and xAI, are currently planning or building out fleets of gas turbines that will generate at least 23 gigawatts (GW) of electricity, according to an analysis by Cleanview – roughly twice as much as New York City uses. This American AI construction blitz has come at an enormous cost to the climate, skyrocketing the tech industry’s carbon emissions and pushing one tech giant after another to abandon its climate pledges. Is it now Europe’s turn? Datacloud Energy Europe 2026 sponsors listed at the event. Credit: Datacloud / LinkedIn “I just think the American market is ahead of us [and] the same thing is going to happen here, said a turbine sales representative from UK-based manufacturer Langley Holdings, which also sponsored the March 25-26 Datacloud conference and primarily sells to the UK. “It just will take a bit longer and it will be a bit harder because more people will be saying, ‘hang on a minute, we don’t want to be burning greenhouse gasses.’” A sales representative from MWM, the European arm of U.S.-based gas generator manufacturer Caterpillar, who asked not to be identified, told DeSmog that the company – another summit sponsor – is “definitely” confident that gas-powered AI will be coming to the UK. The representative said MWM is working on “numerous” projects in Europe and the UK, each capable of generating up to 100 megawatts (MW). The projects are “getting more concrete” compared to last year, they said, with “actual projects” materialising in Germany and the UK. MWM and Langley Holdings were approached for comment. The Datacloud summit came at a pivotal moment. The EU and UK are due to unveil new regulations that will dictate to what extent new AI data centres can construct off-grid gas plants to power their operations – and as gas turbine manufacturers report global order backlogs running to 2030. Datacloud’s organisers promised that the summit – which involved tech sector and energy leaders, gas turbine industry representatives, and European politicians – would “influence billions in investment” and “reshape regulatory pathways.” The result was a fierce two-day debate where high-level decision makers in the world of AI and energy fought over whether data centres in Europe will be rolled out with fossil fuels. “We have to face the reality – there is a real risk of gasification for data centres,” said MEP Nicolás González Casares, a member of the European Parliament Committee on Industry, Research, and Energy. “We cannot gassify this sector. Data centres must become an enabler of the green transition.” “No planet, no data centre,” said Neal Kalita, senior director of global power and energy at NTT Global Data Centres, the third largest data centre operator in the world. “Being a kind of a continent that develops a digital infrastructure that doesn’t destroy the planet is going to be not just a competitive edge – it’s an imperative.” Powering Europe’s AI boom with gas, if governments allow it, could decimate net zero goals. A recent analysis by Carbon Brief found that if the UK relies heavily on gas to power data centres, the AI sector would emit 30 metric tonnes of carbon a year by 2035 – as much as the entire country of Denmark. Any increase in emissions will take the UK further away from its goal to cut emissions by 81 percent from 1990 levels by 2035. The EU’s AI ambitions would demand up to 168 terawatt-hours (TWh) of power by 2030, according to projections by the Kiel Institute – equivalent to what Poland consumes every year. If powered by non-renewables, the report warns, data centres will be putting the EU’s climate goals “at risk.” Will the gas evangelists win out? Europe is on the cusp of making that decision. European AI Dash? Both the UK and the EU have announced plans to triple their AI capacity – in the UK by 2030 and the EU by 2035. The pledges have set off a rush of data centre construction across Europe. However, years-long wait times to connect new AI data centre projects to electricity grids have pushed many developers to try to skip the queue by requesting direct hookups to gas. In the last year, companies including Nvidia, Microsoft, and Amazon have pressured the UK government to approve fleets of private gas turbines and generators for their projects in Britain. In that spirit, off-grid gas-powered data centre projects have begun to crop up across Europe in recent months. Ireland, which has long embraced data centre development, is emerging as the canary in the coal mine. In 2024, data centres consumed 6,969 gigawatt-hours (GWh), 22 percent of the country’s total electricity consumption. Off-grid gas power is now rolling in to alleviate this energy crunch. Subscribe to our newsletter Stay up to date with DeSmog news and alerts Name -- Email Address What content do you want to subscribe to? (check all that apply) All International UK Sign Up (function($){ $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-us').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619D07B21962C5AFE16D3A2145673C82A3CEE9D9F1ADDABE965ACB3CE39939D42AC9012C6272FD52BFCA0790F0FB77C6442'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-vdrirr-vdrirr'); }); $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-uk').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619BD43AA6813AF1B0FFE26D8282EC254E3ED0237BA72BEFBE922037EE4F1B325C6DA4918F8E044E022C7D333A43FD72429'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-ijkidr-ijkidr'); }); })(jQuery); Last month, British off-grid power specialist company AVK, alongside data centre operator Pure Data Centres, announced the completion of the first data centre in Dublin powered by dedicated gas-fired turbines capable of producing 90 MW, enough energy to power 100,000 homes for a year. While AVK says the turbines could theoretically be run on renewable hydro-treated vegetable oil, currently they are running on natural gas as the “primary fuel”. Neither company has given a timeline for the turbines to transition off gas. Will governments green-light European gas-fired AI projects? Campaigners are concerned about the gas turbine industry’s confidence at this prospect. “The gas industry evidently sees [European] data centres as a growing market, which is a worrying sign of apparent government apathy towards the climate implications,” said Oliver Hayes, head of big tech at environmental campaign group Global Action Plan. “Using AI as an excuse to breathe new life into destructive oil and gas projects is neither welcome nor wise.” Gas Powered, Government Approved? There are indications that Britain may sign on to gas-powered AI, even if it spells calamity for its climate goals. Future Energy Network, which represents UK pipeline operators, told The Times that seven data centre projects have already been waived through to hook up to the gas grid. In March, the Labour government gave its approval for a proposed 300 MW gas-powered data centre campus in Wapseys Wood, Buckinghamshire to apply for planning permission as nationally significant infrastructure – which allows projects to bypass the usual local planning requirements. There are indications that the European public doesn’t support this kind of development. According to an October survey by the campaign group Beyond Fossil Fuels, two-thirds of people in the European Union don’t want data centres powered by fossil fuels. Europeans “do not want to shoulder the costs” of powering data centres, said Jill McArdle, a campaigner at Beyond Fossil Fuels. She added that the opposition of Americans to sharply rising energy prices “should serve as a warning for Europe.” “The U.S.-Iran war is exposing European countries’ over-reliance on unstable and expensive foreign imports of fossil fuels”, said McArdle. “Yet Big Tech and the gas [energy equipment] industry are plotting to keep us hooked and grow their profits.”  It may soon become clearer whether EU or UK lawmakers agree. The EU is set to release two new AI regulations in the coming few months: a new law that is expected to include provisions about renewable energy requirements for data centres, and a data centre sustainability rating scheme. In the UK earlier this year, the Labour government launched an inquiry into the future climate impacts of data centres. Energy and Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband has already said these impacts are “inherently uncertain.” In response to a request for comment, Labour said that its recently-formed AI Energy Council is “exploring opportunities to attract investment and support the development of clean power for data centres”, and that the country’s designation of five “AI Growth Zones” is “driving these partnerships forward.” This same council pressured the government last year to support off-grid gas for data centres in Britain. So far, many data centre operators in Europe have avoided reporting their energy usage. A new investigation by Investigate Europe, an independent journalism group, has revealed that U.S. tech companies successfully lobbied the EU two years ago to keep information on the operations of individual data centres secret, including environmental data like energy use and carbon emissions. Only 36 percent of Europe’s data centres submitted any data to a 2025 European Commission report on their energy usage. In the Netherlands, Microsoft and Google have come under fire for failing to report the energy usage of their Dutch data centers to the government. McArdle said that the UK and EU governments need to intervene to ensure the sector is held to account. “Only regulation and fossil fuel phaseout will protect Europeans from rising energy costs,” she said. “Otherwise, we will pay the price for the reckless profit-making schemes of Big Tech and the gas industry.”  The post Inside the Plot to Cover Europe with Gas-Powered AI Data Centres appeared first on DeSmog.

[Category: Energy]

— Danielle Smith Is Betraying Rural Alberta To Build Gas-Powered Data Centres

 

at 4/28/26 11:35am

Is Premier Danielle Smith betraying her base? Her United Conservative Party (UCP) swept almost every riding outside of Calgary and Edmonton in the last election but the love does not seem to be mutual. Smith is bulldozing the interests of small town property owners as she plows forward with aggressive plans to attract $100 billion in private sector investment for gas-fired AI data centres despite the concerns of nearby residents. There are over 40 data centres proposed for construction in Alberta. Often opposed by local residents, these enormous installations create few jobs and require vast amounts of electricity and water two commodities in limited supply in the province. Important issues like carbon emissions, water availability, and noise pollution would normally be considered through a provincial environmental assessment process. However, Smith’s government has been excluding large data centre proposals from such routine oversight, including the “Wonder Valley” project shilled by celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary. Subscribe to our newsletter Stay up to date with DeSmog news and alerts Name -- Email Address What content do you want to subscribe to? (check all that apply) All International UK Sign Up (function($){ $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-us').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619D07B21962C5AFE16D3A2145673C82A3CEE9D9F1ADDABE965ACB3CE39939D42AC9012C6272FD52BFCA0790F0FB77C6442'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-vdrirr-vdrirr'); }); $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-uk').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619BD43AA6813AF1B0FFE26D8282EC254E3ED0237BA72BEFBE922037EE4F1B325C6DA4918F8E044E022C7D333A43FD72429'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-ijkidr-ijkidr'); }); })(jQuery); The citizens of Olds, Alberta, were alarmed to learn that what could be the largest data centre in the country accompanied by the second largest power generation facility in the province was slated to start construction inside their town boundaries within two months, and without an environmental assessment. The acting approvals manager of the Alberta Ministry of Environment and Protected Areas assured the proponent Synapse Real Estate Corp., “I have decided that further assessment of the activity is not required. Therefore, a screening report will not be prepared and an environmental impact assessment report is not required.” Residents of Olds were not so assured, learning of the plan in late January just days before an open house meeting on February 4. Synapse proposed breaking ground in March. Many homes are within less than one kilometre of the proposed two million square foot facility that would run 24 hours a day, requiring natural gas turbines generating 1.4 GW of power and 600 backup diesel generators. As one anti-data centre post on Facebook noted, good neighbours avoid “humming at 90 decibels in your backyard at 3:00 AM”.  The previously quiet town of 10,000 residents may soon sport 17 metre-high flare stacks from ten massive gas turbines producing as much power as is consumed by the entire city of Edmonton. While the original proposal from Synapse was rejected by the Alberta Utility Commission (AUC) for numerous deficiencies in public consultation, revised documents were resubmitted within a month. Does Danielle Smith’s government plan to intervene on behalf of concerned citizens? Nope. Alberta’s Minister of Technology and Innovation Nate Glubish washed his hands of responsibility, relating to CBC News that “he can’t endorse, approve or deny a project as minister — that’s the regulator’s job.” Glubish instead spun the botched initial application to AUC as a positive development. “All data centre projects with power generation must get Alberta Utilities Commission regulatory approval to proceed. Synapse’s first application was inadequate and thus did not proceed. This is evidence of the process working, Glubish told CBC in a written statement. The stampede of server farm proposals encouraged by the UCP would collectively consume almost the entire capacity of Alberta electrical grid, so Smith’s government is encouraging data centre companies to “bring their own energy”. This means burning enormous amounts of natural gas, a strategy that dovetails with her plans to double Alberta’s oil and gas production.  When asked about the climate impacts of scaling up $100 billion in gas-fired AI data centres, Glubish enthused, “this is good news for Alberta because it’s going to create significantly increased drilling, exploration, and production activity in rural Alberta, it’s going to allow for increased distribution investment to get the gas to the different markets that need it, and it’s going to generate significant incremental natural gas royalty revenues for the benefit of all Albertans.”  The baked-in bias of Smith’s alleged “free-market” government toward fossil fuels stands in stark contrast to her hands-on hostility towards the renewable energy sector. In 2023, Smith announced a surprise seven-month moratorium on wind and solar approvals in 2023, throwing $33 billion in renewable investments into limbo. Onerous land use restrictions and reclamation requirements further decimated the sector, resulting in a 93 percent decline in wind and solar installations in two years.  Proponents pitching turbine-fired data centres instead enjoy what the gas-loving Smith government fawningly calls their “concierge program”. Companies proposing an AI server farm within municipal boundaries are publicly promised that allegedly impartial regulators will “streamline pathways to partnerships, leveraging existing infrastructure and expertise to deliver unparalleled speed to market.”   This cozy accommodation of companies over the interests of rural Albertans does not bode well for those unexpectedly living next to a massive new data centre. Danielle Smith has built a political career as a supposed champion of rural Albertans. Many of these non-urban voters are now learning the hard way that her true allegiance has always been the oil and gas industry.    The post Danielle Smith Is Betraying Rural Alberta To Build Gas-Powered Data Centres appeared first on DeSmog.

[Category: Energy]

— Reform Donor Expands Fossil Fuel Portfolio to £300 Million

 

at 4/28/26 9:49am

A major right-wing political funder has dramatically increased his fossil fuel investments this year, DeSmog can reveal. Jeremy Hosking, who owns the hedge fund Hosking Partners, donated £1.7 million to Reform UK between 2019 and 2024. The party, led by Nigel Farage, campaigns to scrap the UK’s flagship 2050 net zero emissions target, remove environmental protections, and turbocharge new fossil fuel extraction. Hosking also owns The Critic magazine, which frequently attacks climate policies and supports new North Sea oil and gas exploration. Its current edition carries a cover story titled “The Green Myth: Fossil Fuels are Britain’s Real Energy Source”. DeSmog’s analysis of the latest U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings from Hosking Partners reveals that it held $440.8 million (around £326.5 million) worth of stock in oil, gas, and coal companies as of the end of March 2026. The filing, which covers the first quarter of the year, shows an increase of more than $154 million (£114 million) since the previous entry – up by 53.8 percent. “This exposé highlights the urgent need for an honest debate about the fossil fuel industry’s toxic influence over our media,” said Richard Wilson of the campaign group Stop Funding Heat. “Thanks to DeSmog, we already knew that GB News is co-owned by a fossil-fuelled billionaire, and that the Daily Mail’s parent company makes millions running oil and gas conferences. Now we learn that yet another outlet which regularly attacks climate action is similarly compromised.” He added: “Democracy depends on having a media that tells the truth without fear or favour, not one beholden to special interests.” Subscribe to our newsletter Stay up to date with DeSmog news and alerts Name -- Email Address What content do you want to subscribe to? (check all that apply) All International UK Sign Up (function($){ $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-us').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619D07B21962C5AFE16D3A2145673C82A3CEE9D9F1ADDABE965ACB3CE39939D42AC9012C6272FD52BFCA0790F0FB77C6442'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-vdrirr-vdrirr'); }); $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-uk').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619BD43AA6813AF1B0FFE26D8282EC254E3ED0237BA72BEFBE922037EE4F1B325C6DA4918F8E044E022C7D333A43FD72429'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-ijkidr-ijkidr'); }); })(jQuery); The U.S.-Israeli war in Iran – which began in late February – has disrupted global supply chains for consumer goods, and major commodities including fossil fuels. It has also delivered windfall profits to the world’s biggest oil and gas companies, with the top 100 making $23 billion (almost £17 billion) in March alone. The oil major BP today announced £2.4 billion in profits for the first quarter of this year – up 130 percent from the same period last year. Although it’s unknown if Hosking Partners increased its fossil fuel investments in response to the Iran war, the firm has stood to benefit from its expanded oil and gas holdings. The hedge fund has $369.7 million (around £273.7 million) invested in oil and gas. This includes $34.7 million (£25.6 million) in ConocoPhillips, $8.4 million (£6.2 million) in ExxonMobil, and $7.9 million (£5.8 million) in Chevron. Shares in ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil soared by 41 percent in the first quarter of this year, while Chevron’s share price rose by 35.7 percent. Hosking’s firm also has $71 million (around £52.6 million) invested in coal companies: $61 million (£45 million) in Warrior Met Coal, $7 million (£5 million) in Core Natural Resources, and $2.7 million (£1.9 million) in Peabody Energy. Hosking did not respond to our request for comment but 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.” Farage Funding Hosking has used his wealth to support right-wing political projects – including parties that campaign for new fossil fuel extraction and against clean energy development. He donated more than £1.7 million to Reform over a four-year period, including £125,000 before the 2024 general election. Reform has led the charge against the UK’s net zero targets, calling for new fossil fuel extraction, including North Sea exploration and the reopening of coal power plants. It also campaigns for state renewable energy investment to be scrapped, and has used the Iran war to double-down on its pro-oil policies, pledging to extract “every last drop” of oil and gas out of the North Sea. The party – leading in UK-wide polls and expected to gain ground in this year’s May elections across Britain – has also promoted climate science denial. Farage has claimed it’s “absolutely nuts” for CO2 to be considered a pollutant, despite admitting: “I can’t tell you whether CO2 is leading to warming or not”. In reality, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said it is “unequivocal” that human influence has caused “unprecedented” global warming. And while Reform has claimed that the UK’s climate policies are “economic suicide”, a report by the New Economics Foundation concluded that the party’s anti-renewables agenda could cost 60,000 jobs and wipe £92 billion off the economy. In March, the independent Climate Change Committee said the entire cost of cutting emissions to net zero by 2050 would be less than a single fossil fuel price shock – two of which have been experienced by the UK in the past five years. Hosking has also donated £4.3 million since 2019 to the Reclaim Party, led by radical right-wing commentator and former actor Laurence Fox. The party, which has a minimal electoral presence, claims “there is no climate emergency”, wants to ditch net zero, and frack for shale gas. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.Credit: Associated Press / Alamy Stock Photo / Alastair Grant Pro-Oil Coverage Hosking’s magazine The Critic routinely dismisses the need to switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Its current cover story is written by contributing editor Chris Bayliss, who argues that renewable energy is unreliable and expensive. In a follow-up piece online, he blames “elite” support for net zero on “climate hysteria”. Bayliss is a former civil servant who works in the energy sector in Iraq. He’s the Iraq Country Lead for IM Power, which runs liquefied natural gas (LNG), oil and coal power plants, offers “oil and gas refining, storage and pipeline solutions”, and works to “maximise value from hydrocarbon resources”. IM Power also provides renewable energy from solar power, an energy source Bayliss criticises in his articles. In The Critic, Bayliss cites debunked policy papers authored by individuals and groups with ties to the fossil fuel industry. His position is endorsed by the magazine. The current edition includes an editorial titled “On a Wind and a Prayer” arguing that “beggaring ourselves will not cool the rest of the planet’s weather”. The Critic has also run articles by senior figures at the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), the UK’s foremost climate science denial group, which has claimed that carbon dioxide emissions are “a benefit to the planet”. In February, The Critic ran a piece titled “We Can’t Just Stop Oil: Oil and Gas are inevitable elements of our future” by Kathryn Porter, an oil and gas industry consultant who has authored reports for the GWPF. In November, the magazine published an article by GWPF head of policy Harry Wilkinson calling for the United Nations COP climate negotiations to “be realistic” and drop its push for “centrally planned decarbonisation”. Wilkinson added that “COP delegates have long demonised fossil fuels as a problem to be expunged, instead of an engine of economic development”. Wilkinson has long dismissed the threat from climate change, writing in 2018: “A temperature rise of more than two degrees is not inherently dangerous.” The magazine has also run anti-net zero articles by Craig Mackinlay, a Tory peer and the current director of the GWPF, and similar articles by Steve Baker, a former GWPF director and Tory MP who spoke at a U.S. fundraiser for the group in February. The Critic and Bayliss were contacted for comment. The post Reform Donor Expands Fossil Fuel Portfolio to £300 Million appeared first on DeSmog.

[Category: Energy]

— Who Funds Nigel Farage? Mapping His Millions

 

at 4/18/26 10:58am

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is the highest-paid Member of Parliament. In less than two years as the MP for Clacton, Farage has racked up £2 million in personal income and gifts, on top of his £94,000 a year parliamentary salary. As DeSmog has revealed, a substantial amount of Farage’s income has come from overseas interests – including foreign governments, companies, and donors. Our map and tracker, launched in April 2026, provides real-time data on Farage’s funds. The interactive map allows you to explore the money trail, while the table below provides a full breakdown of the payments and perks received by Reform’s leader. All the data is based on Farage’s official register of interests, dating back to July 2024. Last update: 17 April, 2026 For more information, or to conduct an interview about our findings, contact DeSmog’s UK deputy editor Sam Bright on sam[at]desmog.com  INCOME SOURCEAMOUNTTYPEGB News£664,064IncomeDirect Bullion£506,700IncomeCameo£222,886IncomeChristopher Harborne£85,453Gifts (flights / accommodation)News Corp£56,514IncomeBassim Haidar£54,921Gift (flights)Sasan Ghandehari£51,604Gift (trip to Davos)The Telegraph£48,000IncomeNomad Capitalist£40,075IncomeGeorge Cottrell£39,808Gifts (flights / accommodation)Blockworks£30,000IncomeClub for Growth£27,857IncomeImperial Independent Media£25,972IncomeX Corp£22,713IncomeGoogle£21,590IncomeZebu Live£20,000IncomeAZ Liberty Network£13,520IncomeHillsdale College£11,349IncomeAbu Dhabi government£10,000Gift (F1 ticket / accommodation)JCB£8,413Gift (helicopter journey)CPAC / GB News£8,204Gift (flights / accommodation)BTC Inc.£7,410IncomeHelping a Hero£5,000Gift (gala dinner ticket)New York Young Republicans£4,362Gift (flights / accommodation)Meta£2,795IncomeDerek Chisora£2,000Gift (boxing tickets)TRIC Awards£445Gift (tickets to event)Press Gazette£445Gift (tickets to event)TOTAL: £1,992,130 The post Who Funds Nigel Farage? Mapping His Millions appeared first on DeSmog.

[Category: Energy]

— Nigel Farage Has Personally Accepted £675,000 from Foreign Sources

 

at 4/18/26 10:40am

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has accepted more than half a million pounds from foreign companies, governments, and donors while serving as an MP, DeSmog can reveal. Since July 2024, when he was elected as the Member of Parliament for Clacton, Farage has received almost £2 million in income and gifts, with £675,000 coming from foreign sources. Of Farage’s 28 benefactors, 20 are based abroad (71 percent). This comes amid growing scrutiny of the foreign influences on British democracy following attempts by the Labour government to clamp down on overseas donations to UK political parties. Farage’s largest foreign income stream has been Cameo – the U.S. platform where celebrities record videos for money – earning £222,000 on the site since being elected to Parliament. Farage has now deleted his profile on the platform after a Guardian investigation found he had sold Cameo videos repeating extremist slogans and endorsing a neo-Nazi event. This income has been received on top of Farage’s £94,000 a year public salary. Labour’s chair Anna Turley said: “Nigel Farage rarely turns up to do his actual job. Yet he finds time to jet off around the world on his donor’s private plane and trouser half a million quid while families struggle. Reform are not on your side. They’re just in it for themselves.” A version of this article was published by The Mirror. The Reform leader has also been paid for a range of foreign speaking events, including £40,000 to address Nomad Capitalist Live in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in September 2024. Nomad Capitalist, which is based in Hong Kong, advises the super rich on how to cut their tax bills. Farage has also received gifts from foreign governments. As revealed by DeSmog, the Abu Dhabi government provided tickets and hospitality worth £10,000 for Farage to attend the local Formula One Grand Prix in December. “At a time when trust in politics is at rock bottom, the public deserves absolute confidence that their MPs are working solely in service of their constituents and their country, not dancing to the tune of foreign interests,” said Kamila Kingstone, senior campaign lead at Spotlight on Corruption. “Cases like this make it painfully clear that transparency alone is not enough and that the current system leaves far too much room for foreign influence. The government urgently needs to impose tougher limits on MPs’ second jobs and on the gifts and payments they are allowed to accept, so that public service cannot be overshadowed by private gain.” Subscribe to our newsletter Stay up to date with DeSmog news and alerts Name -- Email Address What content do you want to subscribe to? (check all that apply) All International UK Sign Up (function($){ $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-us').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619D07B21962C5AFE16D3A2145673C82A3CEE9D9F1ADDABE965ACB3CE39939D42AC9012C6272FD52BFCA0790F0FB77C6442'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-vdrirr-vdrirr'); }); $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-uk').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619BD43AA6813AF1B0FFE26D8282EC254E3ED0237BA72BEFBE922037EE4F1B325C6DA4918F8E044E022C7D333A43FD72429'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-ijkidr-ijkidr'); }); })(jQuery); Despite claiming to represent working-class voters, Farage – the UK’s highest-paid MP – has also received private jet trips worth £85,000 from major Reform donor Christopher Harborne. A billionaire cryptocurrency investor, Harborne is based in Thailand, where he has lived for over 20 years. Farage is a major backer of cryptocurrencies, and has £215,000 invested in a UK Bitcoin treasury, Stack BTC – owned by Paul Withers, who runs the gold exchange Direct Bullion, which has paid Farage more than £500,000 since he became an MP. Farage’s Stack BTC shares have reportedly doubled in value since he bought them, largely due to the fanfare around his investment. Harborne is Reform’s biggest donor, having given £12 million to the party last year and more than £22 million since 2019. However, his contributions to the party are now in jeopardy after Labour introduced new rules that cap donations from overseas residents to £100,000 a year. Earlier this month, crypto entrepreneur and right-wing philanthropist Ben Delo said he had given £4 million to Reform and would be moving back to the UK in order to circumvent the government’s new donation rules. “Farage is bought and paid for by vested interests,” Green Party deputy leader Rachel Millward said. “Clearly, his disdain for foreign people does not extend to those who want to give him money to advance his hateful agenda. He loves open borders when it comes to cash!” Reform UK is the UK’s leading anti-climate party, with several of its senior figures – including Farage – denying basic climate science. The Reform leader has claimed it’s “absolutely nuts” for CO2 to be considered a pollutant, while his deputy Richard Tice has called it “plant food”. Of the £1.3 million earned by Farage from UK sources, a number are closely connected to overseas interests. GB News, Farage’s largest single source of income, is co-owned by the Legatum Group – a Dubai-based investment vehicle – and hedge fund manager Paul Marshall, whose firm is 40 percent owned by U.S. private equity giant KKR. Reform and Farage were approached for comment. Foreign Influences on Farage Reform has close connections to a number of foreign regimes and influential overseas interests. Farage is one of U.S. President Donald Trump’s most vocal European allies, having repeatedly campaigned for his election – including in 2016, when Farage was the first foreign politician to be given an audience with Trump following his presidential victory. Farage is also well connected in Trump’s MAGA movement. “He’s seen as the elder statesman. He almost has senator status. If England were the 51st state, Nigel Farage would be one of the senators,” one of his longstanding friends, Raheem Kassam, told the New Statesman in December. As documented by DeSmog, Farage has been helping the Heartland Institute – an influential pro-Trump climate science denial group – to extend its influence in the UK and Europe. The Heartland Institute was one of the groups behind Project 2025 – the authoritarian blueprint for Trump’s second term, convened by the Heritage Foundation. According to The Spectator, key people from Project 2025 “have been shuttling between London and Washington” to give their advice to Farage. And the Reform leader has earned thousands from MAGA events since he became an MP. In the past year, Farage has been paid more than £11,000 to speak at Hillsdale College – a conservative university in Michigan – and nearly £28,000 to speak at the ‘Club for Growth’, a lobby group that has endorsed and campaigned for Trump. Farage has also racked up donor-funded flights worth at least £150,000 to speak at pro-Trump events since he was elected to Parliament, and has received £47,000 from Trump-donating U.S. tech giants X Corp, Google, and Meta. But Trump’s America is not the only foreign regime with financial ties to Farage and his party. In addition to the F1 hospitality given to Farage by the Abu Dhabi government in December, other senior figures in Reform are in business with the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Reform UK leader Nigel Farage at the Formula 1 Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi, December 2025. Credit: Nigel Farage / X In October 2024, the party’s treasurer Nick Candy entered into a “strategic joint venture partnership” with Modon Holding – a real estate company owned by the Abu Dhabi government – via his firm Candy Capital. He has also partnered with the state-owned Dubai World Trade Centre to develop “super-prime” properties on the site.  Meanwhile, Reform’s Nadhim Zahawi – a former Tory minister who defected to Farage’s party in January – is a senior figure at Omniyat, a luxury property developer in Dubai. Farage convened a group of prospective patrons in Dubai earlier this year in an attempt to convince them to donate to the party. As a result, campaigners are urging the government to close the political finance loopholes that allow foreign regimes and big money interests to shape UK policy. “An MP’s only real job should be representing their constituents,” said Tom Brake, director of the campaign group Unlock Democracy. “Yet sadly, for some MPs, supplementing their own income appears to have greater appeal. “This is bad enough, but what is even more concerning is when MPs receive income from foreign sources, particularly foreign governments or organisations closely aligned with them. These financial relationships always risk giving undue influence and leverage to foreign entities, which UK legislators should avoid at all costs.” In March, the Rycroft Review was released, a government report from former Foreign Office permanent secretary Philip Rycroft, which summarised the threats to British democracy from overseas actors. “This country faces a persistent problem of foreign interests seeking to exert influence on, and to interfere in, our politics,” Rycroft said. “Too much of this is malign and seeks to sow distrust and exacerbate divisions in UK society, with the ultimate aim of undermining confidence in our democracy If government does not act swiftly to gear up to counter these threats, there is a real risk they will run away from us.” The post Nigel Farage Has Personally Accepted £675,000 from Foreign Sources appeared first on DeSmog.

[Category: Energy]

— ‘Get Rid of MAHA’: Trump Alliance Cracks as Climate Denialists Turn on RFK Jr.’s Movement

 

at 4/17/26 7:54am

At the right-wing Heartland Institute’s International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC) held in Washington, D.C., last week, speakers mocked their usual cast of environmental targets: Greta Thunberg, John Kerry, and of course, Al Gore. But the fringe climate denial movement that Heartland represents and promotes might be facing a new threat, this time from within the Trump base itself: Make America Healthy Again (MAHA). On a panel called “The Most Important Upcoming Battles” at the group’s annual conference, Heartland board member and Energy & Environmental Legal Institute Fellow Steve Milloy called the MAHA movement and its champion, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, a “left-wing op” that the Trump administration needs to “get rid of.” Milloy, who denies anthropogenic climate change and founded the website JunkScience.com, said the MAHA movement was a risk to everything from the global food supply to the fossil fuel industry. As Kennedy testifies before Congress this week about his health agenda, Milloys comments at the ICCCs two-day event highlight a growing rift between what was once seen as a largely aligned Trump coalition. In the past, fringe climate-denial groups like Heartland primarily faced opposition from progressives and environmental advocates. “People that are worried about everything in the environment used to be the Democratic Party and the radical environmental groups,” Milloy said. “Now, it’s a feature of the Trump administration.” Subscribe to our newsletter Stay up to date with DeSmog news and alerts Name -- Email Address What content do you want to subscribe to? (check all that apply) All International UK Sign Up (function($){ $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-us').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619D07B21962C5AFE16D3A2145673C82A3CEE9D9F1ADDABE965ACB3CE39939D42AC9012C6272FD52BFCA0790F0FB77C6442'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-vdrirr-vdrirr'); }); $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-uk').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619BD43AA6813AF1B0FFE26D8282EC254E3ED0237BA72BEFBE922037EE4F1B325C6DA4918F8E044E022C7D333A43FD72429'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-ijkidr-ijkidr'); }); })(jQuery); Panels at the conference focused on debunking proven climate science, and what speakers characterized as Trump-era deregulation “wins,” particularly Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin’s decision to repeal the 2009 endangerment finding. Milloy and fellow panelists Jason Isaac, CEO of the fossil fuel advocacy group the American Energy Institute, Willis Eschenbach, who Heartland refers to as an “amateur scientist, and Angela Wheeler with the CO2 Coalition, which argues that carbon dioxide is beneficial to the environment, spoke about the major battles facing the climate denial movement, with a particular focus on the rise and influence of MAHA. MAHA is “wrong about everything,” according to Milloy, including its push to pressure the EPA to regulate food additives, pesticides, microplastics, and PFAS, or forever chemicals — all of which have been linked to serious health risks. “It’s only a matter of time before they become interested in climate,” Milloy said. “The microplastics scare is actually a climate-op, right? It’s another way to get to the fossil fuel industry and to get to the oil and gas industry because that’s where plastic comes from — the petrochemical industry.” When asked to respond to Milloy’s remarks, HHS pushed back. “These claims are inaccurate,” an HHS official told DeSmog in an email statement. “The Trump administration, including HHS, will no longer weaponize federal food policy to destroy the livelihoods of hard-working American ranchers and protein producers under the radical dogma of the Green New Scam.”  “HHS is focused on supporting policies that improve access to fresh, healthy food, and strengthen the systems that sustain public health,” the statement went on to say. “Secretary Kennedy is committed to ensuring not just the survival, but the prosperity, of American Farmers.” DeSmog reached out to several MAHA activists for comment, including Kelly Ryerson, Alex Clark, and Courtney Swan, but none responded by press time. Regulate vs. Deregulate Both MAHA and climate denial advocates have been criticized for dismissing peer-reviewed research and cherry-picking scientific data. But a clear fissure is emerging: One faction is pushing for stricter environmental and public health regulations (particularly around chemicals and food), while the other is actively working to dismantle them. In recent months, the Trump administration, and Zeldin specifically, have struggled to keep members of the MAHA movement happy. In December, MAHA activists even circulated a petition urging Trump to fire Zeldin over his decisions to loosen chemical regulations after the EPA approved the use of two separate pesticides. “What kind of Republicans go after a Republican administrator?” Milloy asked during the panel. These internal fractures may also be fostering unlikely bedfellows between MAHA and progressives. Last week, MAHA activist Kelly Ryerson and Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME) teamed up to co-write an op-ed for The Hill against the chemical industry and federal pesticide preemptions. Ryerson and Pingree stated that they are “united by three simple beliefs: that everyone should be able to eat food that is free of toxic chemicals; that people should have proper warning about possible health risks associated with chemical use; and that giant corporations should not get special immunity when their products pose real health risks.” The day after the op-ed appeared, Trump hosted MAHA activists and influencers at the White House for a private strategy session aimed at easing tensions ahead of the midterms, according to The New York Times. Around the same time, the EPA also decided to halt the approval of dozens of forever chemicals. Taken together, the MAHA Oval Office meeting and the EPA’s current PFAS posture “reflects the fragility” of the Trump administration’s alliance with the MAHA movement, as The Times said, and shows that MAHA, at least for now, holds significant sway over the administration’s environmental narrative. As of now, it’s unclear if Milloy’s alarm will materialize into MAHA shifting its sights to targeting the fossil fuel industry for producing emissions, especially now that the EPA has repealed the endangerment finding, which concludes that greenhouse gas emissions are a threat to human health and welfare.  Still, at the panel Milloy remained adamant. “[MAHA] is not science-based and the science is what I care about. It is very disheartening to me,” he said in closing. “If they succeed with microplastics, they’re going to cause real problems…They’re going to get to climate.” Rachel Santarsiero is the director of the National Security Archive’s Climate Change Transparency Project. This article does not necessarily reflect the views of the National Security Archive. The post ‘Get Rid of MAHA’: Trump Alliance Cracks as Climate Denialists Turn on RFK Jr.’s Movement appeared first on DeSmog.

[Category: Energy]

— Sri Lankan ‘Grifters’ Pumping Out AI ‘Energy Policy Rage Bait’ on UK Facebook Feeds

 

at 4/17/26 4:49am

“The silent majority demands: restart domestic production – drill, refine, create British jobs, lower costs, secure supply,” reads the caption of an AI-generated image from the Facebook page “Lovely UK” – an account managed from Sri Lanka. The image, along with dozens like it, shows a generic AI-generated scene of cars packed into a petrol station forecourt accompanied by text posing a seemingly innocent question: “Should the UK produce its own fuel again?”  Images and videos of this sort have been posted on Facebook in droves since the start of the American-Israeli war on Iran. Several of the pages originate in Sri Lanka and are seemingly part of a network pumping out AI slop to profit from the angry engagement. Not all of the posts were so clearly in favour of expanded UK oil production, but the general theme of the content was “energy policy rage bait,” according to Richard Wilson, founder of climate campaign group Stop Funding Heat. In other words, trying to provoke outrage on the issue of UK energy production in order to maximise engagement and make money. The posts reviewed by DeSmog generated at least 64,000 likes and 13,000 comments, reaching a massive number of UK Facebook users. This engagement generates income for the page owners via revenue-sharing schemes introduced by Facebook and other social media giants. DeSmog identified 13 pages or groups that have been pumping out AI-created content about UK energy production. At least four of these accounts are managed from Sri Lanka, while the others share much of the same content in the same format, without revealing their location. One post from the page ‘Truth of Britain’ featured an AI-generated petrol station billboard stating: “Support UK Fuel Production” above an image of an oil rig. This post received 1,900 likes and featured comments calling for increased “drilling and fracking” in the UK. Another image caption was more explicit about drilling the North Sea. “This country sits on its own oil reserves. North Sea oil built modern Britain. But instead of using what’s ours, we send billions abroad and let hardworking British families pick up the bill,” it stated. All of these pages were removed by Facebook for violating the company’s policies when they were identified by DeSmog. Since then, more similar pages have appeared. A post from one of these pages on 1 April included a caption: “It’s absolute madness that while we have our own vast energy resources in the North Sea, we are forced to rely on expensive foreign energy imports! ”. Following the war in Iran, which has sent energy prices spiralling, a major lobbying campaign has been launched to expand the UK’s North Sea oil and gas output. This campaign has been led by climate science deniers and fossil fuel interests – including the Conservative Party and Reform UK, both of which have received extensive donations from oil investors and climate deniers. Yet, evidence shows that increased North Sea production would have a negligible impact on UK fuel prices, and only displace a maximum of around three percent of the country’s fossil fuel imports. Facebook’s “Disinformation Incentive” The accounts were active for long enough to push misleading pro-oil messages to hundreds of thousands of UK users. This phenomenon is not limited to Facebook. DeSmog uncovered similar AI-generated, pro-oil content shared widely across other major social media platforms, including Instagram, TikTok and X. Some of this content was posted by pro-Reform UK and pro-Restore Britain accounts. Restore is a far-right party led by former Reform MP Rupert Lowe. Facebook’s content monetisation policy, introduced in 2024, pays creators for generating high engagement, even on AI-generated content. “Sadly, Facebook seems unlikely to clean up its act until it has a strong business incentive to do so,” Wilson said. “While Meta continues to enable hate, climate denial and energy policy rage bait, responsible advertisers should stop putting money into this toxic platform.” All major social media companies have failed to clamp down on misleading content on their platforms. According to whistleblowers, both Meta – Facebook and Instagram’s parent company – and TikTok allowed harmful content to gain popularity on their platforms after they learned that outrageous and often false information leads to higher engagement. In January 2025, in the run-up to Donald Trump’s second inauguration, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that its platforms would massively cut back on fact-checking efforts. Facebook has the time and resources “to protect users from being preyed upon by political propagandists and grifters or radicalised by hatred,” said Philip Newell, communications co-chair of the Climate Action Against Disinformation coalition, “but instead apparently chose to make it so anyone, anywhere, can flood feeds with AI-generated hate and disinformation. “And they knew users wouldn’t quit scrolling despite the degraded feeds because users couldn’t, as Meta deliberately chose to build an addictive product, as a jury has recently confirmed.” He added: “Facebook’s AI slopaganda is the new Cambridge Analytica scandal.” In the run-up to the 2016 Brexit referendum and Donald Trump’s first term election, consulting firm Cambridge Analytica unlawfully harvesting the information of 50 million Facebook users, which was used to deliver targeted political advertising. Experts and public bodies – including the UK Electoral Commission – have now warned that fake, misleading AI content can “spread rapidly during elections”, with a quarter of UK voters saying they were exposed to “deepfakes” during the 2024 general election. The Sri Lankan Connection Sri Lankan influencers are flooding UK Facebook feeds with viral misinformation. An investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), The Times, and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue in November found that one influencer was funding a lavish lifestyle by running Facebook pages that push “racist, Islamophobic and anti-migrant” AI content to British audiences. The man in question, Geeth Sooriyapura, told TBIJ that he targets “old people … because they are the ones who don’t like immigrants.” It’s unclear if Sooriyapura is behind the “energy rage bait” identified by DeSmog. One of the pages identified by DeSmog was shown on-screen by Sooriyapura during a Facebook monetisation tutorial on YouTube. Sooriyapura denied being responsible for the accounts when contacted, but the pages deploy many of his tactics for generating outrage and revenue. Sooriyapura runs a YouTube channel, With Soori Academy, where he shares his tips for making money through AI-generated Facebook slop. He encourages would-be Facebook hustlers to target profitable locations (where there are lots of active Facebook users) with AI-generated posts on divisive political issues that generate high engagement, using AI platforms ChatGPT and Grok to create the content. He also provides viewers with tips on how to make Facebook pages look as if they are authentically based in the country they are posting about. A number of the Facebook pages identified by DeSmog include the UK phone numbers and addresses of people and businesses that did not consent to their information being used, we confirmed by calling those numbers. Another business claimed that its Facebook page had been hacked and was being used without permission as the AI slop page “Lovely UK”, although it’s unknown who conducted the hack. “The rise of online advertising has made it easier to profit from hate and misinformation than at any time in history,” Wilson said. “It’s striking how often the same networks that monetise racist clickbait are also pushing dangerous lies about climate change.” The post Sri Lankan ‘Grifters’ Pumping Out AI ‘Energy Policy Rage Bait’ on UK Facebook Feeds appeared first on DeSmog.

[Category: Energy]

— Canadian Media Platforms Atlas Network Groups Pushing Fossil Fuels in Response to Iran War

 

at 4/15/26 1:06pm

In the wake of global uncertainty caused by Donald Trump’s war on Iran, Fraser Institute analysts recently took to the pages of the Winnipeg Sun to lament that Carney is “clinging to Trudeau-era policies” like the oil tanker ban and industrial carbon pricing when he should instead “adopt reasonable, predictable and competitive policies”. That is a common refrain from the Vancouver-based free-market think tank, which for decades has questioned whether a climate crisis exists and attacked solutions that could address it. But Fraser Institute, whose analysts didn’t respond to DeSmog questions, wasn’t alone in seeking to exploit Trump’s military attacks to undermine climate solutions. It belongs to a U.S.-based group called the Atlas Network, which counts among its Canadian partners other conservative think tanks including Montreal Economic Institute and Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI).  Between February 28 (the start of the war), and April 10, DeSmog tracked 22 instances in which Canadian news media gave space to individuals representing Atlas Network-affiliated organizations arguing Trump’s war on Iran justifies the expansion of Canada’s oil and gas sector. In eight of those examples, Atlas-affiliated groups were quoted alongside industry associations, fossil fuel lobby groups, oil companies, or banks with considerable investments in Canada’s oil and gas sector. These include appearances or attributions in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the Globe and Mail, the National Post, the Financial Post, as well as CTV and Global television networks, among others. Subscribe to our newsletter Stay up to date with DeSmog news and alerts Name -- Email Address What content do you want to subscribe to? (check all that apply) All International UK Sign Up (function($){ $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-us').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619D07B21962C5AFE16D3A2145673C82A3CEE9D9F1ADDABE965ACB3CE39939D42AC9012C6272FD52BFCA0790F0FB77C6442'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-vdrirr-vdrirr'); }); $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-uk').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619BD43AA6813AF1B0FFE26D8282EC254E3ED0237BA72BEFBE922037EE4F1B325C6DA4918F8E044E022C7D333A43FD72429'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-ijkidr-ijkidr'); }); })(jQuery); Canadian Media Platforms Libertarian Lobby Groups Atlas Network includes over 500 libertarian and free market organizations worldwide that have been instrumental over the past few decades in obstructing climate policy, and many of them have received funding from the fossil fuel industry. This link to Atlas is never mentioned in the nearly two dozen news pieces DeSmog identified, even though the think tanks are all making variations of a similar argument: that Trump’s illegal military incursions serve as an opportunity for Canada to expand oil and gas infrastructure. A recent Globe and Mail editorial, titled “A low-carbon future needs an electric jolt”, quoted reports from the MLI and the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) to support the argument that fossil fuels are necessary and will be required into the future to ensure a stable supply of electricity. The article was premised in part on the disruptions to global oil and gas supply (and subsequent price shocks) caused by the Iran conflict. The MLI report argued the reliability of power generation should take precedence over the sustainability of its generation. Specifically, it advocated for the use of natural gas, which fossil fuel advocates have long claimed is both reliable and a transitional ‘bridge fuel’ that’s better for the environment than coal or oil. In fact, methane—which is a constituent component of natural gas—is a greenhouse gas 86 times stronger than carbon-dioxide at trapping heat over a 20 year period. The Globe did not mention that MLI has received funding from the oil and gas sector, including from Imperial Oil and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP). MLI has also received money from the Modern Miracle Network, a pro-oil advocacy group created by Questerre Energy President and CEO Michael Binnion, and from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. The Globe also failed to note that RBC was recently found to be the world’s leading investor in fossil fuels. DeSmog reached out to Globe and Mail standards editor Sandra Martin for comment, but did not receive a reply. MLI and Fraser Institute are two of Canada’s more prominent partners of Atlas Network. Atlas Network in the past has received funding from foundations and charities linked to Koch Industries, the Scaife family, and ExxonMobil. As DeSmog has previously reported, the Atlas Network has long been a major source of climate obstruction, as its member organizations have spread denial of climate science, oppose environmental regulations, and promote fossil fuel interests. Fossil Fuel Opportunism  In an April 1 National Post article about why the oil companies of the Oil Sands Alliance (formerly named Pathways Alliance) want Ottawa to cover most of their carbon capture costs, Heather Exner-Pirot of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute said “Pathways was created at a time when (climate policy) was an existential threat,” and “now, it’s obviously not a topline issue for voters. Now, it’s very much: build, expand, produce more, be an energy superpower.” The Oil Sands Alliance is a consortium of Canadian oil companies active in the Alberta tarsands. Their flagship project, a massive carbon capture pipeline and storage initiative, has a $20 billion CAD price tag. Energy economists argue it is unlikely to be financially viable without long term financial support from government, while environmentalists argue the project will likely exacerbate Canadian carbon dioxide emissions. “Fossil fuel companies and their lobbyists — like the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and so-called think tanks funded by oil and gas — use whatever geopolitical event is in the news to push for new pipelines, weaken environmental regulations, and run up Ottawas credit card,” said Thomas L. Green, Senior Manager, Climate Solutions, with the non-profit David Suzuki Foundation. “This month its the Middle East.” Several industry associations and lobby groups were quoted advocating for fossil fuel expansion, including CAPP, the Canadian Fuels Association (CFA), and the Explorers and Producers Association of Canada (EPAC). Exner-Pirot was quoted most often of the Atlas-linked analysts, including on Canada’s three largest broadcast networks. None of the articles that quoted Exner-Pirot mentioned that MLI has received funding from the fossil fuel sector. Moreover, Exner-Pirot’s sister, Lynn Exner, is the Chief Operating Officer and a spokesperson of Canada Action, a fossil fuel advocacy group whose advertising campaigns make frequent use of exaggerated claims about the fossil fuel sector or misinformation about climate change and government environmental regulations.  As previously reported by DeSmog, Canada Action has run nation-wide misinformation campaigns, claiming “Canadian LNG exports will reduce global emissions.” Canada Action’s campaigns have been cited in efforts to ban pro-fossil fuel false advertising by several Canadian cities.  DeSmog reached out to Heather Exner-Pirot for comment, but she did not reply. Green dismissed the argument for increased oil and gas production advanced by groups like MLI or CAPP succinctly: “It’s bull.” “Every taxpayer dollar spent building fossil fuel infrastructure that will be stranded is a dollar not spent on the clean energy that actually protects Canadians from volatile global markets, the health consequences of fossil fuel pollution and worsening climate disasters,” said Green. The post Canadian Media Platforms Atlas Network Groups Pushing Fossil Fuels in Response to Iran War appeared first on DeSmog.

[Category: Energy]

— Despite Trump Actions, the Most Dangerous Climate Argument Today Isn’t Denial — It’s Delay

 

at 4/15/26 9:30am

Under Donald Trump’s renewed push to expand fossil fuel production — including plans to ramp up oil and gas drilling and roll back climate regulations — climate politics in the United States is entering a new phase. Although Trump’s climate agenda is very much aligned with outright denial, it has become less central in mainstream climate action debate. Instead, opposition to policies such as carbon pricing, emissions standards, and fossil fuel phaseouts remains strong.At the same time, the impacts of climate change are becoming harder to ignore. When the devastating wildfires tore through Los Angeles in January 2025, causing over $60 billion in destruction, millions of Americans glimpsed what climate change looks like up close. Across the country — as in many parts of the world — the signs are multiplying: insurers abandoning coastal areas, deadly heatwaves breaking records, and entire communities facing floods or drought. Understandably, the proportion of Americans who believe global warming is happening has increased over time, rising from about 57 percent in 2010 to over 70 percent in recent years, according to the Yale Climate Opinion Map of 2024.Yet, despite this growing awareness, the politics of climate action remain stuck. The old strategy of obstructionists — denying climate change outright — has largely lost credibility among scientists and the public at large. The scientific consensus on human-caused climate change is overwhelming, and its impacts are increasingly visible. But the departure of denial has not meant the arrival of decisive action.  Instead, something more subtle has taken its place: climate delay. Scholars have increasingly warned about this shift. In 2020, William Lamb and colleagues identified a set of arguments that acknowledge climate change but still justify postponing meaningful action. These “discourses of climate delay” include familiar claims that action would hurt the economy, that technology will solve the problem later, or that responsibility lies with someone else. Building on this framework, we conducted a nationwide survey of more than 1,500 Americans in 2024 to examine how widespread these narratives have become among the public — and how they might shape support for climate policy. Our findings show that large segments of the U.S. public hold beliefs that align with these narratives. And they are everywhere: in political speeches, cable news debates, and everyday conversations. Listen closely to climate debates today, and you’ll hear them constantly: Yes, climate change is real — but why should we act if China doesn’t? Yes, it’s real — but regulations will hurt ordinary people. Yes, it’s real — but technology will solve it eventually. These arguments sound reasonable. Many contain a kernel of truth. But together they add up to the same conclusion: not now. Subscribe to our newsletter Stay up to date with DeSmog news and alerts Name -- Email Address What content do you want to subscribe to? (check all that apply) All International UK Sign Up (function($){ $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-us').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619D07B21962C5AFE16D3A2145673C82A3CEE9D9F1ADDABE965ACB3CE39939D42AC9012C6272FD52BFCA0790F0FB77C6442'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-vdrirr-vdrirr'); }); $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-uk').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619BD43AA6813AF1B0FFE26D8282EC254E3ED0237BA72BEFBE922037EE4F1B325C6DA4918F8E044E022C7D333A43FD72429'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-ijkidr-ijkidr'); }); })(jQuery); Our research suggests that some of these narratives are particularly powerful in undermining support for climate policy. And it is not necessarily the most widespread ones that are most problematic. The most influential narrative is what is often called “whataboutism,” which only about a third of our respondents subscribed to. This argument shifts responsibility for climate change elsewhere — usually toward other nations — while downplaying one’s own emissions. Americans hear it constantly: Why should the United States cut emissions if China is building coal plants? Unless other countries act, why should we? In our survey, people who agreed with this line of argument were significantly less likely to support climate policies or demand government action.  It’s an argument that resonates politically because it taps into familiar themes of fairness and national competition. But it also misunderstands the nature of global cooperation. If every country waits for someone else to act first, no one moves. No Sticks, Just Carrots Another powerful narrative insists that climate policy must rely only on voluntary action — what can be described as “no sticks, just carrots.” Subsidies for clean energy? Fine. But regulations, bans, or carbon taxes? Off the table. This framing is politically convenient because it allows leaders to appear supportive of climate goals while avoiding the policies most likely to reduce emissions. But it also undermines support for the kinds of measures that actually work — from carbon pricing and emissions standards to restrictions on fossil fuels. A third potent narrative exploits genuine concerns about fairness. Many people worry that climate policies will raise energy prices or hurt working-class communities. These concerns are understandable and occasionally real, as badly designed policies can indeed impose unfair costs — underscoring the importance of ensuring that the transition away from fossil fuels is fair and equitable. But when these concerns are used to block climate action entirely or strategically deployed to obstruct it, then they become another form of delay. In our study, framing climate policy primarily as a threat to social justice significantly reduced support for government climate action. Under Donald Trump’s first term, climate denial was still common. Today, it has been re-energized at the political level — with figures in the current administration engaging with climate denial networks and rolling back environmental protections. At the same time, familiar delay tactics remain central: acknowledging climate change while shifting responsibility to others or downplaying the need for urgent action. The result is not a replacement of denial with delay, but a more dangerous combination of the two — one that risks further entrenching resistance to meaningful climate policy. This helps explain why, even as most Americans now accept that climate change is real, many remain uncertain or divided over the policies needed to address it. Our survey was conducted in May 2024, in the run-up to the U.S. election and under a different political context, when major climate policies such as the Inflation Reduction Act were still in place, and before a renewed push for fossil fuel expansion. If anything, this suggests that the dynamics we identify may be even more pronounced today. At the same time, there is also an important distinction between elite rhetoric and public opinion. While political leaders — including the current president — may still promote more overt forms of climate denial, our findings suggest that the broader public is more likely to engage with subtler delay narratives that acknowledge climate change but question the urgency or fairness of acting. This disconnect matters, because it means that even as denial still persists at the top, delay discourses may be more influential in shaping everyday attitudes toward climate policy. Our results constitute a peculiar political paradox: Many citizens accept the reality of climate change, yet remain skeptical of the policies needed to address it. How to Fight Back But our research also points toward solutions. Not all climate narratives weaken support for policy. In fact, some of the beliefs often associated with climate delay can be reframed to strengthen public demand for action. One example is technological optimism — the belief that innovation will play a central role in solving climate change. A majority of respondents expressed this view, and they were actually more likely to support climate policies, perhaps because they see public investment as essential to accelerating new technologies. Similarly, a sense of individual responsibility and convictions that voluntary individual behaviors are key to climate mitigation are widespread views that can reinforce support for collective action. People who believe that mitigation hinges on individuals voluntarily reducing their carbon footprints are also more supportive of climate policy, perhaps because they see government policy as helping society move in the same direction. These findings offer an important lesson for climate communication. Too often, climate debates focus on correcting misinformation or presenting more scientific evidence. But the real battle increasingly revolves around narratives — stories about responsibility, fairness, and “what is possible.” If delay narratives are holding climate policy back, the answer is not simply to rebut them one by one. It is to replace them with more compelling counter-stories. Instead of allowing delay narratives to dominate the debate, policymakers can emphasize the economic and strategic benefits of leading the clean energy transition. Rather than framing climate policy purely as sacrifice, they can highlight tangible gains — cleaner air, new industries, more secure energy systems, and long-term cost-effective solutions. When whataboutism enters the debate, we must counter it by reminding people that waiting for others is not a climate strategy but a recipe for paralysis. Countries that have the capacity to act also have a responsibility to do so — not only because leadership can spur others to follow, but because acting now brings tangible national benefits, from lesser oil industry dependence and lower energy bills to renewable industry leadership and greater societal resilience. And when concerns about fairness arise, governments must address them directly by designing policies that protect vulnerable communities and share the benefits of the transition. At the same time, our research suggests it is just as important to distinguish genuine concerns about fairness from bad-faith arguments that invoke fairness as a pretext for delay.  In other words, how we think and talk about climate action can matter as much as the policies themselves. Our study shows that certain delay narratives consistently weaken support for climate policy. Identifying them is the first step toward neutralizing their influence. Because the most dangerous climate argument today is no longer that climate change is a hoax. It is the quieter claim that action should always come later — after the technology improves, after other countries move first, after someone else solves the problem for us. But climate change does not wait for political convenience. And neither can we. The post Despite Trump Actions, the Most Dangerous Climate Argument Today Isn’t Denial — It’s Delay appeared first on DeSmog.

[Category: Energy]

— Orbán Allies Awarded £57 Million from Hungary State Oil Giant Days Before Election

 

at 4/14/26 9:43am

A pro-Orbán “propaganda” group close to Reform UK was granted £57 million in dividends from Hungary’s state oil company in the days before Sunday’s election.  At its annual general meeting on 10 April – two days before Hungary’s parliamentary elections, which ousted prime minister Viktor Orbán – national oil company MOL decided to award HUF 241 billion (£576.4 million) in dividends to its shareholders. Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), a think tank and training school associated with the outgoing Orbán, is set to receive around HUF 24 billion (£57.4 million) later this year. MOL dividends are typically declared in late April, and Hungarian media reports have questioned the timing of this year’s decision – immediately before an election in which Orbán was widely expected to lose. It has been highlighted that, in both 2014 and 2018, the company’s annual general meeting was organised for after the country’s parliamentary elections. MCC was gifted a 10 percent stake in MOL by Orbán’s government in 2020, at the time worth more than $1.3 billion. Using this wealth, MCC has promoted Orbán’s ideas via events featuring high-profile politicians from across Europe and America, and has been called a “propaganda mouthpiece” of his regime by campaigners. Subscribe to our newsletter Stay up to date with DeSmog news and alerts Name -- Email Address What content do you want to subscribe to? (check all that apply) All International UK Sign Up (function($){ $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-us').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619D07B21962C5AFE16D3A2145673C82A3CEE9D9F1ADDABE965ACB3CE39939D42AC9012C6272FD52BFCA0790F0FB77C6442'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-vdrirr-vdrirr'); }); $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-uk').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619BD43AA6813AF1B0FFE26D8282EC254E3ED0237BA72BEFBE922037EE4F1B325C6DA4918F8E044E022C7D333A43FD72429'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-ijkidr-ijkidr'); }); })(jQuery); These campaigners have also warned that MCC may use its latest MOL dividends to fight a war of attrition against the new prime minister. “They are filling their reserves, and they are letting the Hungarian people pay the bill,” said Kenneth Haar of the transparency campaign group Corporate Europe Observatory. “Surely this cannot be the last word. With the fortune they have amassed, they are lining up once again to use money they have taken as a weapon against their adversaries in the future.” The incoming Tisza government led by Peter Magyar, which received 77 percent of the vote, has vowed to investigate and recover state funding granted by Orbán to MCC. Magyar has reportedly requested that MCC’s dividend is paid later in the year – potentially giving him time to strip the group of its MOL shareholding before they receive the money. MOL told DeSmog that the timing of the AGM was unrelated to the date of the election, and that dividends to all shareholders were awarded “irrespective of institutional background”. MCC did not respond to DeSmog’s request for comment. Russia and Reform MOL derives much of its income from selling Russian fossil fuels. In a press release about the dividends, MOL Group chairman and CEO Zsolt Hernádi said the company has “consistently worked to diversify the region’s energy supply, as greater flexibility in pipelines, suppliers, and decision-making is always better.” However, a recent report by the Center for the Study of Democracy found that 93 percent of Hungary’s oil imports came from Russian crude, up from 61 percent in 2021, amounting to a 15 percent income boost in 2025 to £1.3 billion. Several figures associated with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK are among MCC’s closest allies. Reform politician Matthew Goodwin speaks regularly at MCC conferences, including headlining an event yesterday (13 April) in Budapest. During the event, Goodwin appeared to confirm that he continues to work for MCC as a “visiting fellow” – a role that reportedly pays up to €10,000 a month. Reform’s head of policy James Orr, who is a director at the MCC-funded Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation, spoke at MCC’s summer festival last year alongside techno-authoritarian entrepreneur Peter Thiel. MCC also hosted U.S. Vice President JD Vance earlier this month as he campaigned for Orbán’s re-election. In his 16-year rule, Orbán used the state to attack press freedom, LGBT and abortion rights, fair elections, and asylum seekers, while opposing EU sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.  His opponent Magyar has promised to dismantle the “industrial-scale” corruption instigated by Orbán’s regime. Magyar has also pledged to “recover the state assets granted to the MCC and end the practice of political network-building with public funds.” MOL told DeSmog that “Decisions regarding dividends are made each year at our Annual General Meeting in April – the date stipulated in the law. Dividends are paid to all shareholders on equal terms, irrespective of shareholder structure or institutional background. As a publicly listed company, MOL treats all shareholders in line with the same principles.” The post Orbán Allies Awarded £57 Million from Hungary State Oil Giant Days Before Election appeared first on DeSmog.

[Category: Energy]

— Reform’s Matthew Goodwin Challenged on Orbán Funding Ties at Budapest Event

 

at 4/14/26 5:57am

Reform UK politician Matthew Goodwin was taken to task over his financial links to Viktor Orbán’s ousted government at a post-election event in Budapest yesterday. Despite offering no commentary on the election result online, Goodwin travelled to Hungary’s capital to headline an event hosted by Orbán’s in-house think tank and training school, Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC). Orbán, Hungary’s autocratic leader who has ruled the country for 16 years, suffered a landslide election defeat at the weekend to challenger Péter Magyar – a right-wing, anti-corruption candidate. DeSmog obtained an exclusive audio recording of the MCC event, during which Goodwin was challenged over his relationship with the now-former Hungarian regime. Commentator Jon Worth asked Goodwin – a GB News presenter who ran for Nigel Farage’s party in the Gorton and Denton by-election in February – how much he stood to lose financially if Magyar strips MCC’s government funding, as he has threatened. Goodwin has worked for MCC as a visiting fellow – a role that reportedly pays up to €10,000 a month. While Reform claimed in February that Goodwin previously served in the role for only a “brief period”, it appears Goodwin may in fact still hold the position. The page for the Budapest event states that he is an “author, political commentator, visiting fellow at MCC”. Meanwhile, Goodwin failed to deny in response to Worth that he is still paid by MCC. “As you know, it is entirely standard in academia to have research fellowships with universities, with organisations around the world,” he said – adding that trade unions and left-wing groups also regularly sponsor academic fellows and conferences. When pressed, Goodwin actively defended his ties to MCC, saying: “Im very proud of every relationship I have with a conservative network I think it’s great that Hungary is investing in lots of different networks, bringing people into this country who have very different ideas. That is what democracy should be, in my mind, is exchanging ideas in the public square I’m perfectly fine with all of my working relationships.” Goodwin, Reform, and MCC were approached for comment. Subscribe to our newsletter Stay up to date with DeSmog news and alerts Name -- Email Address What content do you want to subscribe to? (check all that apply) All International UK Sign Up (function($){ $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-us').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619D07B21962C5AFE16D3A2145673C82A3CEE9D9F1ADDABE965ACB3CE39939D42AC9012C6272FD52BFCA0790F0FB77C6442'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-vdrirr-vdrirr'); }); $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-uk').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619BD43AA6813AF1B0FFE26D8282EC254E3ED0237BA72BEFBE922037EE4F1B325C6DA4918F8E044E022C7D333A43FD72429'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-ijkidr-ijkidr'); }); })(jQuery); MCC has been funded by Orbán’s pro-Russia regime and, in 2020, was gifted more than $1.3 billion in Hungarian state funding, including a 10 percent stake in the country’s national oil company, MOL, which derives much of its income from selling Russian fossil fuels. Using this wealth, MCC convenes regular conferences and events featuring high-profile politicians from across Europe and America – including figures associated with Reform. According to documents obtained by investigative outlet Átlátszó, MCC fellows are expected to give speeches, attend events, network, and place articles in Western outlets. Conservative media titles GB News, The Spectator, The Critic and UnHerd are named as potential targets. MCC’s payments to visiting scholars and guest speakers increased dramatically from €197,000 in 2022 to €730,000 in the first 10 months of 2024. Goodwin also used the MCC event to comment on the election result – claiming: “Im not an expert on Hungarian politics, but it seems to me that the European Union is probably going to pressure your new government to do whatever it can in order to increase migration”. Goodwin also compared the outcome to the 1997 UK general election, which saw a landslide for Tony Blair’s Labour Party. “When voters have decided they want to change the political zeitgeist, when they want to change the political mood, it is incredibly difficult to change their minds,” he said. The former academic said he’s going on a “road trip” through Hungary and Austria in the coming days to promote his anti-migration ideas, and tried to console supporters of Orbán’s party, Fidesz. “Having run for office myself recently and finished second losses make you stronger,” he said. “Losses always make political movements stronger. And I know maybe people dont want to hear this if they happen to be a supporter of Fidesz, but over the long period of time, when people come to look back, its the losses that make you much stronger political movements and bring you back to being sharper, more nimble, you know, more compelling, more courageous.” Orbán Defeated In his 16-year rule, Orbán used the state to attack press freedom, LGBT and abortion rights, fair elections, and asylum seekers, while opposing EU sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. Hungary has been ranked as the most corrupt country in the EU, with high levels of poverty. Yet Farage and his allies have singled out Orbán’s Hungary for praise, and held it up as a model for the UK and Europe. In 2019, Farage called Orbán “the future of Europe”, while his head of policy James Orr last year described Orbán’s regime as a “counterexample to the ideology in my own country that rejects national pride and heritage.”  Both Orr and Goodwin have been regular fixtures at MCC conferences in recent times – appearing at last year’s MCC summer festival alongside techno-authoritarian entrepreneur Peter Thiel, and former Conservative advisor Dominic Cummings. Incoming Hungarian prime minister Magyar has promised to dismantle the “industrial-scale” corruption instigated by Orbán’s regime. He has also pledged to “recover the state assets granted to the MCC and end the practice of political network-building with public funds.” Magyar intends to bring Hungary in line with European Union rules, allowing the country to benefit from EU funds that have been blocked in recent years due to Orbán’s autocratic policies. The new leader also plans to adopt a more anti-Russia approach than his predecessor, taking Hungary out of Vladimir Putin’s orbit and reducing the country’s reliance on Russian fossil fuels. Orbán had a close relationship with Putin. In a leaked transcript from a call in October, Orbán privately told the Russian despot: “I am at your service”. By contrast, Magyar has said that, if he speaks to Putin, he will call on the Russian president to “end the killing” in Ukraine. DeSmog’s UK deputy editor Sam Bright speaks to PoliticsJoe about Orbán’s defeat. The post Reform’s Matthew Goodwin Challenged on Orbán Funding Ties at Budapest Event appeared first on DeSmog.

[Category: Energy]

As of 8/9/26 12:15pm. Last new 5/7/26 6:59am.