Almost half the Conservative Party’s backbench MPs in the British Parliament belong to a Caucus promoting extreme Net Zero ideas that is funded by a small group of green billionaire foundations. The Conservative Environment Network (CEN), which acts mostly as a lobby group, receives over 80% of its funding from the European Climate Foundation, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisers, Oak Foundation, WWF-UK and Clean Air Fund. As regular readers will recall, these paymasters crop up regularly whenever anyone of influence, be they journalists, academics or politicians, requires help and guidance in promoting the insanity of removing hydrocarbon energy from industrial societies within less than 30 years.
The CEN relies on ‘peer reviewed’ research to lobby for Net Zero policies at both Parliamentary and local council levels. It counts over 150 MPs and Peers in its Parliamentary caucus, over 500 local councillors, along with “international declaration signatories” numbering 300 legislators from 45 countries. The billionaire-funded operation is said to support a network of ‘Net Zero champions’ inside Parliament “to make the positive case that Net Zero is an economic opportunity as well as moral responsibility”.
It is noted by CEN that when Russia invaded Ukraine “we helped promote the narrative that reducing dependency on fossil fuels through renewable energy and insulation would help defeat Putin”. Quite how fossil fuel dependency is reduced by intermittent renewables that rely on back-up hydrocarbons is not immediately clear. It’s unlikely that Putin quaked in his boots at the thought of the widespread mobilisation of loft insulators in the U.K.
The biggest CEN paymaster seems to be the European Climate Foundation, which is heavily supported by the Extinction Rebellion funder Sir Christopher Hohn. The CEN is run by Ben Goldsmith who is one of five trustees of Hohn’s fund, The Children’s Investment Fund Foundation. He is the brother of Lord Goldsmith, the former Conservative Environment Minister who served under Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Interestingly, Johnson’s father, Stanley, a long-time green activist, is listed as a member of the CEN steering committee.
The Clean Air Fund is also funded by Hohn along with Bloomberg Philanthropies, the green vehicle used to promote the political agenda of Michael Bloomberg, the former Mayor of New York. Bloomberg has a track record of funding the activities of politicians, again as regular readers will recall. He is one of the main backers of C40, a group of local civic leaders around the world, chaired by London Mayor and fireworks impresario Sadiq Khan. Removing cars from cites – and a form of rationing, whereby city dwellers are limited to a daily food quote of 2,500 calories with just 44g of meat – are just some of the proposals suggested in internal reports.
Of course targeting politicians is not a new game and lobbying legislators has long been a massive international enterprise. But the new breed of green promoters is particularly aggressive and the sums of money on offer are eye-watering. It has been reported that Hohn gave £46 million to C40. Jeremy Grantham, like Hohn a hedge fund billionaire, funds British academic institutions and journalists, but he also seems to have politicians in his sights. Speaking in 2019 to a group of business people in Copenhagen about the approaching apocalypse, he asked rhetorically, “What should I do, you say“? His suggestion: “You should lobby your Government officials – invest in an election and buy some politicians. I am happy to say we do quite a bit of that at the Grantham Foundation… any candidate as long as they are green.”
All of this, it might be argued, has led to the British Parliament donkey-nodding through some of the most restrictive and potentially most disastrous Net Zero legislation in the world. The actual target of 2050 Net Zero was rushed through in 2019 via secondary legislation by a Prime Minister without any considered debate. A green activist legal unit within Government called the Climate Change Committee keeps feet to the fire with demands for industry-destroying cuts in carbon dioxide emissions. Over £12 billion a year is lifted from the pockets of electricity users to pay for hopelessly inefficient power from the breezes and sunbeams that accounts for barely 5% of total energy use. In the cities, the cars of the less well off are penalised, while empty cycle lanes, road closures, 20 mph speed limits and sky-rocketing parking charges proliferate. Meanwhile, there are not enough children in the Congo to mine all the cobalt needed for spontaneously combusting electric cars, while heat pumps spell catastrophe for the life chances of old and frail people in the depths of a cold British winter.
“We’re very grateful to all those who have supported CEN financially and made our work possible,” says the Conservative Environment Network.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’sEnvironment Editor.
It is notable for me that in addition to receiving funding “Grants (83% of our income)” from the “European Climate Foundation, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, Oak Foundation, WWF-UK, and Clean Air Fund” they also receive sponsorships as per the quote below which includes the lobby group, RenewableUK, “formerly known as the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA)”:
Sponsorship from businesses and charities (10% of our income), including Wildlife Trusts, Enertechnos, Woodland Trust, RSPB, CPRE, Smart Energy GB, Storrega Geotechnologies, EDF Energy, VOI, Technology, Opinium Research, Aon UK, Pasture-Fed Livestock Association, Sustain, WWF-UK, Marine Conservation Society, AAL Investments, and RenewableUK.
I have looked at RenewableUK in the past. It is notable that their Board of Directors includes representatives from wind developers and/or manufacturers including SSE, RES, Siemens Gamesa, The Crown Estate, GE Renewables, Equinor, Hitachi Energy, EDF Renewables, Ørsted Wind Power and ScottishPower Renewables.
Please note their headline: “Will new nuclear shore up our energy supply or is it just a distraction from cheap renewables?”
I am quite appalled by the fact that CEN, with it’s wealthy “philanthropic” funders and sponsor is promoting the misinformation that highly subsidised, intermittent and unreliable, not clean nor green industrial wind and solar installations are cheaper than reliable and efficient, actually clean nuclear power which has a lifespan approximately five times that of wind and solar plants.
The longer organisations like CEN and their financial backers flog the dead horse that is allegedly “cheap renewables” the more the UK will be desecrated and destroyed by massive bird, bat, insect, environment destroying industrial wind turbines which will push even more people into fuel poverty.
If you live in the UK and your MP is a member of the Conservative Party, I suggest that you write to them and ask if they are a member of and/or support the Conservative Environment Network (CEN).
If they want to waste their money, fine. I forget who made the point - Doug Casey, Rick Rule or some other financial pundit - but with all the trillions spent on 'green' energy over recent decades, the share of hydrocarbons in world energy consumption has decreased from something like 82% to 81%!
Love this sentence - "Over £12 billion a year is lifted from the pockets of electricity users to pay for hopelessly inefficient power from the breezes and sunbeams that accounts for barely 5% of total energy use." Actually, the whole article is full of original phraseology - good job.
If they want to waste their money, fine. I forget who made the point - Doug Casey, Rick Rule or some other financial pundit - but with all the trillions spent on 'green' energy over recent decades, the share of hydrocarbons in world energy consumption has decreased from something like 82% to 81%!
Love this sentence - "Over £12 billion a year is lifted from the pockets of electricity users to pay for hopelessly inefficient power from the breezes and sunbeams that accounts for barely 5% of total energy use." Actually, the whole article is full of original phraseology - good job.