The Top 10 Climate deniers and the Climate Champions fighting back.
Our judges below have identified the top 10 politicians who are undermining climate science and profiting from the oil and gas industry, as well as those who are leading the fight for our future.
The Top 10 Climate deniers and the Climate Champions fighting back.
Our judges below have identified the top 10 politicians who are undermining climate science and profiting from the oil and gas industry, as well as those who are leading the fight for our future.
The Top 10 Climate deniers and the Climate Champions fighting back.
Our judges below have identified the top 10 politicians who are undermining climate science and profiting from the oil and gas industry, as well as those who are leading the fight for our future.
Professor of Lancaster University
Mike Berners-Lee
Crossbench peer
Baroness Boycott
Musician, climate campaigner
Brian Eno
Novelist and playwright
Laline Paull
Journalist and broadcaster
Lucy Siegle
MP Watch
Tahira Amini
MP Watch
Nick Holdsworth
TOP 10 CLIMATE DENIERS
TOP 10 CLIMATE CHAMPIONS
FARAGE's Reform UK party is 92% funded by fossil fuel interests, climate science deniers and highly polluting industries.
1
NIGEL FARAGE
Reform UK
Clacton
A vocal supporter of Donald Trump’s extreme anti-environmental policies, Farage frequently serves up climate mis- and disinformation on GB News. He has claimed that net zero and energy security are incompatible. He is aiming towards cancelling net zero through a referendum and has falsely suggested that “climate lockdowns” may be imposed. Reform UK has received more than £2.3 million which is 92% of their funds from oil and gas interests, highly polluting industries and climate science deniers since December 2019. This amounts to 92% of the party’s total donations over that time period. Read more
2
Steve Baker
Conservative
Wycombe
Baker is an active and prolific campaigner against net zero and established the Net Zero Scrutiny Group of backbench Conservative MPs in order to water down the Government’s green plans. He is a former trustee of the climate denial thinktank the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Baker has platformed climate delay propaganda and has said that net zero will make the public “colder and poorer”. He has called climate activists “child abusers.” Read more.
While A trustee of the secretive oil-funded Global Warming Policy Foundation, set up the Net Zero Scrutiny Group of MPs to push back on net zero.
Tice frequently challenges settled climate science and advocates for a net zero referendum.
3
Richard Tice
Reform UK
Boston and Skegness
Millionaire Tice is former leader of Reform UK and grandson of a coal mine owner and is behind many climate gaffes as when he told a BBC interviewer the sun and volcanoes are behind climate change. On broadcast media he frequently challenges settled science and is now calling for a “net zero referendum”. Tice’s Reform UK party is itself 92% funded by fossil fuel interests and climate science deniers. When setting out Reform UK’s Emergency Energy Plan, Tice said: “we’ve got to accelerate gas and oil exploration in the North Sea.” Read more
4
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Conservative
North East Somerset and Hanham
Rees-Mogg has stated that “the current headlong rush to net zero risks impoverishing the nation to no global benefit on emissions”. Last year, he was paid £325k to be a presenter on GB News, which has frequently platformed climate crisis deniers. He has called for environmental land management schemes to be scrapped and, as Energy Minister, expressed enthusiasm to get “every last drop” of oil out of the North Sea”. Rees-Mogg’s firm Somerset Capital Management has held investments worth about £3 million in mining firms, £2.4 million in oil and gas producers, as well as £23 million in tobacco companies. Read more.
referred to the parliamentary standards watchdog for failing to declare himself director of Somerset Capital Management which holds £5.4 million in oil, gas & coal investments.
As Energy Secretary, she accepted a donation from Michael Hintze - a key funder of climate-denial think tank
the Global Warming Policy Foundation.
5
Claire Coutinho
Conservative
East Surrey
Coutinho was appointed as Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero in August 2023 and met with oil and gas representatives twice a week across 2023. Since her appointment, the Conservative government has weakened a number of flagship net zero policies: the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles was pushed back from 2030 to 2035; schemes to phase out gas boilers were scrapped and new energy efficiency regulations on rented homes were watered down. She also accepted a £2,000 donation from Michael Hintze, a funder of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, UK’s leading climate science denial pressure group.
6
Liz Truss
Conservative
South West Norfolk
In her recent book, "Ten Years to Save the West", Truss calls for the abolition of the Climate Change Act, and, in an interview with the Telegraph this year, Truss said Prime Minister Rishi Sunak should “drop the UK’s net zero targets”. Truss has argued for increased fossil fuel extraction, and during her premiership ended the moratorium on fracking in the UK. In her book she claims that, while serving in the Treasury, she tried to cancel COP26 in Glasgow. A former Shell staffer (‘96-’00), Truss has close links to climate denial and delay organisations, in particular the Institute of Economic Affairs. Truss has received donations worth more than £100,000 from fossil fuel interests and those who have supported climate science denial. Read more
£100K of her leadership bid funded by former BP executive Fitriani Hay.
Sunak’s family firm Infosys signed
a $1.5 BILLION deal with BP days before announcing new oil and gas licences.
7
Rishi Sunak
Conservative
North Yorkshire
As Prime Minister, Sunak presided over a policy to roll back net zero commitments and issued new North Sea oil and gas licences. The latter led to former Environment Minister Chris Skidmore’s resignation. Sunak's family firm Infosys signed a $1.5bn deal with BP days before the announcement. Onward, an organisation with funding from BP, Shell and Equinor, secured more registered meetings with Sunak’s ministers in 2023 than any other think tank. Co-founder of Onward, Will Tanner, became Sunak’s deputy chief of staff in 2022. In 2023, Sunak praised Policy Exchange, which received $30,000 from oil and gas giant ExxonMobil in 2017, for helping to shape laws that enabled a crackdown on climate protest.
8
Graham Stringer
Labour
Blackley and Middleton South
In 2014 Stringer was one of just two MPs to vote against the Energy and Climate Change Committee’s acceptance of the UN IPCC’s conclusion that humans are the dominant cause of global warming; and also called for the moratorium on fracking to be lifted. Stringer is a director of the climate denying lobbying group Global Warming Policy Foundation. In a BBC Radio 4 interview in 2015, Stringer falsely claimed that there was “no scientific evidence” linking the UK 2013/14 floods to climate change. In 2010, Graham Stringer attended and supported the climate denial event “Climate Fools Day”. Read more.
Stringer is a director of the climate- denying lobbying group Global Warming Policy Foundation.
accepted a donation from Michael Hintze a key funder of climate denial think tank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation.
9
Lee Anderson
Reform UK
Ashfield
Even before he joined Reform, Lee Anderson was part of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group of climate crisis denying Conservative MPs. He called the opening of the proposed new Cumbria coal mine a “win for working people” and argued that coal is “an environmentally friendly fuel” as it had once been made up of trees and plants! Anderson praised the government's decisions to increase fossil fuel expansion. 30p Lee - got the nickname after he suggested constituents could live on 30p a day for food - presents a GB News show for which he is paid £100k a year. Read more.
10
Priti Patel
Conservative
Witham
Claiming that developing countries need fossil fuels, Patel stated in 2018 that “if we want to deliver the Paris Agreement, helping them use fossil fuels more cleanly is the only game in town.” As Home Secretary, Patel repeatedly requested that the police put an end to environmental protest and in 2020 she ordered a review of a law that could designate Extinction Rebellion as an organised crime gang. Also in 2020, Patel registered a donation of £3,000 from Michael Hintze, one of the few known donors of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, and £2,000 from Jon Moynihan, also a GWPF donor.
Introduced new laws to restrict peaceful protest, which threatened people's human and democratic rights.
TOP 10 CLIMATE DENIERS
TOP 10 CLIMATE CHAMPIONS
FARAGE's Reform UK party is 92% funded by fossil fuel interests, climate science deniers and highly polluting industries.
1
NIGEL FARAGE
Reform UK
Clacton
A vocal supporter of Donald Trump’s extreme anti-environmental policies, Farage frequently serves up climate mis- and disinformation on GB News. He has claimed that net zero and energy security are incompatible. He is aiming towards cancelling net zero through a referendum and has falsely suggested that “climate lockdowns” may be imposed. Reform UK has received more than £2.3 million which is 92% of their funds from oil and gas interests, highly polluting industries and climate science deniers since December 2019. This amounts to 92% of the party’s total donations over that time period. Read more
2
Steve Baker
Conservative
Wycombe
Baker is an active and prolific campaigner against net zero and established the Net Zero Scrutiny Group of backbench Conservative MPs in order to water down the Government’s green plans. He is a former trustee of the climate denial thinktank the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Baker has platformed climate delay propaganda and has said that net zero will make the public “colder and poorer”. He has called climate activists “child abusers.” Read more.
While A trustee of the secretive oil-funded Global Warming Policy Foundation, set up the Net Zero Scrutiny Group of MPs to push back on net zero.
Tice frequently challenges settled climate science and advocates for a net zero referendum.
3
Richard Tice
Reform UK
Boston and Skegness
Millionaire Tice is former leader of Reform UK and grandson of a coal mine owner and is behind many climate gaffes as when he told a BBC interviewer the sun and volcanoes are behind climate change. On broadcast media he frequently challenges settled science and is now calling for a “net zero referendum”. Tice’s Reform UK party is itself 92% funded by fossil fuel interests and climate science deniers. When setting out Reform UK’s Emergency Energy Plan, Tice said: “we’ve got to accelerate gas and oil exploration in the North Sea.” Read more
4
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Conservative
North East Somerset
and Hanham
Rees-Mogg has stated that “the current headlong rush to net zero risks impoverishing the nation to no global benefit on emissions”. Last year, he was paid £325k to be a presenter on GB News, which has frequently platformed climate crisis deniers. He has called for environmental land management schemes to be scrapped and, as Energy Minister, expressed enthusiasm to get “every last drop” of oil out of the North Sea”. Rees-Mogg’s firm Somerset Capital Management has held investments worth about £3 million in mining firms, £2.4 million in oil and gas producers, as well as £23 million in tobacco companies. Read more.
referred to the parliamentary standards watchdog for failing to declare himself director of Somerset Capital Management which holds £5.4 million in oil, gas & coal investments.
As Energy Secretary, she accepted a donation from Michael Hintze - a key funder of climate-denial think tank
the Global Warming Policy Foundation.
5
Claire Coutinho
Conservative
East Surrey
Coutinho was appointed as Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero in August 2023 and met with oil and gas representatives twice a week across 2023. Since her appointment, the Conservative government has weakened a number of flagship net zero policies: the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles was pushed back from 2030 to 2035; schemes to phase out gas boilers were scrapped and new energy efficiency regulations on rented homes were watered down. She also accepted a £2,000 donation from Michael Hintze, a funder of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, UK’s leading climate science denial pressure group.
6
Liz Truss
Conservative
South West Norfolk
In her recent book, "Ten Years to Save the West", Truss calls for the abolition of the Climate Change Act, and, in an interview with the Telegraph this year, Truss said Prime Minister Rishi Sunak should “drop the UK’s net zero targets”. Truss has argued for increased fossil fuel extraction, and during her premiership ended the moratorium on fracking in the UK. In her book she claims that, while serving in the Treasury, she tried to cancel COP26 in Glasgow. A former Shell staffer (‘96-’00), Truss has close links to climate denial and delay organisations, in particular the Institute of Economic Affairs. Truss has received donations worth more than £100,000 from fossil fuel interests and those who have supported climate science denial. Read more
£100K of her leadership bid funded by former BP executive Fitriani Hay.
Sunak’s family firm Infosys signed
a $1.5 BILLION deal with BP days before announcing new oil and gas licences.
7
Rishi Sunak
Conservative
North Yorkshire
As Prime Minister, Sunak presided over a policy to roll back net zero commitments and issued new North Sea oil and gas licences. The latter led to former Environment Minister Chris Skidmore’s resignation. Sunak's family firm Infosys signed a $1.5bn deal with BP days before the announcement. Onward, an organisation with funding from BP, Shell and Equinor, secured more registered meetings with Sunak’s ministers in 2023 than any other think tank. Co-founder of Onward, Will Tanner, became Sunak’s deputy chief of staff in 2022. In 2023, Sunak praised Policy Exchange, which received $30,000 from oil and gas giant ExxonMobil in 2017, for helping to shape laws that enabled a crackdown on climate protest.
8
Graham
Stringer
Labour
Blackley and
Middleton South
In 2014 Stringer was one of just two MPs to vote against the Energy and Climate Change Committee’s acceptance of the UN IPCC’s conclusion that humans are the dominant cause of global warming; and also called for the moratorium on fracking to be lifted. Stringer is a director of the climate denying lobbying group Global Warming Policy Foundation. In a BBC Radio 4 interview in 2015, Stringer falsely claimed that there was “no scientific evidence” linking the UK 2013/14 floods to climate change. In 2010, Graham Stringer attended and supported the climate denial event “Climate Fools Day”. Read more.
Stringer is a director of the climate- denying lobbying group Global Warming Policy Foundation.
accepted a donation from Michael Hintze a key funder of climate denial think tank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation.
9
Lee Anderson
Reform UK
Ashfield
Even before he joined Reform, Lee Anderson was part of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group of climate crisis denying Conservative MPs. He called the opening of the proposed new Cumbria coal mine a “win for working people” and argued that coal is “an environmentally friendly fuel” as it had once been made up of trees and plants! Anderson praised the government's decisions to increase fossil fuel expansion. 30p Lee - got the nickname after he suggested constituents could live on 30p a day for food - presents a GB News show for which he is paid £100k a year. Read more.
10
Priti Patel
Conservative
Witham
Claiming that developing countries need fossil fuels, Patel stated in 2018 that “if we want to deliver the Paris Agreement, helping them use fossil fuels more cleanly is the only game in town.” As Home Secretary, Patel repeatedly requested that the police put an end to environmental protest and in 2020 she ordered a review of a law that could designate Extinction Rebellion as an organised crime gang. Also in 2020, Patel registered a donation of £3,000 from Michael Hintze, one of the few known donors of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, and £2,000 from Jon Moynihan, also a GWPF donor.