In the months leading up to Badenoch’s announcement that she would no longer be supporting net zero targets, the Tories received significant donations from individuals with fossil fuel interests, as well as the chair of a leading anti-climate campaign group.
The Tory party is up for sale! It’s been revealed that party leader, Kemi Badenoch, decided to scrap its commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050 after receiving donations from oil investors and climate sceptics.
After its worst defeat in its Parliamentary history last year, the Tories have continuously lurched further to the right, pandering to its right-wing base by criticising and attacking net zero policies.
It’s now been revealed by journalist Sam Bright that The Conservative Party scrapped a key climate commitment in the same period that it received £250,000 from oil investors and climate science deniers.
In the months leading up to Badenoch’s announcement that she would no longer be supporting net zero targets, the Tories received significant donations from individuals with fossil fuel interests, as well as the chair of a leading anti-climate campaign group.
Sam Bright states in his substack: “New Electoral Commission records released today show that the Tories accepted £50,000 in January from Neil Record, who provided funding and office space to Badenoch’s leadership campaign last year.
“Record is the chair of Net Zero Watch – the campaign arm of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), the UK’s foremost climate science denial group. The GWPF regularly contradicts even the most basic climate science, suggesting that CO2 emissions are “not pollution”.
It should be pointed out that Record was also former chair of the Institute of Economic Affairs, the right-wing think tank which provided the blueprint for many of the disastrous ideas contained in Liz Truss’ mini-budget.
Electoral commission records also show that the Tories accepted £117,600 from Alasdair Locke, who made his fortune in the oil industry as well as £75,000 from Lord Michael Spencer, a billionaire financier and former party treasurer who’s an investor in two fossil fuel companies.
DeSmog has previously reported that Spencer’s company, Deltic Energy, in which he was the largest shareholder, was awarded two new North Sea exploration licences by the last Tory government.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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