Why Are Climate Deniers Campaigning for Britain to Leave the EU?

R2uAVsWy_400x400
on

Climate change deniers are quickly becoming some of Britainโ€™s most vocalย Eurosceptics.

Prominent climate deniers including Matt Ridley, Owen Paterson, Lord Lawson, and James Delingpoleย join the roughly 50 per cent of the British public who are in favour of the UK leaving the Europeanย Union.

Last spring, Prime Minister David Cameron promised in his Conservative Party election manifestoย to hold a referendum on the UKโ€™s membership in the EU. It is expected that an in-out referendum will be held before the endย ofย 2017.

But what does this group of anti-greens stand to gain from a โ€˜Brexitโ€™? Does the UK leaving the EU simply fall in line with their general politics, or is there a more specific โ€˜brownโ€™ agenda atย play?

โ€œItโ€™s really ideological,โ€ saidย Nick Mabey, chief executive ofย E3G, a non-profit organisation focused on driving climate policy: โ€œThe package of what they see as internationalist, left-wing state intervention โ€“ which is a caricature of what climate policy is and why they donโ€™t likeย it.โ€

Winterย Flooding

The group kicked off the New Year with a deluge of articles blaming the EU for the unprecedented winter flooding across the country. According to the Met Office it was the UK‘sย wettest December on record.

But according toย James Delingpole, a former Telegraph blogger, climate change did not cause the flooding. Writing in The Sun on New Yearโ€™s Eve, he blamed the โ€œBrussels bureaucrats who, driven by lunatic green ideology, have made illegal the measures that might have prevented flooding.โ€ Namely,ย dredging.

Coal baron and Times columnist Matt Ridley chimed in on 4 January, with an article titled โ€œDonโ€™t Blame Climate Change For These Floodsโ€. Like Delingpole, he pointed to the EU Water Framework Directive which prohibits governments from dredgingย rivers.

This was followed by former environment secretary Owen Paterson who presented the same argument on BBC Radio Four, saying that leaving the EU will help protect the country from flood damage. During the 2014 flooding Paterson was criticised by the then environment shadow secretary Maria Eagle for letting his climate denial ‘blind him’ to the dangers of future flooding.

These articles come at the same time as Ridley and Paterson announced they had joined the group Business for Britain which launched a campaign on 6 January in north east England for the UKโ€™s exit from the EU.

These arenโ€™t the first climate deniers to launch a Brexit campaign however. They join Lord Lawson, ex-chancellor and head of the climate denying Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), who announced in Octoberย that he would lead the Conservative campaign to leave theย EU.

Itโ€™s not just climate deniers though but also their funders who support a British exit from the EU. Last November the Financial Times reported Michael Hintze, a known funder of the GWPF, was โ€œclose to donating a large sum to the EU Outย campโ€.

And donโ€™t forget UKIPโ€™s Nigel Farage โ€“ famous for saying he hasย โ€œno ideaโ€ about climate changeย โ€“ who has alsoย given his support to the Grassroots Outย campaign group, which plans to target โ€œordinaryโ€ voters in the lead up to theย referendum. But this isnโ€™t surprising given UKIPโ€™s raison dโ€™รชtre: fighting for UK independence. UKIP is also the only party to wholesale reject the idea that humans are impacting theย climate.

โ€œItโ€™s very counterproductive for the Out Campaign to have so many prominent climate deniers signing up to them because actually the majority of people in the UK are not climate deniers and it damages the [campaign] to have such prominent climate deniers in the anti-Europe camp,โ€ arguesย Mabey.

โ€œMost people in the UK believe that climate change is happening and it needs to be solved, and they think itโ€™s more important than Europe if you look at the polling,โ€ he continued. โ€œSo, in a sense, if I was running the Out Campaign I would be trying to persuade these people not to speak out because they poison the swing groups they need to capture to win theย debate.โ€

โ€œItโ€™s not exactly an endorsement of whether you can trust the facts that they come [up] with onย Europe.โ€

Scepticย Psychology

So how does this connection between climate deniers and Euroscepticism work on a psychologicalย level?

As Kris De Meyer from the Department of Informatics at King’s College London explained: โ€œThe majority of policy solutions under discussion to tackle climate change โ€“ international treaties or top-down government interventions โ€“ and the types of policies that appear to come from the EU โ€“ top-down regulations โ€“ have this in common: they can be perceived as threatening values of individual freedom, economic (market) freedom, or the sovereignty of nationalย governments.โ€

This can be seen for example in Delingpoleโ€™s article when he โ€œplays the card of national sovereignty under threat to reject both climate change and the European Union,โ€ says De Meyer. It is โ€œFar easier to blame ‘climate change’ than our unelected masters in Brussels,โ€ writesย Delingpole.

This view is also expressed in a Newcastle Chronicle article by Ridley in which he writes: โ€œUnelected EU judges have far too much power over our daily lives. If we vote to leave we can end the supremacy of EUย law.โ€

โ€œPeopleโ€™s prior opinions and values colour how we make decisions and evaluate new information,โ€ De Meyer said. โ€œWhen new information jars with our opinions and values, itโ€™s as if we ask ourselves โ€˜Must I believeย this?โ€™.โ€

โ€œThis means that we are often too unquestioning in accepting arguments that support our worldview, and that we try hard to find fault with arguments when they donโ€™t support our worldview. Over a longer time, this process of evaluating information differently can strongly polarise public and politicalย debates.โ€

He continued: โ€œRidley, Paterson, Delingpole, and Lawson will be, to different degrees, driven by a perception of threats to these values of individual/market/national liberty, and hence make different but sometimes overlapping arguments for rejecting both [climate change and the EU].โ€

Climateย Policy

There is, however, another lingering question: is this just ideological, or would the climate-Eurosceptics see the bonus of a weakening in UK environmental policy if we left the EU?

Many argue that the impact of Brexit on UK climate policy would be a negative one. โ€œThe first thing is it would massively reduce UK influence on the world to determine climate change,โ€ saidย Mabey.

For example, Mabey anticipates that Brexit would lead to a battle over the Climate Change Act. The Act doesnโ€™t require the UK to be part of Europe to exist however many would argue that on the grounds of competitive-ness, the targets within the Climate Change Act should beย weakened.

This is something the Institute of Economic Affairs has long been arguing. (The free market think tank has been instrumental in building up British climate denial.) And, shortly after the Paris climate conference Benny Peiser, director of the GWPF, wrote an op-ed arguing this sameย point.

โ€œPolitically it would generate huge pressure to water down the UKโ€™s role,โ€ said Mabey, โ€œand basically move [the UK] more to a completely free-ridingย position.โ€

Of course, itโ€™s likely that Europe would insist the UK adopt EU environmental laws anyway in order to ensure future trade access agreements into the European markets he added. But, being outside the EU would mean the UK wouldnโ€™t have the ability to influence these regulationsย anymore.

And, while leaving the EU would in theory give the UK freedom to set its own standards and regulations, and in doing so could choose strong targets โ€“ say for fisheries or setting a carbon tax โ€“ the question remains whether this would work inย practice.

Remember, the UK used to be known as the โ€˜dirty man of Europeโ€™ โ€“ those in power at the time were not strong on environmental issues and it was the EU that pushed the UK to step up. โ€œWe look at it now and I donโ€™t think the elite is particularly green, not as green as the public, so in the end itโ€™s unlikely thereโ€™ll be โ€“ outside Scotland and Wales probably โ€“ huge pressures,โ€ said Mabey. โ€œThey wonโ€™t be pushing for higher regulation even if potentially theyย could.โ€

Photo: Dave Kellam viaย Flickr

R2uAVsWy_400x400
Kyla is a freelance writer and editor with work appearing in the New York Times, National Geographic, HuffPost, Mother Jones, and Outside. She is also a member of the Society for Environmental Journalists.

Related Posts

on

The worldโ€™s largest advertising and public relations firms continue to get the majority of their work from major polluters, a new report has found. Known as the โ€œBig Six,โ€ WPP, Omnicom, Interpu...
on

Unique collaboration convenes leaders from the global climate and trauma healing movements to explore the neglected inner dimensions of the crisis.

Unique collaboration convenes leaders from the global climate and trauma healing movements to explore the neglected inner dimensions of the crisis.
Analysis
on

The new Labour government is pledging billions to support projects based on climate-heating natural gas.

The new Labour government is pledging billions to support projects based on climate-heating natural gas.
Analysis
on

Alongside other European powers, the UK is helping to supercharge Saudi Arabiaโ€™s attempt to hijack the global sustainability agenda.

Alongside other European powers, the UK is helping to supercharge Saudi Arabiaโ€™s attempt to hijack the global sustainability agenda.