Climate Denial Funder Set to Become Tory Peer

Michael Hintze, an Australian hedge fund manager, will join several other climate sceptics in the House of Lords.
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Michael Hintze in 2011. Credit: Acton Institute, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A Tory donor who has helped fund the UKโ€™s leading climate science denial group is to be made a member of the House of Lords, prompting Green MP Caroline Lucas to call for an โ€œurgentโ€ investigation. 

Billionaire Australian hedge fund manager Michael Hintze, one of the few known funders of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), is set to receive a peerage, according to a Sunday Times report over the weekend.ย ย 

Hintzeโ€™s peerage was criticised by Caroline Lucas as โ€œutter hypocrisyโ€ given the prime ministerโ€™s rhetoric about the need for climate action at last yearโ€™s COP26 UN climate summit.

Speaking to DeSmog, she said the House of Lords Commission must โ€œurgentlyโ€ investigate the appointment of Hintze, who she accused of โ€œfunding the destruction of the planetโ€. 

Hintze will join several other climate sceptic peers in the House of Lords, including GWPF founder Lord Lawson, former GWPF trustees Peter Lilley and Charles Moore, Matt Ridley, who is on the GWPF advisory board, and outspoken climate sceptics Claire Fox and Anne Widdecombe

Former Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre, who presided over years of misleading climate coverage, is reportedly also on his way to the Lords. 

GWPF โ€˜Supportโ€™

Hintze, founder and co-CEO of the global asset management fund CQS, has given ยฃ4.7 million to Conservative causes, including ยฃ50,000 to the Conservative Party in November 2021, according to The Sunday Times

He also donated ยฃ100,000 to the official Brexit campaign, Vote Leave, which was run by Dominic Cummings and fronted by Boris Johnson. 

In 2012, The Guardian reported that Hintze had made reference in an email to his financial support of the GWPF, saying he was โ€œfully committedโ€ and was โ€œsupporting Nigel Lawsonโ€™s initiativeโ€.

The GWPF was founded by former chancellor Lord Lawson in 2009 and is currently part of a campaign against the UKโ€™s 2050 net zero target. In April, the GWPF published a paper claiming that there is โ€œno evidence of a climate crisisโ€. Its campaign arm, Net Zero Watch, published a report in March calling for โ€œrapidโ€ development of oil and gas and a โ€œcompleteโ€ phaseout of renewable energy. 

Hintze also donated to Conservative MPs with a record of opposing green policies ahead of the 2019 general election, including ยฃ2,500 to Andrew Lewer, who is involved in the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, and ยฃ2,000 to Rob Halfon, a supporter of the FairFuelUK campaign against fuel duty. Lewer received a ยฃ500 ticket to the Conservative Partyโ€™s Black and White Ball from Hintze in October 2019.

Hintze is also a trustee of the Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA), a libertarian think tank with a history of criticising government action on climate change. A 2018 Greenpeace Unearthed investigation revealed that the IEA had taken funding from British oil company BP every year since 1967. 

The Hintze connection is one of a number of ties between the GWPF and the IEA. Financier Neil Record chairs both the IEA and the GWPFโ€™s Net Zero Watch campaign, and Lord Nigel Vinson, a โ€œlife vice presidentโ€ of the IEA, is another GWPF donor

โ€˜Utter Hypocrisyโ€™

Caroline Lucas, who last month reported the GWPF to the charity commission over alleged lobbying and its receipt of funding from U.S. interests, told DeSmog: โ€œItโ€™s already an insult to democracy that the Prime Minister is stuffing the House of Lords with his billionaire Tory donors. 

โ€œBut the fact that those billionaires are funding climate denial and delay โ€“ barely six months after he claimed we were at โ€˜one minute to midnightโ€™ in a race to avert the impending climate crisis โ€“ exposes the utter hypocrisy of any climate pledge that comes out of his mouth.โ€

She added: โ€œThe House of Lords Commission must urgently investigate this appointment โ€“ we canโ€™t let the government fill our parliament with people funding the destruction of our planet.โ€

The hedge fund manager is well-known for his philanthropic activities. His ยฃ5 million donation in 2014 to Londonโ€™s Natural History Museum led to its central gallery being  renamed โ€œHintze Hallโ€.

Hintzeโ€™s personal views on climate change are unclear. Bloomberg News has reported that his foundationโ€™s website โ€“ which no longer appears to be online โ€“  said he  cares โ€œdeeplyโ€ about the environment and believes global warming is real. 

The website said Hintze believes it is โ€œhighly likelyโ€ that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is โ€œin partโ€ caused by human activity, but, as Bloomberg paraphrases, โ€œit is too simplistic to only focus on carbon dioxide emissions as a cause of environmental damageโ€. 

Michael Hintze, CQS, the GWPF and the Conservative Party did not respond when contacted for comment. 

Adam Barnett - new white crop
Adam Barnett is DeSmog's UK News Reporter. He is a former Staff Writer at Left Foot Forward and BBC Local Democracy Reporter.
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Rachel is an investigative researcher and reporter based in Brussels. Her work has been covered by outlets including The Guardian, Vice News, The Financial Times and The Hill.

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