Liz Truss Book Calls for Climate Laws to be Abolished and Boasts of Effort to Cancel UK COP Summit

The former prime minister attacks flagship climate deals and makes false claims about electric vehicles, Russiaโ€™s influence on energy policies, and net zero.
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Liz Truss and former Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Asqar Mamin at the COP26 summit in Glasgow. Credit: Karwai Tang/UK Government (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

The new book by former Prime Minister Liz Truss urges the UK, U.S. and EU to drop their landmark climate change laws, spreads falsehoods about green policies, and fondly recalls an attempt to cancel a major climate conference.

Truss, who is the Conservative MP for South West Norfolk, resigned as prime minister in October 2022 after just 49 days in office.

Since leaving 10 Downing Street, Truss has attempted to expose the โ€œdeep stateโ€ forces that allegedly brought down her premiership, while advocating for โ€œfree marketโ€ ideas within the Conservative Party, helping to launch the Popular Conservatives group.

In her book, Ten Years to Save the West, which she is promoting widely this week, Truss writes that โ€œthe zealous drive to net zeroโ€, the UKโ€™s legally binding 2050 climate target, amounts to โ€œunilateral economic disarmamentโ€ and is โ€œa drag on economic growthโ€. She also claims that, while serving in the Treasury, she attempted to cancel the 2021 COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.

Truss writes: โ€œWe should abolish the Climate Change Act and instead adopt a new Climate Freedom Act that enables rather than dictates technologyโ€. She adds that โ€œthe U.S. should reverse the Inflation Reduction Act, and the EU should abandon its equivalent measuresโ€.

The Climate Change Act legalised the UKโ€™s commitment to reducing carbon dioxide emissions by at least 80 percent by 2050 from 1990 levels. The Inflation Reduction Act is a $369 billion package of grants and subsidies by the U.S. government to spur green technology investment. 

Scientists at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have said that without โ€œimmediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectorsโ€ limiting global heating to 1.5C is beyond reach.

Restricting global temperatures to this threshold โ€“ the target agreed by the UK as part of the 2015 Paris Agreement โ€“ would prevent the worst and most irreversible effects of climate change, including floods, droughts, heatwaves, and wildfires.

In the book, Truss also attacks climate advocates, writing that โ€œthe environmental movement is fundamentally driven by the radical leftโ€, adding: โ€œThis โ€˜watermelonโ€™ tendency is green on the outside, red on the inside โ€“ a modern rebranding of socialism. It features the same instincts of collectivism and authoritarianism.โ€

Truss writes that โ€œwe should cancelโ€ the United Nations annual COP climate summit, and falsely claims that electric vehicles are worse for the environment than those powered by fossil fuels.

โ€œIn recent years, more radical forms of climate misinformation and disinformation have become mainstreamedโ€, said Jennie King, director of climate research and policy at the Institute of Strategic Dialogue think tank. โ€œSuch content continues to grow in virality and engagement online, but its impacts are vastly increased when platformed in the media or by politicians.โ€

King said โ€œthe normalisation of wild and outlandish claimsโ€, with climate action โ€œbeing framed through a conspiratorial, tribalist and anti-scientific lensโ€, can lead to โ€œreal-world harmโ€. 

โ€œWhen such ideas are conveyed from the very corridors of power, it sets a dangerous precedentโ€, she added. 

The IPCC warned in 2022 that efforts to tackle climate change were being delayed by โ€œrhetoric and misinformation that undermines climate science and disregards risk and urgencyโ€.

Truss Claims โ€˜Couldnโ€™t be Further from the Truthโ€™

Trussโ€™s book is published by Biteback Publishing, a company owned by former Conservative deputy chair and major party donor Michael Ashcroft. 

The former prime minister dedicates a chapter to green policies, titled โ€˜A Hostile Environmentโ€™, apparently a play on the term used by the Conservative government about its anti-immigration policies

Truss writes that current environmental policies should be scrapped in favour of a โ€œfree marketโ€ approach. On energy, she calls for more fossil fuel extraction, advocating a mix of โ€œoil and gas as well as nuclear and renewablesโ€, adding: โ€œThe use of North Sea oil and gas is crucial, so there needs to be investment in that too. There also should be fracking in the UK.โ€

Fracking for shale gas is a controversial practice that risks causing air, water, and noise pollution.

She fails to mention that oil and gas firms receive major subsidies and tax breaks from the government, which would logically be removed in a โ€œfree marketโ€ energy system. The UK government has given ยฃ20 billion more in support to fossil fuel producers than renewables companies since 2015.

Trussโ€™s book also attacks the multilateral UN COP process, which has seen agreements on transitioning away from fossil fuels, and financial support for poorer countries suffering the worst effects of climate change. 

Truss writes that โ€œwe should cancel the COP gravy trainโ€. She claims that, in 2018, when she was chief secretary to the Treasury, she made โ€œ11th-hour attempts to ditch COP26โ€, the UN climate summit hosted by the UK in 2021, arguing that it was not a spending priority. 

At COP26, nearly 200 countries agreed to ramp up efforts to cut emissions, also calling on wealthy countries to double their funding to poorer nations that have contributed the least to climate change. More than 40 countries also pledged to quit coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel and the worldโ€™s largest source of carbon dioxide emissions.

The book also spreads false claims about climate policies. Truss writes that โ€œin the UK and Europe, Russia has funded anti-fracking campaignsโ€, a claim which is not supported by any evidence.

Truss claims that policies like โ€œthe switch from petrol to diesel in cars or the use of electric vehicles, have either harmed the environment in other ways or empowered our polluting adversaries elsewhere in the worldโ€. 

Colin Walker, head of transport at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit think tank, told DeSmog: โ€œThe notion that the switch to electric vehicles will have little discernible environmental impact, and make us dependent on imported gas and coal, couldnโ€™t be further from the truth.

โ€œThe total lifetime CO2 emissions of an electric vehicle, from being built to being driven, are three times lower than a petrol vehicle โ€“ a figure that will only get higher as our grid becomes cleaner. And while older technologies like petrol cars and gas boilers rely on fossil fuels imported from abroad, EVs and heat pumps can be powered by electricity generated by British wind and solar farms.โ€

Truss also writes of โ€œludicrous claims that pursuing a net zero agenda … will boost the economy and drive growthโ€. 

Walker added: โ€œThe UKโ€™s net zero economy is now worth ยฃ74 billion, and grew by nine percent in 2023.  The wider economy grew just 0.1 percent. Talking down the economic opportunities net zero has to offer the UK is at odds with a growth agenda when the U.S., EU and China are all competing for clean industries.โ€ 

Trussโ€™s Climate Denial Ties

Truss has a long history of opposing climate policies. In the 2022 Conservative Party leadership contest, she attacked solar farms on agricultural land and, during her brief time in 10 Downing Street, she overturned the UKโ€™s ban on fracking. (A policy reversed by her successor, Rishi Sunak.)

As DeSmog reported at the time, Trussโ€™s leadership campaign received ยฃ30,000 from a pro-fracking lobby group, ยฃ10,000 from a climate denial activist, and ยฃ100,000 from the wife of a former BP oil executive. Truss received a further ยฃ5,000 from Lord Vinson, a Tory peer who has provided funding to the UKโ€™s leading climate science denial group, the Global Warming Policy Foundation

Since leaving office, Truss has received ยฃ250,000 in speaking fees, including ยฃ7,600 last April from the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing U.S. think tank that has long promoted climate science denial. Heritage President Kevin Roberts provides a long and glowing blurb for Trussโ€™s book. 

Earlier this year, Truss helped to launch the Popular Conservatives (PopCon), a new initiative run by Truss-ally Mark Littlewood, the former director general of the Institute of Economic Affairs, a think tank which received funding from oil major BP for at least 50 years. 

At the PopCon launch, Truss attacked โ€œnet zero zealotryโ€, claiming voters โ€œdonโ€™t like the net zero policies which are making energy more expensiveโ€.

Additional reporting by Sam Bright

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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