Nigel Farage Goes on Pro-Fossil Fuel Rant at Fundraiser for Climate Denial Group

Tickets at the event in Chicago cost up to $50,000 for the chance to have dinner with the Reform UK leader.
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Reform UK leader Nigel Farage speaking at at a โ€œLiberty for Trumpโ€ event at the Graduate Hotel in Tempe, Arizona. Credit: Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage last night called on the U.S. to โ€œdrill baby drillโ€ for more fossil fuels as he headlined an event at a climate science denial group in Chicago, Illinois.

Farage was the keynote speaker at a 40th anniversary fundraising event for the Heartland Institute, a group that has been at the forefront of denying the scientific evidence for man-made climate change.

Farage used his address to bemoan the levels of โ€œnet zero fanaticismโ€ in the UK and U.S. โ€“ criticising yesterdayโ€™s High Court decision to block a new deep coal mine in Cumbria, north west England. He also urged the Heartland Institute to set up in Britain and Europe.

โ€œGive us your wisdom, give us your guidance, give us your discipline. Iโ€™d love to see Heartland on the other side of the pond,โ€ he said.

Heartland received at least $676,000 between 1998 and 2007 from U.S. oil major ExxonMobil. A Union of Concerned Scientists report in 2007 alleged that nearly 40 percent of the total funds received by Heartland Institute from ExxonMobil since 1998 were designated for climate change projects.

Heartland is known โ€œfor its persistent questioning of climate scienceโ€, according to Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, and it has received tens of thousands in donations from foundations linked to the owners of Koch Industries โ€“ a fossil fuel behemoth and a leading sponsor of climate science denial.

Heartland was founded in 1984 and originally worked with tobacco giant Philip Morris to deny the harms caused by smoking. 

During his Heartland speech, Farage reiterated his support for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. โ€œLetโ€™s get Trump back; letโ€™s drill baby drill,โ€ he said at the end of his address.

He claimed that the UKโ€™s efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions doesnโ€™t โ€œmake any bloody difference at allโ€, due to the emissions produced by larger countries like China. He also repeated the misleading claim that โ€œman-made carbon dioxide is only about 3 percent of global, annual production of carbon dioxideโ€.

In fact, human activity has raised theย atmosphereโ€™s carbon dioxideย content by 50 percent in less than 200 years, according to NASA.

Farageโ€™s address was advertised at the top of the Heartland website next to a series of videos rejecting established climate science, with titles including โ€œMedia Lying About Heatwavesโ€ and โ€œCrops LOVE Global Warmingโ€.

Tickets for the event started at $199 and ranged up to $50,000 for a โ€œplatinumโ€ table that included the chance to sit with Farage during dinner.

Nigel Farage speaking at a Heartland Institute fundraiser in Chicago, Illinois, on 13 September 2024. Credit: DeSmog

Farage, who was elected as the MP for Clacton, Essex, in July, has a record of casting doubt on climate science. Reform UK, which he co-founded and now leads, campaigns to scrap the UKโ€™s 2050 net zero target and increase fossil fuel extraction.

The UNโ€™s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the worldโ€™s leading authority on climate science, has warned that climate action has been delayed by โ€œrhetoric and misinformation that undermines climate science and disregards risk and urgencyโ€.

As DeSmog has revealed, Farageโ€™s party received ยฃ2.3 million from fossil fuel interests, polluters and climate deniers between the 2019 general election and the start of the 2024 campaign, equating to 92 percent of its funding. 

โ€œThe interests of Mr Farageโ€™s constituents would be far better served if he stayed at home and talked to them about how to manage the growing damage to households and businesses in the town from rising sea levels and more extreme weather events from climate change,โ€ said Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics. 

As DeSmog has reported, coastal Clacton is particularly at risk from the consequences of rising temperatures, including heavier rainfall and rising sea levels. Mapping from the science-based visualisation platform Climate Central suggests that substantial parts of the constituency will be at risk of yearly flooding even by 2030.

As a result, a majority (68 percent) of voters in Clacton are concerned about the effects of rising temperatures, according to a recent poll by More in Common, and the think tank E3G.

Farageโ€™s Heartland speech was his third trip to the U.S. since being elected to Parliament on 4 July. On 18 July, the MP flew to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to attend the Republican National Convention, saying that he wanted to โ€œsupport my friend Donald Trumpโ€. Farage campaigned in 2016 and 2020 for Trump, who erroneously claimed in a recent interview with X owner Elon Musk that rising sea levels would create โ€œmore oceanfront propertyโ€.

Farage was then paid ยฃ13,000 to speak at the โ€˜Keep Arizona Free Summitโ€™ on 24 August, a libertarian event hosted by the AZ Liberty Network. 

Project 2025 and NatCon

Heartland is one of several groups on the advisory board of Project 2025, a radical, billionaire-funded agenda for a second Trump presidency drawn up by the Heritage Foundation, a U.S. conservative think tank. 

Project 2025, which the Trump campaign has tried to distance itself from, includes plans to scrap flagship climate policies, and turbocharge new fossil fuel production. 

As DeSmog has previously reported, senior Conservative Party politicians have given speeches to the Heritage Foundation in recent years, including current Tory leadership frontrunner Robert Jenrick.

Farage spoke at the Heartland event alongside Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, a conservative Christian arts college in Michigan. 

Arnn is president and founder of the Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank and Project 2025 advisory board member. 

Arnn has also sat on the Heritage Foundationโ€™s board of trustees since 2002. In a speech delivered to the Heritage Foundation and published online in 2010, Arnn suggested that climate scientists were โ€œliarsโ€ and that โ€œglobal warming is a stalking horseโ€ for government control and regulation.  

He was also a signatory to the statement of principles of National Conservatism (NatCon), a right-wing initiative launched last year which aims to coalesce populist figures on both sides of the Atlantic and lists Claremont Institute and Hillsdale College as โ€œsupporting organisationsโ€. 

NatCon held a conference in Brussels in April, which featured talks by Farage, former Conservative home secretary Suella Braverman, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. As DeSmog reported at the time, the event was co-organised by Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), a Hungarian think tank funded by MOL, Hungaryโ€™s oil and gas company. 

Farage has a long history of questioning climate science and green policies. 

In 2015, he told the libertarian website Spiked: โ€œI think wind energy is the biggest collective economic insanity Iโ€™ve seen in my entire life. Iโ€™ve never seen anything more stupid, more illogical, or more irrational.โ€

Speaking on GB News in August 2021, Farage said that he was โ€œvery much an environmentalistโ€ and that he couldnโ€™t โ€œabide things like plastics in our seas, pollution in our rivers.โ€ However, on the issue of climate change, he added: โ€œWhat annoys me though, is this complete obsession with carbon dioxide almost to the exclusion of everything else, the alarmism that comes with it, based on dodgy predictions and science.โ€

The IPCC has stated it is โ€œunequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and landโ€, while scientists at NASA have found that the last 10 years were the hottest on record. Earthโ€™s average surface temperature in 2023 was the warmest since records began in 1880.

The IPCC has also stated that carbon dioxide โ€œis responsible for most of global warmingโ€ since the late 19th century, which has increased the โ€œseverity and frequency of weather and climate extremes, like heat waves, heavy rains, and droughtโ€.

Reform UK, the Heartland Institute, and Larry Arnn were approached for comment.

Author-pic-Amazon-small
Sam is DeSmogโ€™s UK Deputy Editor. He was previously the Investigations Editor of Byline Times and an investigative journalist at the BBC. He is the author of two books: Fortress London, and Bullingdon Club Britain.
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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