Speaking to an audience in Washington DC last week, Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch declared that the conservative desire to “protect the natural world” had been “hacked, replaced by a radical green absolutism”. 

“Looking after our planet became an exclusive discussion about net zero and reducing emissions, and alongside it the growth of activist government to regulate it,” she said. 

Badenoch was giving the keynote speech at the centre-right International Democracy Union (IDU) Forum on 5 December. According to her team, she was in the U.S. to build ties with the Republican Party following the election of Donald Trump as the next president.

In keeping with her speech, the new friends that Badenoch spent time with during the trip – vice president elect JD Vance, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, and Canadian Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre – have spread climate science denial and received funding from the fossil fuel industry. 

Badenoch describes herself as a “net zero sceptic” and has suggested that the UK’s 2050 target for achieving net zero emissions would “bankrupt the country”. As DeSmog has reported, her political advisors have attacked the UK’s climate goals, and her campaign for Tory leader was backed by Neil Record, chair of Net Zero Watch, an arm of the Global Warming Policy Foundation climate denial group. 

Her ministers Priti Patel and Robert Jenrick have ties to the Heritage Foundation, the U.S. think tank behind the Project 2025 blueprint for a second Trump term, which proposes the rollback of climate policies and environmental protections. 

Here’s what you need to know about Badenoch’s new anti-green allies.

JD Vance

Badenoch reportedly had an hour-long dinner with vice president elect JD Vance, during which they “renewed their friendship”.

Vance has a history of dismissing human-caused climate change. In 2021, he told the American Leadership Forum, a U.S. Christian group: “I’m skeptical of the idea that climate change is caused purely by man”. He added: “It’s been changing, as others pointed out, it’s been changing for millennia.”

During this year’s U.S. presidential election, Vance repeatedly attacked the Biden administration’s climate policies as “the Green new scam”. 

Former venture capitalist Vance received a total of $352,000 (around £276,000) from the fossil fuel industry between 2019 and 2024, according to campaign finance database OpenSecrets. 

Ron DeSantis

The Tory leader also met with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who ran to be the Republican nominee for president this year.

DeSantis, who endorsed Badenoch to be Conservative leader, has described climate change as a “religion” and has passed laws to curb action to tackle it. 

In October, when asked about the role of climate change in two hurricanes off the Florida Gulf Coast, DeSantis said: “I don’t subscribe to your religion.” 

Hurricanes are fuelled by warmer waters, meaning that more devastating hurricanes are directly linked to rising temperatures. Consequently, as the Florida Climate Center has pointed out: “A larger proportion of storms have reached major hurricane strength in recent years, along with an increase in rapid intensification events.”

DeSantis went on to defend the continued extraction of fossil fuels, saying climate action would involve: “Taxing [people] to smithereens, stopping oil and gas, making people pay dramatically more for energy; we would collapse as a country.”

Earlier this year, DeSantis signed a bill into law that would delete references to climate change from all state legislation. In May he posted on X in support of the bill: “Florida rejects the designs of the left to weaken our energy grid [and] pursue a radical climate agenda”.

Mike Johnson

Badenoch also reportedly met with Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives. 

In 2017, Johnson told a public meeting with constituents: “I am not a big proponent of the climate change data because I have seen data on the other side.” 

He added: “The climate is changing, but the question is, is climate changing because of natural cycles in the atmosphere over the span of history, or is it changing because we drive SUVs? I don’t believe in the latter. I don’t think that’s the primary driver.”

In reality, authors working for the world’s foremost climate science body, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), have said that “it is a statement of fact, we cannot be any more certain; it is unequivocal and indisputable that humans are warming the planet”.

The IPCC has also stated that carbon dioxide “is responsible for most of global warming” since the late 19th century, which has increased the “severity and frequency of weather and climate extremes, like heat waves, heavy rains, and drought” – all of which “will put a disproportionate burden on low-income households and thus increase poverty levels.”

Johnson has repeatedly voted against action to tackle rising temperatures, including laws that would require oil and gas companies to disclose the climate risks of their activities, while supporting cuts to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

He has also received around $240,000 (more than £118,000) in campaign donations from the oil and gas industry, according to OpenSecrets. 

Pierre Poilievre

Badenoch’s North American trip also saw her visit Toronto, where she met with Pierre Poilievre, leader of the Canadian Conservative Party. 

Declaring that conservative leaders in Canada and the UK were “uniting over shared values”, Badenoch posted on X calling Poilievre “an impressive and thoughtful figure” and “a new friend and ally”. 

As DeSmog reported in March, Poilievre has voted against climate and environmental legislation nearly 400 times during his parliamentary career. 

Poilievre has also campaigned against a carbon tax in Canada, and has supported Canadian oil and gas extraction, calling it “the most ethical and environmentally sound in the world”.

The Free Press

Badenoch also recorded a podcast with The Free Press, a conservative platform which has published attacks on climate science and action. 

In 2022, it ran an article by climate crisis denier Michael Shellenberger arguing that the West’s “green delusions”, and its attempts to transition away from fossil fuels, had “empowered” Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin. 

In September 2023, the platform published an article by U.S. scientist Patrick Brown, who heads a climate unit at Shellenberger’s Breakthrough Institute, claiming he had been pressured by Nature magazine to make a paper on wildfires fit a climate change “narrative” – claims rejected by the magazine and other scientists.