The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) – the anti-state, anti-climate pressure group – received more than £640,000 from fossil fuel companies and Rupert Murdoch’s media conglomerate between 1957 and 2005, DeSmog can reveal.

Archive records seen by DeSmog show that the group, which has campaigned for more fossil fuel extraction and against government climate action, received more than £150,000 from BP, £124,000 from Esso (owned by ExxonMobil), and £106,000 from Shell.

In total, the IEA accepted £479,992 from oil and gas firms, with the majority (£357,063) coming from 1991 onwards. These fossil fuel giants were among the biggest corporate contributors to the IEA during the period, according to DeSmog’s analysis.

Greenpeace’s investigative outlet Unearthed previously revealed that the IEA had received funding from BP every year from 1967 to 2018, while the IEA also received a £21,000 grant from ExxonMobil in 2005.

However, the IEA does not publicly disclose its donors and this is the first time that its historic funding sources have been revealed in detail – exposing the financial interests that helped the group to become an influential force in British politics.

“This investigation confirms one of the worst-kept secrets in Westminster,” said Ami McCarthy, Greenpeace UK’s head of politics. “This self-styled economic think tank is really a lobbying shop for the harmful and polluting industries that fund it, with fossil fuel giants chief among them.”

McCarthy added that the IEA “spent years downplaying the climate crisis while taking loads of cash from some of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies and one of its most influential climate sceptics, Rupert Murdoch.”

The IEA is part of the Tufton Street network – an orchestrated alliance of radical right-wing groups based in Westminster that lobby to dismantle state services and privatise public bodies. These groups share an opposition to climate action, and have spent decades undermining the scientific consensus behind policies to reduce emissions.

The IEA has also been a prominent advocate for increased fossil fuel extraction. It has called for the ban to be lifted on fracking for shale gas, labelling it the “moral and economic choice”, has lambasted the government for banning new North Sea oil and gas licences, and has celebrated the Conservative Party’s pledge to scrap the 2008 Climate Change Act, which forms the legal basis of the UK’s 2050 net zero target.

DeSmog can also reveal that the IEA received £164,667 in donations from News International – Murdoch’s UK media stable – between 1991 and 2000. This is the first time that one of Murdoch’s companies has been found to have donated to a UK pressure group.

According to David McKnight in Murdoch’s Politics, News International was “deeply involved” with the IEA during this period, with its co-founder Lord Harris of High Cross (Ralph Harris) acting as a director of Murdoch’s Times Newspapers Holdings from 1988 to 2001, and the Sunday Times co-publishing several pamphlets with the IEA.

News International was rebranded in 2013 to News UK and currently owns The Times, Sunday Times, Times Radio, The Sun, TalkTV, talkSport, and Virgin Radio UK.

Murdoch has described himself as a climate change “sceptic”, has given a prominent platform to fossil fuel advocates and narratives, and has been described by leading scientists as a “climate villain”.

His media outlets have also favourably covered IEA findings and narratives, including those calling on the government to ditch climate targets and ramp up fossil fuel extraction, and have given a regular platform to the group’s senior staff members.

“This revelation confirms what many of us suspected: the fossil fuel industry has weaponised its profits to exert undue influence over the policy agenda, through organisations like the IEA,” said Labour MP Clive Lewis. “Without checks on corporate power, the health of our democracy is undermined – and this is one such example.”

Robert Palmer, deputy director of the campaign and research group Uplift, said: “These historic payments give us a window into the enormous fossil fuel lobby that has spent decades trying to shape our politics and media to increase their profits and strip back regulation, regardless of the harm to ordinary people and the natural world.

“Today, the costs to the rest of us are obvious: we have an energy system that impoverishes people through unaffordable bills, as well as mounting climate costs, whether that’s flooded homes, rising food prices or extreme heat and wildfires.

“Thankfully, the influence of the oil and gas companies and their proxies is starting to wane in this country as we shift to renewable energy. People increasingly realise that the oil and gas giants want us – our resources and money – a lot more than we need them.”

The IEA and BP declined to comment. Shell and ExxonMobil did not respond on the record.

The IEA’s Political Influence

The IEA and its Tufton Street counterparts have been effective in shaping political debate and persuading politicians to adopt their causes.

The group is close to former UK prime minister Liz Truss, with former IEA director-general Mark Littlewood claiming in 2022 that Truss had spoken at IEA events more than “any other politician over the past 12 years”.

Despite the economic turmoil caused by Truss’ policies – which former Downing Street advisor Tim Montgomerie claimed had been “incubated” by the IEA – its spokespeople are still regularly given a platform by the BBC and other mainstream media channels. The IEA claimed it was featured in the media over 5,000 times in the year to March 2024 – equivalent to 14 times a day.

In its 2022 annual accounts, the group stated that “the diversification of the UK broadcast landscape, notably the launch of GB News and TalkTV, has increased opportunities for IEA commentary”. GB News and Murdoch-owned TalkTV launched in 2021 and 2022 respectively, and have regularly promoted climate science denial.

The IEA also remains influential within the Conservative Party. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch’s head of policy, Victoria Hewson, is the former head of regulatory affairs at the IEA – a position she held from 2018 to 2022.

In July 2022, Hewson wrote an article for the IEA’s website in which she called the UK’s net zero target a “huge own goal”. Since Hewson’s appointment, Badenoch has ditched the Conservative Party’s commitment to the 2050 target.

Former Brexit minister Lord David Frost was announced as the IEA’s new director-general in November. Frost, who resigned the Conservative whip on accepting the position, is a former director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) – the UK’s most prominent climate science denial group, based in 55 Tufton Street – and is currently a director of its campaign arm, Net Zero Watch.

A number of IEA donors are connected to both the Conservative Party and the GWPF. Tory donors Nigel Vinson, Lord Michael Hintze, and Lord Jon Moynihan have all donated to both the IEA and the GWPF.

Neil Record, one of Badenoch’s closest allies and donors, is the chair of Net Zero Watch, and the life vice president of the IEA.

The Charity Commission, which regulates the sector, concluded an investigation into the IEA in November – calling on the group to be more transparent and less politically biased.

The IEA is registered as a charity, and the regulator states that “political activity must not become the reason for the charity’s existence.”

Guy Shrubsole, environmental campaigner and author of The Lie of the Land, said: “British politics is infested with well-paid lobbyists like the IEA, who incessantly shriek for deregulation, clamour to keep us hooked on fossil fuels and desperately want to frack Britain. They hardly ever disclose their funders, and claim to be impartial.

“But this groundbreaking investigation reveals that the IEA has been paid nearly half a million pounds by fossil fuel corporations. Astonishingly, the IEA is a registered charity, but it’s clear that the rules around charities disclosing their funders aren’t tough enough. Nor do broadcasters do enough to point out whose interests these lobbyists parrot.”

The Murdoch Media

Rupert Murdoch’s media titles – including those in the UK – have a long history of publishing climate science denial.

The Sun, Murdoch’s UK tabloid newspaper, has regularly given a platform to radical anti-climate opinions. TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson claimed in his Sun column in November 2024 that the new Labour government planned to “carpet bomb our farmland with new towns for immigrants and net zero windfarms”.

Writing in The Sun, right-wing commentator Rod Liddle has referred to Extinction Rebellion climate protestors as “narcissists and bedwetters”.

According to an analysis by campaign group Stop Funding Heat, Murdoch’s TalkTV spread climate misinformation 190 times in July this year – an average of six times a day – with interviews and call-ins peppered with science denial.

Murdoch has himself commented on climate issues in recent years. In 2024, the media mogul said in an interview with Sky News Australia – a platform he owns – that the Global North is “absolutely on the wrong track” in trying to reach net zero emissions by 2050. “You’re going to have blackouts, the cost of living will go up all over the world,” he predicted.

In reality, scientific studies have suggested that runaway climate change could reduce global GDP by 24 percent by the end of this century.

IEA staff members and fellows are also regular guests on TalkTV. Interviewed by climate science denier Julia Hartley-Brewer in July, IEA chief operating officer Andy Mayer called the government’s net zero policies an “obsession”, while Hartley-Brewer said they were a “cult”.

Back in 2023, Mayer appeared on TalkTV to defend the record profits made by BP and Shell, saying that “we should celebrate the fact that when these companies do well, we all benefit and – when they do poorly – their shareholders are the ones taking the hit.”

He was also quoted in The Times the same year slamming the windfall tax imposed by the Conservatives on these profits, saying that the policy “will continue to make Britain less competitive and destroy investment”, and slamming the government for what he called an “assault on the North Sea”.

A year earlier, in 2022, Mayer was quoted in The Sun criticising Labour’s plan to set up the public energy investment company Great British Energy, which is focused on stoking investment in renewable power, predicting it would be “a disaster”.

“This is both shocking and yet somehow unsurprising,” said Mic Wright, author of Breaking: How the Media Works, When it Doesn’t and Why it Matters. “Think tanks and the right-wing press have been in a codependent relationship for decades, cooperating to present a skewed vision of the country and the wider world.

“The fact that Rupert Murdoch’s company bankrolled the IEA is just further evidence that his media properties aren’t just observers and commentators on events but players in them.”

Anti-climate narratives have also been a feature of the Murdoch media empire’s output across the globe.

According to an analysis by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, climate denial claims “dominated” 86 percent of climate change segments on Fox News – Murdoch’s U.S. broadcaster – in 2019.

As far back as 2013, Fox News was accused of being a “driving force behind global warming denial”, with Fox claiming that CO2 “literally” cannot cause warming because it doesn’t “mix well in the atmosphere”.

In 2023, Dr Joëlle Gergis, a climate scientist at Australian National University, said of Murdoch: “It’s hard to think of another person who has single-handedly done more to muddy the public’s understanding of climate change.”

News UK told DeSmog: “News UK and News Corp have made significant progress in reducing their own emissions and environmental impact, reducing Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 65 percent by 2023, significantly ahead of target.”

It did not address its donations to the IEA, nor its platforming of anti-climate narratives.

The IEA’s History

Founded by Antony Fisher and Lord Harris in 1955, the IEA became influential in the UK during the 1980s, with the neoliberal economist Milton Friedman claiming that “the U-turn in British policy executed by Margaret Thatcher owes more to him [Fisher] than any other individual.”

Thatcher, who served as Conservative prime minister from 1979 to 1990, carried out the privatisation of several key public utilities and industries, accompanied by tax cuts and the curbing of trade union power.

The IEA is a member of Atlas Network, a Washington-based umbrella organisation that supports hundreds of anti-government groups around the world, including several that spread climate science denial.

Atlas has been accused of spearheading global efforts to brand climate activists as “extremists”, while DeSmog revealed that the group was paid tens of thousands of dollars by oil major ExxonMobil to stoke doubt about climate change among developing nations during critical early moments of climate diplomacy.

Both the IEA and Atlas were founded by Fisher while his daughter, Linda Whetstone, was chair of Atlas Network and a director of the IEA until her death in December 2021.

The IEA has also fostered the development of likeminded groups worldwide. The IEA claims that it has “played an active role in developing similar institutions across the globe. Today there exists a world-wide network of over 100 institutions in nearly 80 countries. All are independent but share in the IEA’s mission.”

Katrina McDonnell, campaigns manager at Good Law Project told DeSmog: “Time and again, we see the same pattern: fossil fuel giants quietly funding organisations that shape our political debates. These new records show that the IEA’s ‘independence’ was bankrolled by the very companies driving the climate crisis.

“The public deserves transparency about who is influencing policy in this country – and whose interests they really serve.”