Nigel Lawson, the founder of the climate science denial group the Global Warming Policy Foundation, has announced that he is stepping down as the groupโs chairman.
Lawson, who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer under Margaret Thatcherโs government, led the UKโs most prominent climate science denial campaign group for a decade.
He announced his resignation at a meeting of the GWPFโs board of trustees during which he said that since establishing the group in 2009, it had become โa prominent force in the climate policy debateโ and that it was now โstronger than everโ.
Lawson, who will turn 87 in March, will remain affiliated to the GWPF as its honorary president.
Launching the GWPF in 2009, Lawson argued in a column in The Times that it was morally wrong to โforce the worldโs poorest countries to cut carbon emissionsโ.
Lawson has repeatedly spread disinformation about climate science in newspaper columns and regular media appearances. In October 2017, the BBC apologised and admitted Lawson โshould have been challengedโ over incorrect statements he made on the BBCโs flagship Today programme.
In October 2018, broadcast regulator Ofcom found that Lawsonโs statement on the Today programme was โneither correct or sufficiently challenged during the interview or subsequently during the programmeโ.
The GWPF said Bernard Donoughue, a life peer in the House of Lords who has been a member of the GWPFโs board of trustees since the groupโs foundation, will replace Lawson as the groupโs chairman.
Donoughue served as a junior minister for the Department of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries under Tony Blairโs government and as a senior advisor to Prime Minister Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan.
Former Prime Minister David Cameron once quoted Donoughueโs objection to the landmark Climate Change Act on cost terms as a reason for the Conservative party to oppose a 2030 decarbonisation target.
The GWPF is based at an office at 55 Tufton Street, near Westminster, which is also home to a host of right-wing liberal organisations and pro-Brexit groups, including the TaxPayersโ Alliance, Leave Means Leave, IFT (previously Institute for Free Trade) and the Centre for Policy Studies.
The GWPF has also announced that economist Ruth Lea will join the groupโs board of trustees. Lea also serves as a regulation fellow for the opaquely-funded right-wing Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) think tank and sits on the advisory council of the low-tax campaign group the TaxPayersโ Alliance, which was founded by Vote Leave CEO Matthew Elliott.
Martin Jacomb, one of the founding members of the GWPFโs board of trustees, is also standing down from his position.
Image credit: Financial Times/Flickr/CC BY 2.0
