The Conservative Party’s shadow energy minister has backed a report attacking green policies written by a fossil fuel analyst who has close ties to climate science denial groups.

On Monday, Lord Offord of Garvel helped to launch the report through a private event in Parliament.

Authored by energy consultant Kathryn Porter and entitled ‘The True Affordability of Net Zero’, the paper claims that the cost of cutting emissions to net zero is higher than previously reported, and is falling harder on consumers through “green levies” on energy bills.

Porter’s report provides a “misleading picture of power generation,” said Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics. 

Her pamphlet ignores “the true costs of natural gas, which are the main reason homes and businesses are paying high electricity prices,” he added.

“For instance, nowhere does the report say that the government paid £54 billion of taxpayers’ money to cap energy bills when the price of gas rocketed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

Porter’s essay also treats “the Warm Home Discount as an environmental levy when in fact it is paid to low-income households to help them pay for their heating,” Ward said.

According to Porter’s website Watt-Logic, she works for businesses with projects “across the electricity, gas and oil industries”.

These include clients with “conventional energy assets” including “gas-fired power stations, gas storage, upstream oil and gas production and [Liquid Natural Gas]”.

Porter has written blogs that contradict basic climate science. In a 2017 post, she wrote that “climate models overstate global warming”. In fact, climate models have accurately predicted global temperature rises, with observed warming reflecting scientific forecasts.

In a post on X.com in January, Porter attacked what she called an “excessive focus on CO2” in energy policy, and in February she suggested the UK’s landmark Climate Change Act should be repealed.

Porter has also written several reports for the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), which has suggested that CO2 emissions are “not pollution” and instead could be a “benefit to the planet”, and its campaign arm Net Zero Watch.

Lord Offord regularly speaks out against climate policies, mirroring his party’s increasingly hostile stance towards clean energy.

In a House of Lords debate about climate change earlier this month, he attacked the government’s “dogmatic” approach and called for Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband to “drill, Mili, drill” for gas in the UK – echoing a slogan used by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer recently said: “home grown clean energy is in the DNA of my government”, as he pledged to accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to renewable power. While the UK’s oil and gas reserves are dwindling, the country’s green economy grew by 10 percent in 2024.

Despite being a public critic of the government’s net zero policies, Offord appears to acknowledge their economic merit, and has financial interests in the green economy. He is the co-owner of Badenoch Investments, a family firm with a “particular interest” in “renewable and sustainable energy, products and technologies”, according to its website.

Offord also has shares worth at least £100,000 in AirSensa, a company which provides data to track air pollution. The AirSensa website states that “pollution is the greatest environmental cause of disease and premature death in the world.”

Badenoch’s Backtrack

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch ditched her party’s commitment to net zero in March, calling the 2050 target “impossible” – despite having supported it while a minister.

Badenoch’s campaign for Tory leader last year was supported by Neil Record, chair of Net Zero Watch. Record made a £10,000 donation to Badenoch’s campaign, allowed his London home to be used as her campaign headquarters, and hosted Badenoch, her team, and her family at his Gloucestershire estate in February.

The Conservative Party has growing financial and institutional ties to climate science denial groups. As revealed by DeSmog, the party has received at least £7.2 million from GWPF funders or directors over the past 20 years.

In January, Conservative shadow energy security and net zero secretary Claire Coutinho publicly suggested that Porter and Net Zero Watch director Andrew Montford should be invited to scrutinise the government’s climate policies.

Porter – who is a regular energy commentator on the BBC – has been a vocal critic of the Labour administration on social media, recently claiming that “Labour seems to hate the UK”.

Porter’s new report was promoted in The Telegraph newspaper, which regularly attacks climate policy, and Unherd, a website owned by hedge fund manager and fossil fuel investor Paul Marshall, who has backed anti-green initiatives like the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) and GB News.

The Telegraph coverage quoted John Constable, “director of the Renewable Energy Foundation”, who is an advisory board member and former energy editor at the GWPF.

Porter said on X that the report launch was “attended by MPs, peers and members of the energy community as well as the press”.

She added: “It’s time for a more honest debate about the true costs of net zero. I hope this report can inform some of that discussion.”

Harvinder Hungin, the chair of AirSensa, told DeSmog: “Badenoch is an investment firm founded by Lord Offord but in which he now has no operational role and has not had some years. The firm has not made any investments in renewables and has no plans to do so.”

He added: “Lord Offord is not a co-owner of AirSensa but has a small shareholding of 1 percent.”

Porter and Lord Offord were approached for comment.