Revealed:
top UK thinktank spent decades undermining climate science
Institute
of Economic Affairs has links to 14 members of Boris Johnson’s cabinet
How vested
interests tried to turn the world against climate science
David Pegg
and Rob Evans
Thu 10 Oct
2019 16.00 BSTLast modified on Thu 10 Oct 2019 17.42 BST
The UK’s
most influential conservative thinktank has published at least four books, as
well as multiple articles and papers, over two decades suggesting manmade
climate change may be uncertain or exaggerated.
The
Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) has issued publications arguing climate change
is either not significantly driven by human activity or will be positive. The
group is one of the most politically influential thinktanks in the UK, and
boasts that 14 members of Boris Johnson’s cabinet, including the home
secretary, foreign secretary and chancellor, have been associated with the
group’s past and current initiatives.
Despite a
longstanding international consensus among climatologists that human activity
is accelerating climate change, the IEA’s publications throughout the 1990s and
2000s heavily suggested climate science was unreliable or exaggerated. In
recent years the group has focused more on free-market solutions to reducing
carbon emissions.
The IEA
said it did not take a corporate position on any policy matter. It said the
majority of the publications identified by the Guardian predated most of its
current staff.
Its first
book on climate science was published in 1994. Referring to a “so-called
scientific ‘consensus’” on global heating, its foreword suggested the public
had been “taken in” by media coverage of climate change and that investing
resources in studying the subject was wasteful.
“An
alternative course of action would be to expose the shoddiness of the
apocalyptic predictions,” the foreword continued. “Unfortunately, governments
cannot be expected to undertake this task. Hence it is left to private
individuals and institutions to try to breach the barriers to the dissemination
of good news … this IEA study is one such attempt.”
The book
was also the first of several IEA publications to suggest that increased
atmospheric CO2 would be beneficial, because it would result in “increased crop
yields and reduced water requirements of plants”.
Three years
later the group published a book of essays called Climate Change: Challenging
the Conventional Wisdom that described climate scientists as having established
a “false consensus”.
“Estimates
by some of the world’s most respected climate scientists suggest that even if a
warming of 2 degrees centigrade does occur the impact on humankind will not be
catastrophic,” the group said. “Indeed agricultural productivity is likely to
increase in many parts of the world, due to longer growing seasons and
increases in uptake of CO2.”
The
scientific consensus suggests the likely impacts of global heating will in fact
be overwhelmingly detrimental to agriculture, largely because of the increased
frequency of extreme weather events.
The group
has also hosted a series of shorter papers, articles and blogs questioning
climate science, including an article celebrating “20 years denouncing the
eco-militants” in 2013, and blogposts recycling allegations of academic fraud
against climate scientists at the University of East Anglia that were
subsequently disproven.
Announcing
its 2007 paper Global Warming False Alarms, the group said “the high salience
of the climate change issue reflects the fact that many special interests have
much to gain from policies designed to reduce emissions through increased
government intervention and world energy planning”.
In recent
years, however, the group’s publications have increasingly focused on
free-market solutions to decarbonisation rather than disputing climate science.
It told the Guardian it had recently published a paper discussing the pros and
cons of a carbon tax.
As a
registered educational charity, the IEA is entitled to various tax breaks.
However the group has previously faced controversy over the political nature of
its work, which principally involves campaigning for free-market policies.
Last year
the Charity Commission issued the group with a formal warning over its failure
to be balanced and neutral in a report on Brexit. The warning was later
withdrawn and the report has since been edited and republished.
It has also
been criticised for its policy of refusing to identify its donors, which it
says would breach their privacy and expose them to harassment. However it is
known to have previously received funding from the oil corporations BP and
ExxonMobil.
After
revealing to an undercover reporter from Unearthed that the group had regularly
received money from BP, the IEA volunteered that it had accepted donations from
the company every year since 1967.
Historical
accounts state it also received £21,000 from ExxonMobil of the US to fund a
grant for a researcher in 2005.
A
spokesperson for the IEA said: “The Institute of Economic Affairs does not hold
any corporate positions on policy. All views belong to the authors who publish
with us, or speakers who take part in our events.
“The
majority of the Guardian’s list of IEA publications on climate change predate
almost all staff who currently work at the organisation, and has failed to
include our most recent output on the topic, including a paper which discusses
the merits of a carbon tax, and a panel discussion on achieving net-zero carbon
emissions by 2050.”
The IEA
declined to comment on what proportion of its funding was drawn from entities
with an interest in fossil fuels, but said donors and their interests had no
influence over its publications.
“The
institute’s editorial and policy output – in both our reports and our
educational material – is decided by its research team and academic advisory
council only. Any funding we receive does not, under any circumstances,
influence the focus or conclusions of our research,” it said.
The IEA
complained the Guardian had been unfairly selective in its examination of its
climate publications. However, when invited to identify any other publications
presenting an alternative position, it referred to its original statement.
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