Nigel Farage met with a notorious climate denier at his party’s HQ yesterday, The London Economic has learnt.
The director of the climate denying thinktank The Heartland Institute Lois Perry was spotted in Reform’s head offices celebrating with Nigel Farage after the party hit 205,000 members on social media.
The Heartland Institute was reportedly involved in the radical Project 2025 agenda, which was written as a roadmap for Donald Trump’s controversial second term, and it has been a leading voice in denying scientific evidence of human caused climate change.
According to DeSmog, it has received at least $676,000 from US oil giant ExxonMobil and hundreds of thousands from climate denying groups but it no longer lists its funding methods.
They have also reportedly worked with far right groups across Europe, including the Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party.
Perry, on the same day she reposted the video she was spotted in with the Reform UK leader, shared a video “laying down the truth” about climate change, saying it is “natural and not man made”.
“The net zero agenda is built on a lie, costing billions while ignoring reality,” she said.
Nigel Farage has faced criticism for aligning himself with the former UKIP leader’s institute previously. He was the “special guest of honour” at the launch of their European offshoot in December.
Farage has also been skeptical about climate change himself, despite two thirds of his Clacton constituents being concerned about it. Talking to Jordan Peterson in July he said: “I do find it extraordinary that people call carbon dioxide a pollutant, because as I understand it, plants don’t grow without carbon dioxide”.
He has also claimed that Britain’s 2050 net zero target is an “act of self harm” and has called for it to be scrapped.
He has said: “It will not bring economic benefits. It will make everybody a whole lot poorer. And yet the lemmings in Parliament are taking us towards an economic cliff,” adding: “I can’t think of an issue on which the public and politicians are more divided.”
Of the £2.5 million that Reform UK received in donations between the 2019 election and the start of the 2024 campaign, around 92 per cent (£2.3 million) was given by fossil fuel interests, polluting industries, or climate science deniers- DeSmog has reported.
The Heartland Institute has been approached for comment.
Related: Clacton residents left shocked after being told about Farage’s voting record