Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is the highest-paid Member of Parliament. In less than two years as the MP for Clacton, Farage has racked up £2 million in personal income and gifts, on top of his £94,000 a year parliamentary salary.

As DeSmog has revealed, a substantial amount of Farage’s income has come from overseas interests – including foreign governments, companies, and donors.

Our map and tracker, launched in April 2026, provides real-time data on Farage’s funds.

The interactive map allows you to explore the money trail, while the table below provides a full breakdown of the payments and perks received by Reform’s leader.

All the data is based on Farage’s official register of interests, dating back to July 2024.

Last update: 17 April, 2026

For more information, or to conduct an interview about our findings, contact DeSmog’s UK deputy editor Sam Bright on sam[at]desmog.com 

The post Who Funds Nigel Farage? Mapping His Millions appeared first on DeSmog.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has accepted more than half a million pounds from foreign companies, governments, and donors while serving as an MP, DeSmog can reveal.

Since July 2024, when he was elected as the Member of Parliament for Clacton, Farage has received almost £2 million in income and gifts, with £675,000 coming from foreign sources. Of Farage’s 28 benefactors, 20 are based abroad (71 percent).

This comes amid growing scrutiny of the foreign influences on British democracy following attempts by the Labour government to clamp down on overseas donations to UK political parties.

Farage’s largest foreign income stream has been Cameo – the U.S. platform where celebrities record videos for money – earning £222,000 on the site since being elected to Parliament. Farage has now deleted his profile on the platform after a Guardian investigation found he had sold Cameo videos repeating extremist slogans and endorsing a neo-Nazi event.

This income has been received on top of Farage’s £94,000 a year public salary.

Labour’s chair Anna Turley said: “Nigel Farage rarely turns up to do his actual job. Yet he finds time to jet off around the world on his donor’s private plane and trouser half a million quid while families struggle. Reform are not on your side. They’re just in it for themselves.”

A version of this article was published by The Mirror.

The Reform leader has also been paid for a range of foreign speaking events, including £40,000 to address Nomad Capitalist Live in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in September 2024. Nomad Capitalist, which is based in Hong Kong, advises the super rich on how to cut their tax bills.

Farage has also received gifts from foreign governments. As revealed by DeSmog, the Abu Dhabi government provided tickets and hospitality worth £10,000 for Farage to attend the local Formula One Grand Prix in December.

“At a time when trust in politics is at rock bottom, the public deserves absolute confidence that their MPs are working solely in service of their constituents and their country, not dancing to the tune of foreign interests,” said Kamila Kingstone, senior campaign lead at Spotlight on Corruption.

“Cases like this make it painfully clear that transparency alone is not enough and that the current system leaves far too much room for foreign influence. The government urgently needs to impose tougher limits on MPs’ second jobs and on the gifts and payments they are allowed to accept, so that public service cannot be overshadowed by private gain.”

Despite claiming to represent working-class voters, Farage – the UK’s highest-paid MP – has also received private jet trips worth £85,000 from major Reform donor Christopher Harborne. A billionaire cryptocurrency investor, Harborne is based in Thailand, where he has lived for over 20 years.

Farage is a major backer of cryptocurrencies, and has £215,000 invested in a UK Bitcoin treasury, Stack BTC – owned by Paul Withers, who runs the gold exchange Direct Bullion, which has paid Farage more than £500,000 since he became an MP. Farage’s Stack BTC shares have reportedly doubled in value since he bought them, largely due to the fanfare around his investment.

Harborne is Reform’s biggest donor, having given £12 million to the party last year and more than £22 million since 2019. However, his contributions to the party are now in jeopardy after Labour introduced new rules that cap donations from overseas residents to £100,000 a year.

Earlier this month, crypto entrepreneur and right-wing philanthropist Ben Delo said he had given £4 million to Reform and would be moving back to the UK in order to circumvent the government’s new donation rules.

“Farage is bought and paid for by vested interests,” Green Party deputy leader Rachel Millward said. “Clearly, his disdain for foreign people does not extend to those who want to give him money to advance his hateful agenda. He loves open borders when it comes to cash!”

Reform UK is the UK’s leading anti-climate party, with several of its senior figures – including Farage – denying basic climate science. The Reform leader has claimed it’s “absolutely nuts” for CO2 to be considered a pollutant, while his deputy Richard Tice has called it “plant food”.

Of the £1.3 million earned by Farage from UK sources, a number are closely connected to overseas interests. GB News, Farage’s largest single source of income, is co-owned by the Legatum Group – a Dubai-based investment vehicle – and hedge fund manager Paul Marshall, whose firm is 40 percent owned by U.S. private equity giant KKR.

Reform and Farage were approached for comment.

Foreign Influences on Farage

Reform has close connections to a number of foreign regimes and influential overseas interests.

Farage is one of U.S. President Donald Trump’s most vocal European allies, having repeatedly campaigned for his election – including in 2016, when Farage was the first foreign politician to be given an audience with Trump following his presidential victory.

Farage is also well connected in Trump’s MAGA movement.

“He’s seen as the elder statesman. He almost has senator status. If England were the 51st state, Nigel Farage would be one of the senators,” one of his longstanding friends, Raheem Kassam, told the New Statesman in December.

As documented by DeSmog, Farage has been helping the Heartland Institute – an influential pro-Trump climate science denial group – to extend its influence in the UK and Europe.

The Heartland Institute was one of the groups behind Project 2025 – the authoritarian blueprint for Trump’s second term, convened by the Heritage Foundation.

According to The Spectator, key people from Project 2025 “have been shuttling between London and Washington” to give their advice to Farage.

And the Reform leader has earned thousands from MAGA events since he became an MP.

In the past year, Farage has been paid more than £11,000 to speak at Hillsdale College – a conservative university in Michigan – and nearly £28,000 to speak at the ‘Club for Growth’, a lobby group that has endorsed and campaigned for Trump.

Farage has also racked up donor-funded flights worth at least £150,000 to speak at pro-Trump events since he was elected to Parliament, and has received £47,000 from Trump-donating U.S. tech giants X Corp, Google, and Meta.

But Trump’s America is not the only foreign regime with financial ties to Farage and his party.

In addition to the F1 hospitality given to Farage by the Abu Dhabi government in December, other senior figures in Reform are in business with the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

In October 2024, the party’s treasurer Nick Candy entered into a “strategic joint venture partnership” with Modon Holding – a real estate company owned by the Abu Dhabi government – via his firm Candy Capital. He has also partnered with the state-owned Dubai World Trade Centre to develop “super-prime” properties on the site. 

Meanwhile, Reform’s Nadhim Zahawi – a former Tory minister who defected to Farage’s party in January – is a senior figure at Omniyat, a luxury property developer in Dubai. Farage convened a group of prospective patrons in Dubai earlier this year in an attempt to convince them to donate to the party.

As a result, campaigners are urging the government to close the political finance loopholes that allow foreign regimes and big money interests to shape UK policy.

“An MP’s only real job should be representing their constituents,” said Tom Brake, director of the campaign group Unlock Democracy. “Yet sadly, for some MPs, supplementing their own income appears to have greater appeal.

“This is bad enough, but what is even more concerning is when MPs receive income from foreign sources, particularly foreign governments or organisations closely aligned with them. These financial relationships always risk giving undue influence and leverage to foreign entities, which UK legislators should avoid at all costs.”

In March, the Rycroft Review was released, a government report from former Foreign Office permanent secretary Philip Rycroft, which summarised the threats to British democracy from overseas actors.

“This country faces a persistent problem of foreign interests seeking to exert influence on, and to interfere in, our politics,” Rycroft said. “Too much of this is malign and seeks to sow distrust and exacerbate divisions in UK society, with the ultimate aim of undermining confidence in our democracy… If government does not act swiftly to gear up to counter these threats, there is a real risk they will run away from us.”

The post Nigel Farage Has Personally Accepted £675,000 from Foreign Sources appeared first on DeSmog.

At the right-wing Heartland Institute’s International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC) held in Washington, D.C., last week, speakers mocked their usual cast of environmental targets: Greta Thunberg, John Kerry, and of course, Al Gore.

But the fringe climate denial movement that Heartland represents and promotes might be facing a new threat, this time from within the Trump base itself: Make America Healthy Again (MAHA).

On a panel called “The Most Important Upcoming Battles” at the group’s annual conference, Heartland board member and Energy & Environmental Legal Institute Fellow Steve Milloy called the MAHA movement and its champion, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, a “left-wing op” that the Trump administration needs to “get rid of.”

Milloy, who denies anthropogenic climate change and founded the website JunkScience.com, said the MAHA movement was a risk to everything from the global food supply to the fossil fuel industry.

As Kennedy testifies before Congress this week about his health agenda, Milloy’s comments at the ICCC’s two-day event highlight a growing rift between what was once seen as a largely aligned Trump coalition. In the past, fringe climate-denial groups like Heartland primarily faced opposition from progressives and environmental advocates.

“People that are worried about everything in the environment used to be the Democratic Party and the radical environmental groups,” Milloy said. “Now, it’s a feature of the Trump administration.”

Panels at the conference focused on debunking proven climate science, and what speakers characterized as Trump-era deregulation “wins,” particularly Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin’s decision to repeal the 2009 endangerment finding.

Milloy and fellow panelists Jason Isaac, CEO of the fossil fuel advocacy group the American Energy Institute, Willis Eschenbach, who Heartland refers to as an “amateur scientist, and Angela Wheeler with the CO2 Coalition, which argues that carbon dioxide is beneficial to the environment, spoke about the major battles facing the climate denial movement, with a particular focus on the rise and influence of MAHA.

MAHA is “wrong about everything,” according to Milloy, including its push to pressure the EPA to regulate food additives, pesticides, microplastics, and PFAS, or forever chemicals — all of which have been linked to serious health risks.

“It’s only a matter of time before they become interested in climate,” Milloy said. “The microplastics scare is actually a climate-op, right? It’s another way to get to the fossil fuel industry and to get to the oil and gas industry because that’s where plastic comes from — the petrochemical industry.”

When asked to respond to Milloy’s remarks, HHS pushed back. “These claims are inaccurate,” an HHS official told DeSmog in an email statement. “The Trump administration, including HHS, will no longer weaponize federal food policy to destroy the livelihoods of hard-working American ranchers and protein producers under the radical dogma of the Green New Scam.” 

“HHS is focused on supporting policies that improve access to fresh, healthy food, and strengthen the systems that sustain public health,” the statement went on to say. “Secretary Kennedy is committed to ensuring not just the survival, but the prosperity, of American Farmers.”

DeSmog reached out to several MAHA activists for comment, including Kelly Ryerson, Alex Clark, and Courtney Swan, but none responded by press time.

Regulate vs. Deregulate

Both MAHA and climate denial advocates have been criticized for dismissing peer-reviewed research and cherry-picking scientific data. But a clear fissure is emerging: One faction is pushing for stricter environmental and public health regulations (particularly around chemicals and food), while the other is actively working to dismantle them.

In recent months, the Trump administration, and Zeldin specifically, have struggled to keep members of the MAHA movement happy. In December, MAHA activists even circulated a petition urging Trump to fire Zeldin over his decisions to loosen chemical regulations after the EPA approved the use of two separate pesticides.

“What kind of Republicans go after a Republican administrator?” Milloy asked during the panel.

These internal fractures may also be fostering unlikely bedfellows between MAHA and progressives. Last week, MAHA activist Kelly Ryerson and Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME) teamed up to co-write an op-ed for The Hill against the chemical industry and federal pesticide preemptions.

Ryerson and Pingree stated that they are “united by three simple beliefs: that everyone should be able to eat food that is free of toxic chemicals; that people should have proper warning about possible health risks associated with chemical use; and that giant corporations should not get special immunity when their products pose real health risks.”

The day after the op-ed appeared, Trump hosted MAHA activists and influencers at the White House for a private strategy session aimed at easing tensions ahead of the midterms, according to The New York Times. Around the same time, the EPA also decided to halt the approval of dozens of forever chemicals. Taken together, the MAHA Oval Office meeting and the EPA’s current PFAS posture “reflects the fragility” of the Trump administration’s alliance with the MAHA movement, as The Times said, and shows that MAHA, at least for now, holds significant sway over the administration’s environmental narrative.

As of now, it’s unclear if Milloy’s alarm will materialize into MAHA shifting its sights to targeting the fossil fuel industry for producing emissions, especially now that the EPA has repealed the endangerment finding, which concludes that greenhouse gas emissions are a threat to human health and welfare. 

Still, at the panel Milloy remained adamant. “[MAHA] is not science-based and the science is what I care about. It is very disheartening to me,” he said in closing. “If they succeed with microplastics, they’re going to cause real problems…They’re going to get to climate.”

Rachel Santarsiero is the director of the National Security Archive’s Climate Change Transparency Project. This article does not necessarily reflect the views of the National Security Archive.

The post ‘Get Rid of MAHA’: Trump Alliance Cracks as Climate Denialists Turn on RFK Jr.’s Movement appeared first on DeSmog.

“The silent majority demands: restart domestic production – drill, refine, create British jobs, lower costs, secure supply,” reads the caption of an AI-generated image from the Facebook page “Lovely UK” – an account managed from Sri Lanka.

The image, along with dozens like it, shows a generic AI-generated scene of cars packed into a petrol station forecourt accompanied by text posing a seemingly innocent question: “Should the UK produce its own fuel again?” 

Images and videos of this sort have been posted on Facebook in droves since the start of the American-Israeli war on Iran. Several of the pages originate in Sri Lanka and are seemingly part of a network pumping out AI slop to profit from the angry engagement.

Not all of the posts were so clearly in favour of expanded UK oil production, but the general theme of the content was “energy policy rage bait,” according to Richard Wilson, founder of climate campaign group Stop Funding Heat. In other words, trying to provoke outrage on the issue of UK energy production in order to maximise engagement and make money.

The posts reviewed by DeSmog generated at least 64,000 likes and 13,000 comments, reaching a massive number of UK Facebook users.

This engagement generates income for the page owners via revenue-sharing schemes introduced by Facebook and other social media giants. DeSmog identified 13 pages or groups that have been pumping out AI-created content about UK energy production.

At least four of these accounts are managed from Sri Lanka, while the others share much of the same content in the same format, without revealing their location.

One post from the page ‘Truth of Britain’ featured an AI-generated petrol station billboard stating: “Support UK Fuel Production” above an image of an oil rig. This post received 1,900 likes and featured comments calling for increased “drilling and fracking” in the UK.

Another image caption was more explicit about drilling the North Sea. “This country sits on its own oil reserves. North Sea oil built modern Britain. But instead of using what’s ours, we send billions abroad and let hardworking British families pick up the bill,” it stated.

All of these pages were removed by Facebook for violating the company’s policies when they were identified by DeSmog. Since then, more similar pages have appeared. A post from one of these pages on 1 April included a caption: “It’s absolute madness that while we have our own vast energy resources in the North Sea, we are forced to rely on expensive foreign energy imports! ”.

Following the war in Iran, which has sent energy prices spiralling, a major lobbying campaign has been launched to expand the UK’s North Sea oil and gas output. This campaign has been led by climate science deniers and fossil fuel interests – including the Conservative Party and Reform UK, both of which have received extensive donations from oil investors and climate deniers.

Yet, evidence shows that increased North Sea production would have a negligible impact on UK fuel prices, and only displace a maximum of around three percent of the country’s fossil fuel imports.

Facebook’s “Disinformation Incentive”

The accounts were active for long enough to push misleading pro-oil messages to hundreds of thousands of UK users.

This phenomenon is not limited to Facebook. DeSmog uncovered similar AI-generated, pro-oil content shared widely across other major social media platforms, including Instagram, TikTok and X. Some of this content was posted by pro-Reform UK and pro-Restore Britain accounts. Restore is a far-right party led by former Reform MP Rupert Lowe.

Facebook’s content monetisation policy, introduced in 2024, pays creators for generating high engagement, even on AI-generated content.

“Sadly, Facebook seems unlikely to clean up its act until it has a strong business incentive to do so,” Wilson said. “While Meta continues to enable hate, climate denial and energy policy rage bait, responsible advertisers should stop putting money into this toxic platform.”

All major social media companies have failed to clamp down on misleading content on their platforms.

According to whistleblowers, both Meta – Facebook and Instagram’s parent company – and TikTok allowed harmful content to gain popularity on their platforms after they learned that outrageous and often false information leads to higher engagement.

In January 2025, in the run-up to Donald Trump’s second inauguration, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that its platforms would massively cut back on fact-checking efforts.

Facebook has the time and resources “to protect users from being preyed upon by political propagandists and grifters or radicalised by hatred,” said Philip Newell, communications co-chair of the Climate Action Against Disinformation coalition, “but instead apparently chose to make it so anyone, anywhere, can flood feeds with AI-generated hate and disinformation.

“And they knew users wouldn’t quit scrolling despite the degraded feeds because users couldn’t, as Meta deliberately chose to build an addictive product, as a jury has recently confirmed.”

He added: “Facebook’s AI slopaganda is the new Cambridge Analytica scandal.”

In the run-up to the 2016 Brexit referendum and Donald Trump’s first term election, consulting firm Cambridge Analytica unlawfully harvesting the information of 50 million Facebook users, which was used to deliver targeted political advertising.

Experts and public bodies – including the UK Electoral Commission – have now warned that fake, misleading AI content can “spread rapidly during elections”, with a quarter of UK voters saying they were exposed to “deepfakes” during the 2024 general election.

The Sri Lankan Connection

Sri Lankan influencers are flooding UK Facebook feeds with viral misinformation.

An investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), The Times, and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue in November found that one influencer was funding a lavish lifestyle by running Facebook pages that push “racist, Islamophobic and anti-migrant” AI content to British audiences.

The man in question, Geeth Sooriyapura, told TBIJ that he targets “old people … because they are the ones who don’t like immigrants.”

It’s unclear if Sooriyapura is behind the “energy rage bait” identified by DeSmog.

One of the pages identified by DeSmog was shown on-screen by Sooriyapura during a Facebook monetisation tutorial on YouTube.

Sooriyapura denied being responsible for the accounts when contacted, but the pages deploy many of his tactics for generating outrage and revenue.

Sooriyapura runs a YouTube channel, With Soori Academy, where he shares his tips for making money through AI-generated Facebook slop.

He encourages would-be Facebook hustlers to target profitable locations (where there are lots of active Facebook users) with AI-generated posts on divisive political issues that generate high engagement, using AI platforms ChatGPT and Grok to create the content.

He also provides viewers with tips on how to make Facebook pages look as if they are authentically based in the country they are posting about.

A number of the Facebook pages identified by DeSmog include the UK phone numbers and addresses of people and businesses that did not consent to their information being used, we confirmed by calling those numbers.

Another business claimed that its Facebook page had been hacked and was being used without permission as the AI slop page “Lovely UK”, although it’s unknown who conducted the hack.

“The rise of online advertising has made it easier to profit from hate and misinformation than at any time in history,” Wilson said. “It’s striking how often the same networks that monetise racist clickbait are also pushing dangerous lies about climate change.”

The post Sri Lankan ‘Grifters’ Pumping Out AI ‘Energy Policy Rage Bait’ on UK Facebook Feeds appeared first on DeSmog.

In the wake of global uncertainty caused by Donald Trump’s war on Iran, Fraser Institute analysts recently took to the pages of the Winnipeg Sun to lament that Carney is “clinging to Trudeau-era policies” like the oil tanker ban and industrial carbon pricing when he should instead “adopt reasonable, predictable and competitive policies”.

That is a common refrain from the Vancouver-based free-market think tank, which for decades has questioned whether a climate crisis exists and attacked solutions that could address it.

But Fraser Institute, whose analysts didn’t respond to DeSmog questions, wasn’t alone in seeking to exploit Trump’s military attacks to undermine climate solutions. It belongs to a U.S.-based group called the Atlas Network, which counts among its Canadian partners other conservative think tanks including Montreal Economic Institute and Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI). 

Between February 28 (the start of the war), and April 10, DeSmog tracked 22 instances in which Canadian news media gave space to individuals representing Atlas Network-affiliated organizations arguing Trump’s war on Iran justifies the expansion of Canada’s oil and gas sector. In eight of those examples, Atlas-affiliated groups were quoted alongside industry associations, fossil fuel lobby groups, oil companies, or banks with considerable investments in Canada’s oil and gas sector.

These include appearances or attributions in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the Globe and Mail, the National Post, the Financial Post, as well as CTV and Global television networks, among others.

Canadian Media Platforms Libertarian Lobby Groups

Atlas Network includes over 500 libertarian and free market organizations worldwide that have been instrumental over the past few decades in obstructing climate policy, and many of them have received funding from the fossil fuel industry. This link to Atlas is never mentioned in the nearly two dozen news pieces DeSmog identified, even though the think tanks are all making variations of a similar argument: that Trump’s illegal military incursions serve as an opportunity for Canada to expand oil and gas infrastructure.

A recent Globe and Mail editorial, titled “A low-carbon future needs an electric jolt”, quoted reports from the MLI and the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) to support the argument that fossil fuels are necessary and will be required into the future to ensure a stable supply of electricity. The article was premised in part on the disruptions to global oil and gas supply (and subsequent price shocks) caused by the Iran conflict.

The MLI report argued the reliability of power generation should take precedence over the sustainability of its generation. Specifically, it advocated for the use of natural gas, which fossil fuel advocates have long claimed is both reliable and a transitional ‘bridge fuel’ that’s better for the environment than coal or oil.

In fact, methane—which is a constituent component of natural gas—is a greenhouse gas 86 times stronger than carbon-dioxide at trapping heat over a 20 year period. The Globe did not mention that MLI has received funding from the oil and gas sector, including from Imperial Oil and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP). MLI has also received money from the Modern Miracle Network, a pro-oil advocacy group created by Questerre Energy President and CEO Michael Binnion, and from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. The Globe also failed to note that RBC was recently found to be the world’s leading investor in fossil fuels.

DeSmog reached out to Globe and Mail standards editor Sandra Martin for comment, but did not receive a reply.

MLI and Fraser Institute are two of Canada’s more prominent partners of Atlas Network. Atlas Network in the past has received funding from foundations and charities linked to Koch Industries, the Scaife family, and ExxonMobil. As DeSmog has previously reported, the Atlas Network has long been a major source of climate obstruction, as its member organizations have spread denial of climate science, oppose environmental regulations, and promote fossil fuel interests.

Fossil Fuel Opportunism 

In an April 1 National Post article about why the oil companies of the Oil Sands Alliance (formerly named Pathways Alliance) want Ottawa to cover most of their carbon capture costs, Heather Exner-Pirot of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute said “Pathways was created at a time when (climate policy) was an existential threat,” and “now, it’s obviously not a topline issue for voters. Now, it’s very much: build, expand, produce more, be an energy superpower.”

The Oil Sands Alliance is a consortium of Canadian oil companies active in the Alberta tarsands. Their flagship project, a massive carbon capture pipeline and storage initiative, has a $20 billion CAD price tag. Energy economists argue it is unlikely to be financially viable without long term financial support from government, while environmentalists argue the project will likely exacerbate Canadian carbon dioxide emissions.

“Fossil fuel companies and their lobbyists — like the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and so-called think tanks funded by oil and gas — use whatever geopolitical event is in the news to push for new pipelines, weaken environmental regulations, and run up Ottawa’s credit card,” said Thomas L. Green, Senior Manager, Climate Solutions, with the non-profit David Suzuki Foundation. “This month it’s the Middle East.”

Several industry associations and lobby groups were quoted advocating for fossil fuel expansion, including CAPP, the Canadian Fuels Association (CFA), and the Explorers and Producers Association of Canada (EPAC).

Exner-Pirot was quoted most often of the Atlas-linked analysts, including on Canada’s three largest broadcast networks. None of the articles that quoted Exner-Pirot mentioned that MLI has received funding from the fossil fuel sector. Moreover, Exner-Pirot’s sister, Lynn Exner, is the Chief Operating Officer and a spokesperson of Canada Action, a fossil fuel advocacy group whose advertising campaigns make frequent use of exaggerated claims about the fossil fuel sector or misinformation about climate change and government environmental regulations. 

As previously reported by DeSmog, Canada Action has run nation-wide misinformation campaigns, claiming “Canadian LNG exports will reduce global emissions.” Canada Action’s campaigns have been cited in efforts to ban pro-fossil fuel false advertising by several Canadian cities. 

DeSmog reached out to Heather Exner-Pirot for comment, but she did not reply.

Green dismissed the argument for increased oil and gas production advanced by groups like MLI or CAPP succinctly:

“It’s bull.”

“Every taxpayer dollar spent building fossil fuel infrastructure that will be stranded is a dollar not spent on the clean energy that actually protects Canadians from volatile global markets, the health consequences of fossil fuel pollution and worsening climate disasters,” said Green.

The post Canadian Media Platforms Atlas Network Groups Pushing Fossil Fuels in Response to Iran War appeared first on DeSmog.

Under Donald Trump’s renewed push to expand fossil fuel production — including plans to ramp up oil and gas drilling and roll back climate regulations — climate politics in the United States is entering a new phase. Although Trump’s climate agenda is very much aligned with outright denial, it has become less central in mainstream climate action debate. Instead, opposition to policies such as carbon pricing, emissions standards, and fossil fuel phaseouts remains strong.

At the same time, the impacts of climate change are becoming harder to ignore. When the devastating wildfires tore through Los Angeles in January 2025, causing over $60 billion in destruction, millions of Americans glimpsed what climate change looks like up close. Across the country — as in many parts of the world — the signs are multiplying: insurers abandoning coastal areas, deadly heatwaves breaking records, and entire communities facing floods or drought. Understandably, the proportion of Americans who believe global warming is happening has increased over time, rising from about 57 percent in 2010 to over 70 percent in recent years, according to the Yale Climate Opinion Map of 2024.

Yet, despite this growing awareness, the politics of climate action remain stuck.

The old strategy of obstructionists — denying climate change outright — has largely lost credibility among scientists and the public at large. The scientific consensus on human-caused climate change is overwhelming, and its impacts are increasingly visible. But the departure of denial has not meant the arrival of decisive action. 

Instead, something more subtle has taken its place: climate delay.

Scholars have increasingly warned about this shift. In 2020, William Lamb and colleagues identified a set of arguments that acknowledge climate change but still justify postponing meaningful action. These “discourses of climate delay” include familiar claims that action would hurt the economy, that technology will solve the problem later, or that responsibility lies with someone else.

Building on this framework, we conducted a nationwide survey of more than 1,500 Americans in 2024 to examine how widespread these narratives have become among the public — and how they might shape support for climate policy. Our findings show that large segments of the U.S. public hold beliefs that align with these narratives.

And they are everywhere: in political speeches, cable news debates, and everyday conversations.

Listen closely to climate debates today, and you’ll hear them constantly:

Yes, climate change is real — but why should we act if China doesn’t?

Yes, it’s real — but regulations will hurt ordinary people.

Yes, it’s real — but technology will solve it eventually.

These arguments sound reasonable. Many contain a kernel of truth. But together they add up to the same conclusion: not now.

Our research suggests that some of these narratives are particularly powerful in undermining support for climate policy. And it is not necessarily the most widespread ones that are most problematic.

The most influential narrative is what is often called “whataboutism,” which only about a third of our respondents subscribed to. This argument shifts responsibility for climate change elsewhere — usually toward other nations — while downplaying one’s own emissions. Americans hear it constantly: Why should the United States cut emissions if China is building coal plants? Unless other countries act, why should we?

In our survey, people who agreed with this line of argument were significantly less likely to support climate policies or demand government action. 

It’s an argument that resonates politically because it taps into familiar themes of fairness and national competition. But it also misunderstands the nature of global cooperation. If every country waits for someone else to act first, no one moves.

‘No Sticks, Just Carrots’

Another powerful narrative insists that climate policy must rely only on voluntary action — what can be described as “no sticks, just carrots.” Subsidies for clean energy? Fine. But regulations, bans, or carbon taxes? Off the table.

This framing is politically convenient because it allows leaders to appear supportive of climate goals while avoiding the policies most likely to reduce emissions. But it also undermines support for the kinds of measures that actually work — from carbon pricing and emissions standards to restrictions on fossil fuels.

A third potent narrative exploits genuine concerns about fairness. Many people worry that climate policies will raise energy prices or hurt working-class communities. These concerns are understandable and occasionally real, as badly designed policies can indeed impose unfair costs — underscoring the importance of ensuring that the transition away from fossil fuels is fair and equitable.

But when these concerns are used to block climate action entirely or strategically deployed to obstruct it, then they become another form of delay. In our study, framing climate policy primarily as a threat to social justice significantly reduced support for government climate action.

Under Donald Trump’s first term, climate denial was still common. Today, it has been re-energized at the political level — with figures in the current administration engaging with climate denial networks and rolling back environmental protections. At the same time, familiar delay tactics remain central: acknowledging climate change while shifting responsibility to others or downplaying the need for urgent action. The result is not a replacement of denial with delay, but a more dangerous combination of the two — one that risks further entrenching resistance to meaningful climate policy. This helps explain why, even as most Americans now accept that climate change is real, many remain uncertain or divided over the policies needed to address it.

Our survey was conducted in May 2024, in the run-up to the U.S. election and under a different political context, when major climate policies such as the Inflation Reduction Act were still in place, and before a renewed push for fossil fuel expansion. If anything, this suggests that the dynamics we identify may be even more pronounced today.

At the same time, there is also an important distinction between elite rhetoric and public opinion. While political leaders — including the current president — may still promote more overt forms of climate denial, our findings suggest that the broader public is more likely to engage with subtler delay narratives that acknowledge climate change but question the urgency or fairness of acting. This disconnect matters, because it means that even as denial still persists at the top, delay discourses may be more influential in shaping everyday attitudes toward climate policy.

Our results constitute a peculiar political paradox: Many citizens accept the reality of climate change, yet remain skeptical of the policies needed to address it.

How to Fight Back

But our research also points toward solutions.

Not all climate narratives weaken support for policy. In fact, some of the beliefs often associated with climate delay can be reframed to strengthen public demand for action.

One example is technological optimism — the belief that innovation will play a central role in solving climate change. A majority of respondents expressed this view, and they were actually more likely to support climate policies, perhaps because they see public investment as essential to accelerating new technologies.

Similarly, a sense of individual responsibility and convictions that voluntary individual behaviors are key to climate mitigation are widespread views that can reinforce support for collective action. People who believe that mitigation hinges on individuals voluntarily reducing their carbon footprints are also more supportive of climate policy, perhaps because they see government policy as helping society move in the same direction.

These findings offer an important lesson for climate communication.

Too often, climate debates focus on correcting misinformation or presenting more scientific evidence. But the real battle increasingly revolves around narratives — stories about responsibility, fairness, and “what is possible.”

If delay narratives are holding climate policy back, the answer is not simply to rebut them one by one. It is to replace them with more compelling counter-stories.

Instead of allowing delay narratives to dominate the debate, policymakers can emphasize the economic and strategic benefits of leading the clean energy transition. Rather than framing climate policy purely as sacrifice, they can highlight tangible gains — cleaner air, new industries, more secure energy systems, and long-term cost-effective solutions.

When whataboutism enters the debate, we must counter it by reminding people that waiting for others is not a climate strategy but a recipe for paralysis. Countries that have the capacity to act also have a responsibility to do so — not only because leadership can spur others to follow, but because acting now brings tangible national benefits, from lesser oil industry dependence and lower energy bills to renewable industry leadership and greater societal resilience.

And when concerns about fairness arise, governments must address them directly by designing policies that protect vulnerable communities and share the benefits of the transition. At the same time, our research suggests it is just as important to distinguish genuine concerns about fairness from bad-faith arguments that invoke fairness as a pretext for delay. 

In other words, how we think and talk about climate action can matter as much as the policies themselves.

Our study shows that certain delay narratives consistently weaken support for climate policy. Identifying them is the first step toward neutralizing their influence.

Because the most dangerous climate argument today is no longer that climate change is a hoax.

It is the quieter claim that action should always come later — after the technology improves, after other countries move first, after someone else solves the problem for us.

But climate change does not wait for political convenience.

And neither can we.

The post Despite Trump Actions, the Most Dangerous Climate Argument Today Isn’t Denial — It’s Delay appeared first on DeSmog.

A pro-Orbán “propaganda” group close to Reform UK was granted £57 million in dividends from Hungary’s state oil company in the days before Sunday’s election. 

At its annual general meeting on 10 April – two days before Hungary’s parliamentary elections, which ousted prime minister Viktor Orbán – national oil company MOL decided to award HUF 241 billion (£576.4 million) in dividends to its shareholders.

Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), a think tank and training school associated with the outgoing Orbán, is set to receive around HUF 24 billion (£57.4 million) later this year.

MOL dividends are typically declared in late April, and Hungarian media reports have questioned the timing of this year’s decision – immediately before an election in which Orbán was widely expected to lose. It has been highlighted that, in both 2014 and 2018, the company’s annual general meeting was organised for after the country’s parliamentary elections.

MCC was gifted a 10 percent stake in MOL by Orbán’s government in 2020, at the time worth more than $1.3 billion. Using this wealth, MCC has promoted Orbán’s ideas via events featuring high-profile politicians from across Europe and America, and has been called a “propaganda mouthpiece” of his regime by campaigners.

These campaigners have also warned that MCC may use its latest MOL dividends to fight a war of attrition against the new prime minister.

“They are filling their reserves, and they are letting the Hungarian people pay the bill,” said Kenneth Haar of the transparency campaign group Corporate Europe Observatory. “Surely this cannot be the last word. With the fortune they have amassed, they are lining up once again to use money they have taken as a weapon against their adversaries in the future.”

The incoming Tisza government led by Peter Magyar, which received 77 percent of the vote, has vowed to investigate and recover state funding granted by Orbán to MCC.

Magyar has reportedly requested that MCC’s dividend is paid later in the year – potentially giving him time to strip the group of its MOL shareholding before they receive the money.

MOL told DeSmog that the timing of the AGM was unrelated to the date of the election, and that dividends to all shareholders were awarded “irrespective of institutional background”. MCC did not respond to DeSmog’s request for comment.

Russia and Reform

MOL derives much of its income from selling Russian fossil fuels.

In a press release about the dividends, MOL Group chairman and CEO Zsolt Hernádi said the company has “consistently worked to diversify the region’s energy supply, as greater flexibility in pipelines, suppliers, and decision-making is always better.”

However, a recent report by the Center for the Study of Democracy found that 93 percent of Hungary’s oil imports came from Russian crude, up from 61 percent in 2021, amounting to a 15 percent income boost in 2025 to £1.3 billion.

Several figures associated with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK are among MCC’s closest allies. Reform politician Matthew Goodwin speaks regularly at MCC conferences, including headlining an event yesterday (13 April) in Budapest.

During the event, Goodwin appeared to confirm that he continues to work for MCC as a “visiting fellow” – a role that reportedly pays up to €10,000 a month.

Reform’s head of policy James Orr, who is a director at the MCC-funded Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation, spoke at MCC’s summer festival last year alongside techno-authoritarian entrepreneur Peter Thiel.

MCC also hosted U.S. Vice President JD Vance earlier this month as he campaigned for Orbán’s re-election.

In his 16-year rule, Orbán used the state to attack press freedom, LGBT and abortion rights, fair elections, and asylum seekers, while opposing EU sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. 

His opponent Magyar has promised to dismantle the “industrial-scale” corruption instigated by Orbán’s regime.

Magyar has also pledged to “recover the state assets granted to the MCC and end the practice of political network-building with public funds.”

MOL told DeSmog that “Decisions regarding dividends are made each year at our Annual General Meeting in April – the date stipulated in the law. Dividends are paid to all shareholders on equal terms, irrespective of shareholder structure or institutional background. As a publicly listed company, MOL treats all shareholders in line with the same principles.”

The post Orbán Allies Awarded £57 Million from Hungary State Oil Giant Days Before Election appeared first on DeSmog.

Reform UK politician Matthew Goodwin was taken to task over his financial links to Viktor Orbán’s ousted government at a post-election event in Budapest yesterday.

Despite offering no commentary on the election result online, Goodwin travelled to Hungary’s capital to headline an event hosted by Orbán’s in-house think tank and training school, Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC).

Orbán, Hungary’s autocratic leader who has ruled the country for 16 years, suffered a landslide election defeat at the weekend to challenger Péter Magyar – a right-wing, anti-corruption candidate.

DeSmog obtained an exclusive audio recording of the MCC event, during which Goodwin was challenged over his relationship with the now-former Hungarian regime.

Commentator Jon Worth asked Goodwin – a GB News presenter who ran for Nigel Farage’s party in the Gorton and Denton by-election in February – how much he stood to lose financially if Magyar strips MCC’s government funding, as he has threatened.

Goodwin has worked for MCC as a visiting fellow – a role that reportedly pays up to €10,000 a month. While Reform claimed in February that Goodwin previously served in the role for only a “brief period”, it appears Goodwin may in fact still hold the position. The page for the Budapest event states that he is an “author, political commentator, visiting fellow at MCC”.

Meanwhile, Goodwin failed to deny in response to Worth that he is still paid by MCC.

“As you know, it is entirely standard in academia to have research fellowships with universities, with organisations around the world,” he said – adding that trade unions and left-wing groups also regularly sponsor academic fellows and conferences.

When pressed, Goodwin actively defended his ties to MCC, saying: “I’m very proud of every relationship I have with a conservative network… I think it’s great that Hungary is investing in lots of different networks, bringing people into this country who have very different ideas. That is what democracy should be, in my mind, is exchanging ideas in the public square… I’m perfectly fine with all of my working relationships.”

Goodwin, Reform, and MCC were approached for comment.

MCC has been funded by Orbán’s pro-Russia regime and, in 2020, was gifted more than $1.3 billion in Hungarian state funding, including a 10 percent stake in the country’s national oil company, MOL, which derives much of its income from selling Russian fossil fuels.

Using this wealth, MCC convenes regular conferences and events featuring high-profile politicians from across Europe and America – including figures associated with Reform.

According to documents obtained by investigative outlet Átlátszó, MCC fellows are expected to give speeches, attend events, network, and place articles in Western outlets. Conservative media titles GB News, The Spectator, The Critic and UnHerd are named as potential targets. MCC’s payments to visiting scholars and guest speakers increased dramatically from €197,000 in 2022 to €730,000 in the first 10 months of 2024.

Goodwin also used the MCC event to comment on the election result – claiming: “I’m not an expert on Hungarian politics, but it seems to me that the European Union is probably going to pressure your new government to do whatever it can in order to increase migration”.

Goodwin also compared the outcome to the 1997 UK general election, which saw a landslide for Tony Blair’s Labour Party. “When voters have decided they want to change the political zeitgeist, when they want to change the political mood, it is incredibly difficult to change their minds,” he said.

The former academic said he’s going on a “road trip” through Hungary and Austria in the coming days to promote his anti-migration ideas, and tried to console supporters of Orbán’s party, Fidesz.

“Having run for office myself recently and finished second… losses make you stronger,” he said. “Losses always make political movements stronger. And I know maybe people don’t want to hear this if they happen to be a supporter of Fidesz, but over the long period of time, when people come to look back, it’s the losses that make you much stronger political movements and bring you back to being sharper, more nimble, you know, more compelling, more courageous.”

Orbán Defeated

In his 16-year rule, Orbán used the state to attack press freedom, LGBT and abortion rights, fair elections, and asylum seekers, while opposing EU sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. Hungary has been ranked as the most corrupt country in the EU, with high levels of poverty.

Yet Farage and his allies have singled out Orbán’s Hungary for praise, and held it up as a model for the UK and Europe.

In 2019, Farage called Orbán “the future of Europe”, while his head of policy James Orr last year described Orbán’s regime as a “counterexample to the ideology in my own country that rejects national pride and heritage.” 

Both Orr and Goodwin have been regular fixtures at MCC conferences in recent times – appearing at last year’s MCC summer festival alongside techno-authoritarian entrepreneur Peter Thiel, and former Conservative advisor Dominic Cummings.

Incoming Hungarian prime minister Magyar has promised to dismantle the “industrial-scale” corruption instigated by Orbán’s regime. He has also pledged to “recover the state assets granted to the MCC and end the practice of political network-building with public funds.”

Magyar intends to bring Hungary in line with European Union rules, allowing the country to benefit from EU funds that have been blocked in recent years due to Orbán’s autocratic policies.

The new leader also plans to adopt a more anti-Russia approach than his predecessor, taking Hungary out of Vladimir Putin’s orbit and reducing the country’s reliance on Russian fossil fuels.

Orbán had a close relationship with Putin. In a leaked transcript from a call in October, Orbán privately told the Russian despot: “I am at your service”.

By contrast, Magyar has said that, if he speaks to Putin, he will call on the Russian president to “end the killing” in Ukraine.

The post Reform’s Matthew Goodwin Challenged on Orbán Funding Ties at Budapest Event appeared first on DeSmog.

A few weeks ago, Viktor Orbán reminisced about the election of the current American president before a cheering crowd at a conference in Budapest organized by ultra-conservative American political operatives. “I remember one year ago, we jointly celebrated the victory of President Donald Trump. It was a fabulous success for the patriotic forces of the world,” Hungary’s prime minister, the leader of the right-wing nationalist Fidesz party, told CPAC Hungary, according to an English translation of his remarks.

However, he warned, the global expansion of Trump’s MAGA movement still faces threats, such as his opposition in Hungary’s upcoming parliamentary elections who — despite Orbán’s systematic warping of the electoral system since 2010 to keep himself in power — stand a real chance of ousting Orbán and his Fidesz majority. His loss would be a major MAGA setback, Orbán said, because it would give a resounding victory to the progressive policymakers in Brussels and beyond, along with their so-called “gender propaganda” and “green madness.”

The group behind the Budapest conference, the American Conservative Union, has hosted annual Conservative Political Action Conferences in the U.S. since 1974, and been closely linked to Trump and MAGA since Trump’s first rise to the presidency in 2016. In recent years, under the leadership of current chair Matt Schlapp, the group has been quietly spawning CPAC offshoots across Europe and Latin America with the explicit goal of influencing national elections.

Mapped: The UK Reform-Orbán Network

Ahead of elections in both countries, DeSmog has catalogued the connections between Hungary’s autocratic government and the UK’s right-wing populist Reform party.

International CPAC leaders are now counting on the movement’s assistance to “take out” left-leaning politicians in Colombia and Brazil, while aiding the political campaigns of Europe’s staunchest Trump allies, including Orbán’s re-election efforts in Hungary, according to audio recordings from recent CPAC events obtained by DeSmog.

“Dear Matt,” Orbán said during his speech, addressing Schlapp, who was sitting near the front of the audience, “you mean a lot to us. Not only due to your organizational work. Everyone knows about that and acknowledges and they respect you for it. But here in Hungary, to us, you are more.”

With the support of Schlapp and the other powerful conservatives linked to CPAC, “we shall win these elections,” he said, vowing to “Make Europe Great Again.” 

‘Take Out’ Leaders in Latin America

Trump was powered to a second presidential term in 2024 by vowing to pursue “America First” policies that would supposedly put U.S. citizens first by cutting federal spending, strengthening the country’s economy, and improving its national security. Since taking office at the start of 2025, he and his adherents in government claim they’ve put those ideas into action with moves like setting off global trade chaos with tariffs, and abruptly defunding foreign aid programs that helped feed and provide health care for poor people worldwide. 

These policy moves have been accompanied by an agenda of supporting Trump allies internationally, such as Orbán, that CPAC now refers to as the “Freedom First Movement.” At the latest U.S. CPAC in Dallas, Texas, which took place just two days after CPAC Hungary, leaders from this movement celebrated political victories in other countries that have largely gone unnoticed by most major U.S. and European media.

An “international summit” at the conference featured Mercedes Schlapp, wife of Matt Schlapp and a former director of strategic communications in the first Trump White House, who claimed that CPAC is “making great advances” in Latin America. 

Schlapp celebrated the electoral victories of conservative political leaders including Argentina’s Javier Milei and Chile’s newly elected far-right president José Antonio Kast, whom she called “one of our dear friends.” She praised the Trump administration for “working so hard” to “take out” former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, who the U.S. forcibly removed from power during a surprise military raid in January. Maduro and his wife are currently imprisoned in New York City, awaiting trial on federal “narcoconspiracy” charges.

“So we’ve had great success in Latin America,” Schlapp said.

She also outlined upcoming elections where CPAC’s offshoots hope to influence the outcome. That list included Colombia, which is currently led by President Gustavo Pedro, described by TIME as “the former guerrilla turned climate crusader”  who has halted new oil drilling projects and vowed to phase out fossil fuels across the country.

“We’re also looking to have CPAC Colombia to take out President Pedro,” Schlapp said. The goal in the country’s upcoming late May presidential election, Schlapp explained, is to “really have a right wing candidate win there in Colombia.”

Schlapp also referred during her speech to Flávio Bolsonaro, son of Brazil’s former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who is in a reportedly tight race for president against the country’s current left-leaning leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. “CPAC will be very involved in helping Flávio down in Brazil,” Schlapp said.

At another panel, Flávio Bolsonaro himself elaborated on the support he hopes to receive from his conservative allies in the U.S. “We don’t want interference in the Brazilian elections,” he said. “I’m going to win because it’s the will of my people.”

“My appeal here, not only to the United States, but to the entire free world is this: Watch Brazil’s elections with enormous attention,” said Bolsonaro. “Learn and understand our process. Monitor our people’s freedom of expression and apply diplomatic pressure so that our institutions function properly.”

The goal is for “free and fair elections based on values of American origin,” he said.

A Far-right Victory in Poland

Similar language appeared on the U.S. State Department website last year to describe American involvement in Hungary’s upcoming election. “We’re watching it very closely. We want to see a free and fair election,” said Samuel Samson, a senior adviser within the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor,during a December online press briefing about meetings with “very key partners of the United States and the administration” in Central Europe, including Hungary.

Samson, who last year called for using U.S. taxpayer money to support French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, said that he was “very pleased” about the positive relationship between Trump and Orbán. “We’re very excited to continue our collaboration as we go into a very important year for the Hungarians.”

Despite being accused of “mass voter intimidation”, Orbán’s party Fidesz is currently trailing in the polls to rival right-wing party Tisza, which has pledged to fight corruption, accusing Orbán and his allies of enriching themselves at the country’s expense.

In advance of a visit by Vice-President JD Vance to Budapest on April 7, during which he heaped praise on Orbán and accused the European Union (which includes Hungary) of “foreign interference” in the election, Tisza leader Peter Magyar posted on X that “Hungarian history is not written in Washington, Moscow, or Brussels — it is written in Hungary’s streets and squares.”

Panelists at CPAC Dallas outlined examples of how MAGA has already influenced European elections. Michał Rachoń, a journalist with TV Republika, which was described at the event as the “Newsmax or Fox News of Poland”, said that last year’s CPAC Poland “significantly helped conservative president Nawrocki win the election.” 

The senior Trump administration officials who attended CPAC Poland in 2025 included now-former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who urged voters to support the far-right candidate Karol Nawrocki. “So this was a very important step towards maintaining the conservative powers,” Rachoń said.     

MAGA Misses in Europe

The “Freedom First Movement” has not been universally successful in its attempts to influence European elections.

The Heritage Foundation – the group that convened Project 2025, the influential right wing policy blueprint for Trump’s second term – failed in its effort to secure a victory for Sali Berisha’s conservative Democratic Party in last year’s Albanian election.

CPAC in Dallas also heard from George Simion, a far-right Romanian politician who received MAGA’s support for his failed 2025 run for president. Simion framed the upcoming Hungarian election as a crucial battleground in the broader Trump-aligned war for conservative political values in Europe. “We are all fighting to keep common sense, to keep the Christian civilization and the roots of our continent,” he said.

“And we will prevail because we here in CPAC are fighters.”

Addressing the crowd gathered in Dallas, he said, “Congratulations for the great work that you are doing.”

The post Revealed: The MAGA Plan to ‘Take Out’ Progressive Leaders Worldwide appeared first on DeSmog.

Elbows up. This defiant sentiment of decoupling Canada from our newly hostile neighbour propelled Prime Minister Mark Carney to his electoral upset last year. So why is Carney’s Minister of Natural Resources Tim Hodgson now signaling that Canada plans to deepen our ties to Donald Trump by providing natural gas to American data centres powering the artificial intelligence arms race?

Hodgson made the remarks in a March interview with Bloomberg, recounting his recent discussions with the Trump Administration. “We talked about how we could help send more gas down to help you export more off the Gulf Coast and to help you with your AI strategy,” Hodgson said. “Obviously, a key component of the AI race is building more data centers. That requires more natural gas. We can provide that gas.”

President Trump owes a large part of his re-election to backing from tech billionaires heavily invested in AI, and obligingly declared the United States will do “whatever it takes” to achieve AI dominance. His administration is already imposing toxic politics onto this disruptive new technology, recently listing tech giant Anthropic as a supply chain risk after the company refused  the government unfettered access to their AI model for potential use in mass surveillance and fully autonomous weapons.

Trump recently announced plans to sideline state legislatures from creating their own AI safeguards and even trotted out an AI-generated map showing Canada and Greenland absorbed in the United States. Is this what the Canadian government is supporting?

DeSmog recently documented how the Canada Pension Plan is also investing billions in American fossil fuel extraction and Trump’s AI agenda.

Obviously Canada’s efforts at elbow-elevation need work. Hodgson’s pledge to provide natural gas for massive American data centres further undermines Canada’s already tattered climate goals. Burning fossil fuels to power a dangerous artificial intelligence arms race accomplishes the impressive alchemy of making two of the leading threats to civilization worse at the same time.

The United Nations just documented how fossil fuels are pushing the planet beyond critical tipping points, particularly around ocean temperatures. Data centre energy consumption is exploding, accounting for almost 5 percent of total U.S. electricity consumption in 2024 and is projected to reach up to 12 percent by 2028. Over half of this ballooning demand is generated from fossil fuels.

Enormous data centre buildouts are also disrupting local communities in places like rural Pennsylvania, as recently reported by DeSmog. The town of Archbald has only 5,400 residents but may soon need to accommodate five separate data centres totaling 13.4 million square feet of industrial buildings. Routine council meetings have become standing-room only affairs with angry residents overflowing onto the sidewalk outside their town hall.

“Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people showed up on a weeknight in the middle of winter because they’re scared and they’re angry that it seems as if every available acre of land in our community will eventually be turned into a windowless box that hums 24-7 and sends most of its profits someplace else,” warned Lackawanna County Commissioner Bill Gaughan. A  fierce opponent of the data centre boom impacting Pennsylvania, Gaughan called the issue “one of the biggest environment and social threats of our generation.”

There is sound reason for citizen concern. The gargantuan resource demand of these facilities can inflate electricity rates, overload the grid and delay scheduled closings of coal-fired generating plants. Recent estimates project that data centres could consume a staggering 106 GW of power by 2035, greater than the current installed capacity from either nuclear or hydro in the United States.

Two thirds of recent installations have also been built in already water-stressed areas like Arizona, Texas, and the Colorado River Basin. A large data centre can consume 5 million gallons of water each day, the equivalent of a community of up to 50,000 people. By 2028, this collective demand in America alone could reach 33 billion gallons per year – the equivalent of 360,000 households. While some companies are moving to cooling using air conditioning instead of water, this trade-off only increases already enormous electricity demands.

Canadian regulators are likewise bending over backwards to accommodate Big Tech, regardless of the consequences to local communities or the environment. DeSmog recently revealed how the Carney government caved in on clean energy regulations after being lobbied 37 times by Alberta gas giant Capital Power that is planning to build a large gas-powered AI data centre in the province.

The Saskatchewan government enthusiastically approved a gas-powered server farm south of Regina over the vocal concerns of local residents about noise pollution and other impacts. The Alberta government just exempted a 7.5 GW data centre proposal touted by celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary from provincial environmental assessment, even though the gas-fired facility would require seven times the power produced by the Site C dam.

Burning natural gas to power server farms benefits the fossil fuel industry, at the expense of almost every other human endeavour. Putting it another way: higher electricity bills, increased emissions, imperiled water supplies, automation-related job losses, sleep-disruption and a possible AI apocalypse. Data centres – what’s not to like?

The post Carney Government Wants To ‘Provide’ the Fossil Fuels for Trump’s AI Strategy appeared first on DeSmog.