James Orr, until recently a relatively obscure academic theologian, now ranks among Reform UK’s most influential politicians, having been appointed as the party’s head of policy in February, following a four-month stint as a senior advisor to leader Nigel Farage.
 
Orr’s friendship with U.S. Vice President JD Vance is widely known. However, there are many details about Orr’s views and political affiliations that haven’t received much scrutiny.

He shared a stage with a white nationalist

As revealed by DeSmog and The Mirror, Orr spoke in March 2026 at CPAC Hungary, a political conference closely associated with Donald Trump’s MAGA movement and co-organised by groups funded by Viktor Orbán’s autocratic Hungarian government.

Orr shared a stage with Martin Helme, leader of the far-right Estonian Conservative People’s Party, who has expressed white nationalist views about immigration.

In 2013, Helme said that his immigration policy was: “If you’re black, go back,” adding, “I want Estonia to be a white country”.

Asked by DW in 2019 if he had changed his views, Helme said: “No, no,” adding that he made those comments as a “talking head [on] a commentator show… You’re expected to say things in a more upfront way.”

Helme also made a “white power” gesture at his swearing-in ceremony as Estonia’s finance minister in 2019, a role he held until 2021.

At CPAC Hungary, Orr stated that Reform’s immigration policy is: “Not only do we have to stop mass migration, we have to start thinking about how we reverse it.”

Reform has pledged to deport all “illegal” migrants, and to restrict the rights of those who have legally settled in the UK by preventing them from remaining in the country indefinitely.

Read DeSmog’s profile of James Orr.

He loves Orbán’s Hungary

Orr has claimed that Orbán’s autocratic government serves as a “counterexample to the ideology in my own country that rejects national pride and heritage.”

He made this remark at the 2025 summer festival hosted by Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), a think tank bankrolled by and closely associated with Orbán’s government.

Orr’s appearance was not his first encounter with MCC. Since 2021, he has been a director at the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation (RSLF), a UK right-wing think tank that has received more than £500,000 – over 90 percent of its funding – from MCC over the past decade.

Orbán’s government funded MCC via endowment worth over €1 billion in 2020, including a 10 percent stake in the Hungarian national oil company MOL, which has made a significant share of its revenues in recent years from trading Russian fossil fuels.

He’s mates with Peter Thiel

Tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel – an influential figure in radical right-wing political networks – was among the other speakers at MCC’s 2025 summer festival, interviewed on stage by Orr.

The pair appear to be close. Early in 2026, Orr hosted Thiel for a series of Cambridge talks entitled “The Antichrist Lectures”.

Posting about the lectures on Elon Musk’s social media platform X, Orr said: “What a privilege to host Peter Thiel in Cambridge this week for a stunningly original and erudite series of lectures.

“Thiel is a walking antidote to the modern multiversity.

“The highlight of our academic year.”

Cambridge’s Faculty of Divinity, to which Orr belongs, attracted criticism in 2021 for organising talks from radical right-wing figures including Thiel – some of which were organised by Orr.

He wants a UK ICE

Speaking at Reform’s annual conference in September 2025, Orr advised the party to form a UK equivalent of the United States’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

Since Trump returned to the White House in 2025, ICE has engaged in the harassment, kidnapping and killing of U.S. residents and citizens in the name of deporting “illegal” immigrants.

During his speech, Orr also called for the UK equivalent to Project 2025, the 900-page authoritarian policy blueprint for Trump’s second term, written by the Heritage Foundation.

He’s anti-climate

Orr has frequently attacked climate policies and the UK’s goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050.

Speaking to the European Conservative in August 2025, he attacked European governments over their commitment to net zero, labelling it “fiscal suicide” and an example of “crazy energy policies.” He also suggested that if Reform UK were to win a general election, it “would end the economic catastrophe of net zero” which would “alone will give the country an enormous kick in terms of productivity.” 

In reality, the New Economics Foundation has estimated that Reform’s climate policies would wipe £92 billion off the economy and cost 60,000 jobs.

He headed a pro-Reform think tank modelled on the Heritage Foundation

In September 2025, Orr helped to formally launch the Centre for a Better Britain, a UK think tank designed to “support Reform with policy development, briefing and rebuttal”.

Leaked documents indicate the group seeks to raise £25 million by 2029 from UK and U.S. sources, including tech investors and pro-Trump donors.

The Centre for a Better Britain was co-founded by business interests in the energy and metals industries who reportedly worked with Nigel Farage in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Speaking to the BBC about the Centre for a Better Britain in July 2025, Orr heaped praise on the Heritage Foundation, claiming that British think tanks “struggle to keep the lights on”, whereas Heritage boss “Kevin Roberts has built up the … Heritage Foundation to the point where I think it’s getting about $100 million a year in income”.
 
 He went on to praise the group for formulating “an enormous policy shop window”, and helping to staff Trump’s “entire administration with hundreds and hundreds of bright young things”.

He called Russia’s war on Ukraine a “regional Slavic conflict”

In his European Conservative interview in August 2025, Orr minimised the importance of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine – labelling it a “regional Slavic conflict” and adding that “it is a conflict happening in the world that I don’t care very much about.” 

Orr took a different line during his appearance at CPAC Hungary in March 2026, calling Putin’s invasion “scandalous” and saying that “in Britain we’re very proud that we welcomed 200,000 Ukrainian refugees.”

He’s anti-abortion

Orr holds extreme, anti-abortion views.

A profile of him published by The Times in August 2025 said that “he does not think abortion should be allowed, at any stage of foetal development, even in pregnancies resulting from rape.”

The post Eight Things You Should Know About Reform’s Policy Chief James Orr appeared first on DeSmog.

“Do governments have to do more? Absolutely,…without question. There is a gap between ambition and policies that’s large. It needs to close.” – Mark Carney, United Nations Climate Action & Financial Special Envoy. 

Now-Prime Minister Mark Carney spoke those words in 2021, commenting on news that the six largest Canadian banks had joined the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) – an effort Carney spearheaded to steer capital away from fossil fuel development.

What a difference five years makes. All those financial institutions have since fled the now-defunct NZBA, which collapsed in 2025. Carney just pledged to pay $1 billion in required fees to the United Nations for the massive Bay du Nord offshore oil development in Newfoundland on behalf of oil giant Equinor, a move that might be described as a haiku of hypocrisy.

The Bay du Nord proposal would involve deep water drilling 500 km offshore of St. John’s, potentially extracting almost one billion barrels of oil with emissions per barrel just six percent lower than diluted bitumen from Alberta’s oil sands.

When Newfoundland and Equinor signed a tentative agreement on royalties in early May, the federal government proudly proclaimed in a statement, “The Government of Canada is committed to helping de-risk this project to enable this important investment in Canada’s energy future to move forward.”

Strange. Canada pledged in 2009 to phase out fossil fuel subsidies along with our G20 partners. As part of the legally-binding 2015 Paris Agreement, Canada also committed to “making finance flows consistent with a pathway toward low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development”. Yet Ottawa still shovels billions in public funds at a highly profitable and polluting sector, totalling almost $30 billion in 2024. 

“There is no good reason why the federal government should be using taxpayer dollars to give a giant subsidy to a foreign-owned oil company,” Julia Levin, Associate Director, National Climate at the non-profit Environmental Defence, told  Desmog.

Environmental Defence previously conducted opinion polling which showed that two-thirds of the public oppose fossil fuel subsides. “That’s not how Canadians want their money used,” said Levin. “It violates the government’s own commitments that they have now had for decades about ending fossil fuel subsidies.”

Besides being unpopular and terrible for the climate, this latest gift from Carney to Norwegian-based Equinor also sets a troubling precedent. The Bay du Nord deposit lies in international waters, and would be the first project required to pay production fees under Article 82 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The Carney government caving on paying this revenue rather than Equinor means that nations elsewhere in the world may be on the hook for private sector resource extraction beyond their territorial waters. 

“This is just the latest example of how Prime Minister Carney is giving big oil everything on their wish list,” said Levin. Carney recently asserted that Bay du Nord is “one of the lowest-carbon new oil fields, depending on how you develop it.” Yet according to Levin, “Bay du Nord would be a carbon bomb. Its emissions would equal those of 100 coal fired power plants. It’s also a really risky project. It’s a real threat to Labrador’s fisheries and biodiversity.”

Another red flag is the shaky business case. Drilling for oil 500 km offshore at ocean depths exceeding one kilometre is challenging and expensive, requiring an estimated $14 billion in capital investment. Equinor has been kicking the tires of the Bay du Nord project for years and has delayed a final investment decision until 2027.

Nichole Dusyk, a senior policy advisor and lead at the International Institute for Sustainable Development is concerned that taxpayers will again be forking over public money for another risky fossil fuel project. “If projects like Bay du Nord are not receiving final investment decision, why is that,” Dusyk asked when contacted by Desmog.  

She feels that Ottawa offering to cover the UNCLOS royalties is “very clearly a subsidy, and a very generous subsidy.” Dusyk sees this outlay of public money as a sign that Bay du Nord is not nearly as viable as the company and the government are telling the public. “Why would a mature industry need government de-risking?”

Formerly named Statoil, Equinor is a 54-year-old company with a market value of $100 billion. Does a state-controlled oil company from Norway, a country with a $2.7 trillion sovereign wealth fund, really need handouts from the Canadian taxpayer? 

The Carney government has so far announced fast tracking for eleven major projects totalling $116 billion, including two LNG developments worth over half that amount. The only renewable energy project prioritized so far by Carney is a hydro development in Nunavut valued at $500 million – less than 0.5 percent of the major projects total.

Carney may want to notice news from another United Nations body, the World Meteorological Organization, that just released an alarming report that the planet is being “pushed beyond its limits” due to dangerous heating of the oceans driving more extreme weather.

The authors found that 2015-2025 were the hottest 11-years on record and that “the Earth’s climate is more out of balance than at any time in observed history, as greenhouse gas concentrations drive continued warming of the atmosphere and ocean”.

If only Canada had courageous climate leadership to help meet this challenge. What happened to the allegedly principled person who was the UN special envoy on climate action and finance? 

The post Mark Carney Pledges $1B in Taxpayer Money for a ‘Carbon Bomb’ Project appeared first on DeSmog.

His name is ‘Fossi’. He’s depicted as a swirl of grey smoke. And he’s liable to lose his temper whenever his classmates blame him for the climate crisis.

Fossi is the protagonist of Our Hidden Powers: The Big Switch, a children’s book launched last week by Swedish clean energy operator Baseload Capital. The company invests in and manages geothermal projects in the United States, Taiwan, Japan, and Iceland that use the Earth’s heat to generate electricity.

Tentatively stepping into a classroom as a new pupil, Fossi is rejected by his peers, who each represent a different form of clean energy. No one wants to sit next to the smelly, smokey fuel that has caused the planet to heat up and “become sick”.

“You wanted to travel, build, light up the world,” cries Fossi in frustration. “And I helped you! We fossil fuels gave you heat, cars, lights, and factories. And now you say it’s all my fault?”

Fossi gradually wins the admiration of his classmates, however, when he offers to use his “wealth of experience” to help them plan a shift to cleaner energy sources and solve climate change.

“In a way, I’m a hero too,” Fossi thinks to himself at the end of the story.

To the book’s author, Baseload Capital’s chief marketing officer Kristina Hagström Ilievska, her sympathetic depiction of Fossi is an attempt to explain the energy transition in a way her son could grasp. “Modern society has been built on fossil energy. That is simply the starting point. From there, the story is about change and the need to move forward, not about defending the status quo,” Ilievska told DeSmog.

But some readers question why the final scene shows Fossi joining hands and becoming friends with characters representing solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, and bio energy — a helpful image for oil and gas companies that need younger generations on their side if they are to remain a socially accepted part of the economy.

In reality, critics say, the fossil fuel industry has never been a true friend to clean energy or the planet, actively lobbying against policies designed to support renewables or regulate oil, gas and coal production for decades.

“This book gets a lot right. But the idea that fossil fuels are the ‘new’ kid deserving of sympathy is almost laughable,” said Lindsey Gulden, a former climate and data scientist at U.S. oil giant ExxonMobil who was fired in 2020 after internally reporting an allegedly fraudulent overvaluation of the company’s assets in Texas and New Mexico. “Fossil fuel companies are working hard to keep their seat at the table and delay a robust energy transition.”

Entrenched power relations dominated by “vested interests” that “control and benefit from existing technologies” are a key barrier to the energy transition, concluded the U.N. climate body Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2023.

Neither the book nor the press release mentions that Baseload Capital is part-owned by oil and gas producer Chevron and fossil fuel services provider Baker Hughes. These partnerships are listed on Baseload Capital’s website.

Chevron and Baker Hughes have promoted their investments in Baseload Capital as examples of their commitment to clean energy and reducing their climate impact, despite the vast majority of their businesses still being based on fossil fuels.

Chevron plans to increase oil and gas production up to three percent each year until 2030, the company announced on its investor day in November.

Ilievska said the book was “an educational story, not a corporate product,” and there was no involvement from Chevron, Baker Hughes, or any other investors. “We share the same end goal as many [climate campaigners], a fast transition away from fossil fuels, and we see better understanding as part of how we get there,” said Ilievska.

But campaigners and industry experts warned that the story of ‘Fossi’ appears to closely mirror fossil fuel industry narratives by playing down the industry’s role in blocking climate action, portraying it as an enthusiastic player in the energy transition, and tackling its image as “the bad guys” — in the words of a leaked advertising briefing from British oil giant BP, unearthed by Drilled.

“I want to be part of the solution and make a difference,” says Fossi at one stage.

“If this book was a truer metaphor, it would have been a school where the majority of the kids were called ‘Fossi’, and they had already been there for a very long time, maybe had become the teachers already, were sitting on the board … because it’s fossil fuels that are maintaining the status quo,” said Gustav Martner, creative director at Greenpeace Nordics, who previously worked in corporate advertising and marketing for 17 years.

“There is definitely a need to produce books for children about climate change, but it is troubling when you can so clearly read between the lines that the solution being offered is to stop blaming the fossil fuel industry,” Martner added.

“It doesn’t help anyone to point fingers,” Ilievska said. “We know they did wrong, and they have their perspective of what we have done wrong, but we need to find that common ground to move on.”

Baseload Capital CEO Alexander Helling said in the book’s press release that its message — including “showing how geothermal energy can use knowledge, technology, and experience from the fossil fuel sector” — is targeted at investors and policymakers as well as children.

Ilievska said the company believed that by partnering with oil and gas companies, Baseload Capital could “bring [the fossil fuel industry] with us” and help speed up the growth of geothermal energy, thanks to their drilling expertise and financial muscle.

Our Hidden Powers: The Big Switch is the second book Baseload Capital has released with publishing house Mondial, which also sells titles by well-known cultural figures and journalists in Sweden.

The first, in 2023, taught children about the potential of geothermal energy as a clean and renewable fuel. The book did not include the character ‘Fossi’.

Chevron and Baker Hughes did not respond to a DeSmog request for comment.

‘Non-traditional Allies’

The fossil fuel industry has a long history of targeting children and young people with its messaging.

The American Petroleum Institute, America’s largest oil and gas lobby group, sponsored STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) workshops with girl scouts in 2017, which it viewed as “nontraditional local allies”, according to internal documents made public by a U.S. congressional investigation in 2024 and analysed by DeSmog. BP invested millions in STEM programmes throughout the 2010s to “protect BP’s reputation”, the same batch of documents shows — programmes that still continue today.

As awareness of the climate crisis has grown, the fossil industry has increasingly seen these audiences as crucial to its survival, internal marketing documents obtained by DeSmog suggest.

In 2017, Norwegian state-owned oil company Equinor —  then known as Statoil — and its advertising agency TRY noted that “an increasing number of people question Statoil’s corporate social responsibility, sustainability, innovation and attractiveness as an employer” and that “this is especially true amongst the younger generation.”

“Younger voices are taking more prominent space in the energy and climate debate, and people who we consider young today will be the decision-makers, thought-leaders and opinion formers of tomorrow,” the document says. “Hence, the need to be more relevant to the next generation was evident — simply because Statoil’s future will depend on The Young.”

In April 2025, DeSmog revealed that Equinor had sponsored pop-up science classrooms on a group of Scottish islands at the same time as it sought approval to develop a nearby oilfield called Rosebank.

Equinor also created a video game called “Energy Town” targeted at UK school children. “Energy Town” aimed to “help build future talent pipelines and secure permission to operate at a time of sensitivity around fossil fuels, particularly in light of … the Rosebank development,” according to a web page made by the game’s designers, first reported on by Norwegian outlet E24.

Shell’s gas and coal subsidiary in Australia paid US$7 million to fund children’s educational programs at the Queensland Museum that fail to clearly identify fossil fuels as the primary cause of climate change, a DeSmog investigation published in December found.

The industry has also turned to social media influencers to connect with younger generations.

Influencers posted hundreds of times for oil and gas companies around the world between 2017 and 2023, DeSmog found. One influencer partnership with oil giant Shell made people in their 20s “31 percent more likely to believe” that the oil company is “committed to cleaner fuels”, according to a case study written by its PR agency Edelman.

Brazil’s state-controlled oil company Petrobras hired “a squad of influencers whose language is aimed at Generation Z,” it said in a press release announcing its “Just Energy Transition” campaign in June 2025. The squad included nature content creator Mylly Biologando, who made videos about visits to a Petrobras algae-fuel lab for her 500,000 followers.

‘Fossi’ may have been the brainchild of a clean energy company that wants to see the back of him one day. But as scientists sound the climate crisis alarm more loudly than ever, the wider fossil fuel industry is still aiming its favoured narratives at the generations that it needs on its side for its survival. They are also the generations that will feel the consequences of climate change the most.

The post Meet the Combustible Cartoon Character Who Wants to Make Kids Feel Sorry for Fossil Fuels appeared first on DeSmog.

In the wake of the fossil fuel crisis created by Donald Trump’s war in Iran, a host of influential figures and groups in the UK have been calling not for the rapid rollout of renewable energy, but a growing reliance on oil and gas.

They have been calling for ramped up exploration of the UK’s declining North Sea basin – and, as Carbon Brief has shown, their core arguments are based on falsehoods.

And, as it turns out, a large number of those lobbying for the UK government’s fossil fuel expansion either have close ties to the oil and gas industry, or to groups that deny basic climate science.

The Conservative Party

Kemi Badenoch’s Conservative Party has been leading the campaign for the UK to award new North Sea oil and gas licences – launching a “Fuel Britannia” campaign this week that proposes more drilling and less support for renewable energy.

Badenoch has been hostile to clean energy throughout her time as Conservative leader. As DeSmog has shown, her party has frequently pilfered policies from Nigel Farage’s hardline, anti-climate party Reform UK, and has notably dropped its commitment to the UK’s 2050 net zero emissions goal.

However, the Conservative Party – including under Badenoch – has a long history of accepting donations from fossil fuel interests and climate science deniers.

DeSmog revealed that Badenoch and her family spent a week at the home of Neil Record in February – a longstanding Conservative donor who has given more than £550,000 to the party. Record is a close ally of the current Tory leader, having donated to Badenoch’s 2024 leadership campaign and even gifted her the use of his London home as a campaign HQ.

Record, who’s a Telegraph columnist and holds senior positions at several right-wing think tanks, is a vocal opponent of clean energy development. He’s also the chair of Net Zero Watch, the campaign arm of the climate denial Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), which has claimed that carbon dioxide has been “mercilessly demonised”.

In recent years, a host of Record’s fellow climate science deniers have pumped money into the Conservatives. DeSmog research found that, in the two decades to 2024, the party accepted more than £7 million from those who refute evidence of man-made global warming and its solutions.

The party has also accepted donations from fossil fuel interests. Badenoch even launched her “Fuel Britannia” campaign at an oil rig owned by a Conservative donor, and she accepted money for her Conservative leadership campaign from a director of Chevron – one of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies.

“‘Fool Britannia’ would be a better strapline for Badenoch’s plan since it won’t help bill payers but will make oil giants richer,” said Paul Morozzo, a climate campaigner for Greenpeace UK. “It’s the fossil fuel industry’s wish list – ignore the environmental consequences and let them drill wherever they like, despite this doing nothing to reduce energy bills at home.”

Reform UK

Nigel Farage’s party has been a leading advocate of pro-oil politics for years, which has been turbocharged during the Iran crisis.

Reform has falsely claimed that more drilling would make “Britain energy independent once again” and “bring down bills”.

The party has been making these assertions while being funded by individuals with a vested interest in undermining the clean energy transition.

As revealed by DeSmog, the party received 92 percent of its funding between the 2019 and 2024 general elections from fossil fuel investors, major polluters, and climate science deniers. The party’s treasurer Nick Candy has claimed that the party is actively attempting to raise funds from oil executives, while several senior Reform figures have financial and non-financial ties to Gulf petrostates.

Farage himself is also a climate science denier. Speaking at the 2025 Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London, he claimed he’s “not a scientist” but that it’s “absolutely nuts” for CO2 to be considered a pollutant. 

In reality, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s leading climate science body, has said “it is a statement of fact, we cannot be any more certain; it is unequivocal and indisputable that humans are warming the planet.”

The IPCC has also stated that carbon dioxide pollution “is responsible for most of global warming” since the late 19th century, which has increased the “severity and frequency of weather and climate extremes, like heat waves, heavy rains, and drought” – all of which “put a disproportionate burden on low-income households and thus increase poverty levels.”

Think Tanks and the Media

A network of right-wing think tanks and media outlets has also been pushing for more North Sea oil production.

A number of these organisations share donors and key personnel, while echoing the same pro-oil narratives.

For example, the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) – which has been lobbying for more North Sea exploration – has been heavily backed by Rupert Murdoch, whose media outlets have been repeating the same anti-climate lines.

As revealed by DeSmog, the IEA has received significant funding in the past from fossil fuel majors including BP and Shell. The IEA is part of the Tufton Street network of anti-tax, anti-regulation groups that have also been bankrolled by Conservative, climate denial donors.

In December 2025, DeSmog and Democracy for Sale revealed that Tory donors had pumped £7 million into Tufton Street groups since 2019.

These groups have adopted a new favourite energy specialist in recent months – Kathryn Porter, who has written reports for the IEA, and the GWPF.

Porter is a consultant for the fossil fuel industry. She claims to work for “businesses with projects across the electricity, gas and oil industries”, including “clients with conventional energy assets including gas-fired power stations, gas storage, upstream oil and gas production and [Liquefied Natural Gas]”.

Porter is also featured regularly on GB News, the anti-climate broadcaster. GB News is co-owned by the Legatum Group, an investment firm based in the United Arab Emirates, a petrostate, and Paul Marshall, whose hedge fund Marshall Wace had billions invested in fossil fuel companies as of June 2023.

The post The Vested Interests Lobbying for North Sea Oil and Gas Expansion appeared first on DeSmog.

Council members in Archbald, Pennsylvania, have voted down Texas-based Provident Realty Advisors’ application to build a giant data center after months of growing public outcry against plans to build several of the computing facilities in the borough of about 7,500 people. 

About 200 local residents showed up for the March 27 special meeting held at 1 p.m., many wearing yellow shirts, to register their opposition to the projects, according to local news reports. The crowd erupted in applause after Tamara Misewicz-Healey, a leader of the local movement calling for stricter data center zoning limits, listed a series of arguments for the council to deny Provident Realty Advisors permission to build the proposed computing cluster of 18 buildings, known as Archbald 1 LLC. 

“I’ve never heard roars like this except for a basketball game,” said newly appointed Archbald Borough Council President Louis Rapoch (R), seated with other council members in an old gymnasium on the third floor of Archbald Borough Building.

Archbald Borough Council had hastily convened the March 27 vote, after it was legally required to cancel a March 23 public hearing on the project after the local newspaper made an error in printing a notice of it.

Since Provident Realty Advisors did not agree to reschedule the March 23 hearing, Archbald needed to vote on the project by the close of business on March 27, or the data center zoning application would have been automatically approved, in line with provisions under Pennsylvania state law.

At the March 27 special meeting, residents questioned the Texas-based developer’s decision not to reschedule the hearing, where it had planned to present further information about the project, and locals were due to speak about their concerns over its potential impacts.

“This doesn’t quite fit the ‘good neighbor’ rhetoric we continue to be fed,” said Archbald resident Janessa Bednash during the public comments section of the meeting.

Residents also voiced concerns over noise, air, and light pollution, potential falls in property values, destruction of wildlife habitat, and the project’s demands for water and power.

“Is this development or is this exploitation?” Lackawanna County Commissioner Bill Gaughan (D), who has called for a three-year statewide moratorium on new data center approvals, asked at the meeting.

Archbald resident Larry West cited a March 11 DeSmog investigation that revealed how borough officials had worked with developers, including Provident Realty Advisors, to draft new zoning regulations to pave the way for data centers. The rules were passed on November 24 last year by Archbald Borough Council in a 5-2 vote.

The findings in the DeSmog investigation, which followed months of local outcry against data centers, prompted Archbald residents to launch a petition demanding local officials resign. Archbald Borough previously defended the process used to rewrite zoning rules for data centers, saying that they had not ceded to blanket provisions sought by developers, and that a new provision allowed the borough council to have final say in voting on proposed data centers. 

Amid increasing public pressure over its stance on data centers, Archbald Borough Council voted to change its leadership at a March 18 council meeting, with Rapoch — who was one of three new members to join the council earlier this year — taking over Dave Moran’s role as council president. 

Moran was absent from the March 27 data center vote, as was Richard Guman (D), who voted for the highly contested November 24 zoning amendment.

Provident Realty Advisors did not immediately respond to questions about whether it would appeal Archbald Borough’s decision, or attempt to pursue its project under a previous October 2025 zoning application, which did not require a special vote for approval. The developers’ initial application included 22 buildings across two sites, but was restricted by height and sound parameters in line with the borough’s zoning rules at that time.

Archbald is expected to vote on two more data center projects in the coming weeks and months — among five announced in the borough in 2025 across six sites — making it one of the most hotly contested municipalities for data centers in the country.

The post Pennsylvania Town Votes Buzzer-Beater ‘No’ on Data Center Mega-Project appeared first on DeSmog.

The BBC has been accused of creating “propaganda films” for Saudi Arabia, the state behind the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, DeSmog and The Guardian can reveal.

The broadcaster has accepted money to produce a series of “glossy” films on behalf of the country’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), which is controlled by Saudi ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS).

The content was made by BBC StoryWorks, a studio that produces videos, podcasts, and articles paid for by commercial clients, which it publishes on BBC channels outside the UK. 

BBC StoryWorks boasts on its website that it leverages the reputation of the BBC – “our century-long pedigree as the world’s most trusted storytellers” – to create content for corporations.

However, critics have slammed the broadcaster for “bolstering the reputation” of a regime that is a “proven killer of journalists”.

A version of this article has been published by The Guardian.

“The BBC’s existence depends on its reputation as an unbiased and reliable news outlet that is beholden to no one, and pursues the truth without fear or favour,” said Patrick Howse, the BBC’s former Baghdad bureau chief. “The airing of glossy propaganda films at major junctions seriously undermines that.”

The BBC-produced content sells Saudi Arabia as “a country redefining itself in a bold new era” through PIF’s “truly inspiring” investments, including in clean energy and environmental protection.

In October 2018, Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a critic of Saudi Arabia’s government, was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. A report by United Nations special rapporteur Agnes Callamard in June 2019 concluded that the Saudi Arabian state was responsible, while U.S. intelligence agencies stated that Mohammed bin Salman had personally ordered the killing – a claim the Saudi ruler has denied.

According to Human Rights Watch, a PIF-controlled airline owned the two planes used by Saudi agents to travel to Istanbul before they murdered Khashoggi.

“There can be no moral justification for any part of the BBC to create promotional content for the Saudi regime,” said Mic Wright, author of Breaking: How the Media Works, When it Doesn’t and Why it Matters. “It is a country that has shown itself to be opposed – fatally so – to the principles of free and honest journalism. It is absolutely disgusting to see the corporation’s commercial arm taking money from a regime that is a proven killer of journalists.”

PIF – a trillion-dollar investment vehicle – has also been accused of committing “serious human rights violations”, including forcibly evicting residents and razing neighbourhoods to pave the way for PIF projects, mistreating migrant workers, and silencing dissent.

This includes allegations that Saudi Arabia permitted the use of lethal force to clear land for PIF’s “Neom” project – as revealed by the BBC.

However, BBC StoryWorks has failed to acknowledge these facts when producing content for PIF – stating that Neom could “propel the Kingdom ahead in the future” and that it is “reshaping and catalysing numerous industries.”

The BBC films also promote the green credentials of Saudi Arabia, a petrostate reliant on fossil fuels for roughly 40 percent of its economic output. They feature PIF project employees boasting of hiring “people who are passionate and knowledgeable about the environment”.

The content also accurately states that “The world is facing the challenge of a fast transition from fossil fuels to reliable, affordable and clean energy alternatives,” yet neglects to mention that Saudi’s state oil company Aramco plans to increase its gas output by 80 percent by 2030 and is estimated to be responsible for more than 4 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions since 1965.

“PIF investments are an important tool of Saudi soft power and influence, and are used to whitewash Saudi government abuses,” said Joey Shea of Human Rights Watch.

“Through its investments, the PIF seeks to garner uncritical foreign support for MBS’s agenda, spread disinformation about the country’s rights record, neutralise scrutiny, silence critics, and undermine institutions seeking transparency and accountability.

“Businesses should refrain from activities that would bolster the reputation of government entities or officials recently and credibly accused of serious abuses.”

A BBC Studios spokesperson said: “BBC News maintains clear separation between its commercial and editorial departments and our journalists continue to report rigorously, impartially and without fear or favour on all issues, with no consideration of wider commercial relationships.”

PIF was approached for comment.

Petrostates and Polluters

BBC StoryWorks content appears outside the UK on the BBC website – the most viewed news platform in the world – and on its non-UK broadcast channels, with a disclaimer that it has been paid for by an external organisation.

BBC Commercial – which includes StoryWorks – generated £2.2 billion for the broadcaster in 2024/25, a 20 percent increase on the previous year. The BBC has been looking for new sources of funding as the number of people paying the licence fee dwindles.

Over recent years, BBC StoryWorks has regularly produced content for major polluters and some of the world’s leading fossil fuel states, many of which have a poor record on human rights and press freedom. 

This has included the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – a petrostate that, like Saudi Arabia, continues to arrest and imprison those who speak out against its monarchic rulers. Both Saudi Arabia and the UAE have long been known for their oppression of women. Although some restrictions – such as on the right of women to drive – have been lifted in Saudi Arabia, the male guardianship system is still in place and has faced serious criticism from human rights groups.

“Saudi Arabia is pouring billions into cultural and entertainment projects to polish its global image, but its human rights record remains deeply alarming. These glossy ventures risk distracting from ongoing abuses inside the Kingdom,” said Felix Jakens, Amnesty International UK’s head of campaigns.

“Reports that PIF may help finance the BBC raise serious concerns about the risk of soft-power influence and perceived conflicts of interest. Even the appearance of financial ties to governments with troubling human rights records risks undermining its credibility and opening the door to reputational pressure.

“The BBC’s credibility depends on reporting without fear or favour. That trust cannot be for sale, and it must not be compromised by any investment that risks rewriting a human rights record.”

BBC StoryWorks has also worked for other repressive regimes, including China. Deadline reported in December 2022 that BBC StoryWorks had partnered with at least nine Chinese state-affiliated bodies, including a media outlet banned from broadcasting in the UK. 

Critics say that BBC StoryWorks is using the broadcaster’s reputation to make money from commercial content that often flouts its editorial values.

“The BBC is an extremely well-recognised and trusted brand, but close association with repressive regimes endangers that,” Howse said. “The BBC is a huge asset to the UK, and it needs to be properly funded, so that it is not reliant on advertising money from countries that have no regard for democratic values or for the protection of the environment.”

An investigation by DeSmog and Drilled previously revealed that many of the world’s most trusted English-language news outlets regularly promote the fossil fuel industry’s narratives on climate-related topics. Bloomberg, The Economist, the Financial Times, the New York Times, Politico, Reuters, and the Washington Post all have internal commercial studios that have created advertising content for fossil fuel firms.

The post BBC Under Fire for Producing Paid ‘Propaganda’ for Saudi Arabia appeared first on DeSmog.

Under cover of Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” mantra and “shock and awe” style of government, major fossil fuel companies are taking the opportunity to roll back key elements of their energy transition strategies. Now, a growing number of oil and gas professionals are confronting a difficult personal question: Will my conscience allow me to continue to work in this industry, or is the cognitive dissonance becoming too extreme?

A new initiative, Life After Oil, has been formed to help them answer that question.

Launched at a media briefing in Westminster, London during International Energy Week earlier this year, the network is a support community for current and former oil and gas employees who believe the sector is moving in the wrong direction on climate and are considering what comes next.

Founding members of the Life After Oil community say the initiative reflects a widening rift inside the fossil fuel workforce – between corporate messaging about transition and the reality of business strategies that remain heavily focused on expanding oil and gas production.

A Growing Crisis of Conscience

For many professionals inside the industry, the tension has been building for years.

Arjan Keizer, a former senior manager at Shell, said the issue eventually became moral rather than professional.

“Prestige and salary matter far less than whether you can look your children in the eye in twenty years,” he said. “The majority of employees want their companies to lead the transition.”

Others describe a deeper internal conflict. Guy Mansfield, a former financial director at a major oil and gas company, said the mental strain of reconciling the industry’s role in climate change with corporate narratives became overwhelming.

“The level of cognitive dissonance made it impossible for me to remain within the company. Staying in, the level of denial simply became too painful.”

These concerns are increasingly reflected in workforce trends. Research suggests more than a quarter of oil and gas workers are actively considering leaving the sector. Meanwhile, universities are becoming more reluctant to funnel graduates into fossil fuel careers: around 12 percent of higher education institutions now refuse to advertise fossil fuel industry roles to their students.

Talent Drain as Climate Strategy

Some long-time climate advocates argue that the movement of expertise away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy could help to accelerate the transition.

Among them is Jeremy Leggett, a former oil industry geologist who left the sector decades ago and later founded Solar Century, a start-up that became a major player in the UK solar industry. Now chief executive of Highlands Rewilding, Leggett sees the shift as both inevitable and necessary.

“I quit oil and gas on grounds of conscience many years ago, and have worked with some success ever since in the technologies disrupting the industry.”

“Talent is the lifeblood of the oil and gas industry, and it is now imperative that we drain it into the transition away from fossil fuels.”

Leggett argues that professionals leaving the sector should not fear the move. The energy transition, he says, requires precisely the technical skills many oil workers already possess.

“My experience shows there is nothing to fear,” he said, “and indeed much to do that allows an oilman or oilwoman to look their children in the eyes without shame.”

Corporate Retreat

The emergence of communities like Life After Oil comes at a moment when several oil majors are softening or delaying climate commitments announced earlier in the decade.

Companies including BP and Shell have adjusted transition plans in recent years, slowing emissions reduction targets or expanding fossil fuel investment after earlier pledges to accelerate diversification into renewables.

Critics say these moves reinforce the perception among employees that the industry is failing to match climate rhetoric with meaningful structural change.

Nick Smith, whose family has worked in coal and oil supply for four generations, helped inspire the Life After Oil initiative. His own businesses have gradually shifted toward renewable energy, while still supplying fuels where alternatives are not yet viable.

He believes the problem is not simply consumer demand, as oil companies often argue.

“What binds our community together is a recognition that the major oil companies are failing to provide a sensible contribution to the conversation about how to respond to the fossil fuel dilemma.

“Clearly we need oil now for essential purposes, but we need to reduce consumption urgently.”

According to Smith, companies frequently point to rising global energy demand as justification for continued fossil fuel expansion. But he says this ignores the role large energy firms play in shaping markets and investment decisions.

“By blithely pointing to increased consumer demand, they sidestep their own role in shaping markets, investment priorities and narratives.”

The Human Side of the Energy Transition

While debates about fossil fuels often focus on policy, economics, or emissions targets, Life After Oil highlights a less discussed dimension: the personal decisions facing the people working inside the industry.

For some, leaving has been a gradual process. For others, it has been an abrupt break. Jo Alexander, a former senior manager at BP, said the decision eventually came down to a simple question about the future.

“I had to decide if this was really a career I wanted to dedicate my life to. The obvious and unavoidable answer was no.”

The new community hopes to provide a space for people wrestling with similar questions — offering peer support, sharing stories of career transitions, and exploring how industry skills can be applied in the low carbon economy.

Its founders emphasize that many members understand the complexity of replacing fossil fuels quickly. Their goal is not to demonize individuals working in oil and gas, but to encourage honest conversations about the direction of the industry.

For some employees, that conversation may ultimately lead to staying and pushing for change internally.

For others, the conclusion may be different.

For more information and to join the Life After Oil Community, visit https://lifeafteroil.net/.

The post As the Oil Majors Retreat on Climate Promises, Industry Insiders Are Asking: Should I Stay or Should I Go? appeared first on DeSmog.

Reform UK’s head of policy James Orr spoke alongside a white nationalist politician at a conference in Hungary last weekend (21 March), DeSmog can reveal.

Orr made an appearance at CPAC Hungary, a political festival closely associated with Donald Trump’s MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement. CPAC has also lent its support in recent years to Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán, who is standing for re-election in April.

Orr shared the stage with Estonian politician Martin Helme, leader of the far-right Conservative People’s Party.

Helme has expressed radical, anti-migrant views in the past. In 2013, he said that his immigration policy was “If you’re black, go back,” adding: “I want Estonia to be a white country”.

Asked by DW in 2019 if he had changed his views, Helme said: “No, no,” adding that he made those comments as a “talking head [on] a commentator show… You’re expected to say things in a more upfront way.”

Helme also made a “white power” gesture at his swearing-in ceremony as Estonia’s finance minister in 2019, a role he held until 2021.

At CPAC Hungary – which also featured Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu and Argentinian President Javier Milei – Orr and Helme unleashed their anti-immigration views.

Cambridge academic Orr added that Reform’s policy is: “Not only do we have to stop mass migration, we have to start thinking about how we reverse it.”

Reform has pledged to deport all “illegal” migrants, and to restrict the rights of those who have legally settled in the UK by preventing them from remaining in the country indefinitely.

Orr’s appearance at CPAC Hungary will raise more questions for Reform’s leader Nigel Farage, who allegedly directed racist taunts and insults at fellow pupils at Dulwich College during his time at the school. Farage has said that he never abused anyone “with intent”.

Nick Dearden, director of the campaign group Global Justice Now, said that Reform’s strategy “is to foster hatred and sow division, learning from some of the most divisive politicians in the world”.

CPAC Hungary also featured far-right Dutch influencer Eva Vlaardingerbroek, who called for the mass deportation of immigrants from the West, claiming that “Europe is historically a white continent”, that white Europeans are experiencing a “genocide”, and that “we need to reclaim our sovereignty, close the borders, and reverse mass migration”.

Labour MP Clive Lewis said that Orr’s presence at CPAC Hungary “is yet another signal that a coordinated and well-funded global authoritarian right is increasingly advancing itself in plain sight.

“Across Europe, parts of big business are backing authoritarian and hard-right parties. Meanwhile, fossil fuel companies and speculative finance are pushing for weaker climate and labour rules, lower taxes on wealth and profits, and ballooning corporate welfare for sectors like unaccountable big tech.

“This goes far beyond one person at one conference,” he added.

Orr, who was appointed as Reform’s policy chief in February, is a University of Cambridge academic and an influential figure in transatlantic reactionary politics. He is close friends with U.S. Vice President JD Vance, and has been described as his “intellectual mentor”.

Reform’s senior figures, including its leader Farage, deny basic climate science and advocate for the mass expansion of fossil fuel production. The party is heavily funded by fossil fuel interests, climate deniers, and major polluters.

Joe Mulhall, director of research at HOPE not hate, said that Orr “sits at the centre of a web of think tanks and charities within the British far right” and that Reform’s policy chief has “consistently pushed hardline positions despite many still seeing him as merely a conservative academic.”

Orr and Reform did not respond to DeSmog’s multiple requests for comment. Helme said that the allegations against him were “hysterical ranting” but declined to comment further.

Orbán’s Fight for Survival

This year’s CPAC Hungary was an opportunity for Orbán to corral international support for his regime ahead of the country’s parliamentary elections on 12 April.

Trump sent a video message to the conference in which he lauded Orbán as a “fantastic guy” and said that he hopes the Hungarian autocrat “wins big” in the upcoming elections.

However, Orbán is on the brink of losing power for the first time since 2010. According to the latest polls, his party Fidesz is trailing its rival Tisza 30 percent to 46 percent.

Orbán’s authoritarian policies have served as an inspiration for Trump’s second-term agenda, and his government is lauded in far-right circles.

Over the past 16 years, Orbán has rewritten the country’s constitution, seized control of its media and courts, and imposed laws to crack down on the rights of LGBT people, women and girls, and asylum seekers.

Like many of Reform’s key figures, Orr is a vocal supporter of Orbán’s regime.

At a festival hosted by Orbán’s in-house, oil-funded think tank, Orr last year lauded the Fidesz government as a “counterexample to the ideology in my own country that rejects national pride and heritage”.

Both Orr and Helme also used their CPAC Hungary panel to praise Trump for his approach to Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Orr said: “I do see a willingness in the United States to try to find a way to rehabilitate the broken Ukrainian nation – to find a pathway to peace and prosperity, and every time they’ve tried to do that my sense is that they’ve been obstructed by Brussels and others.”

Trump has repeatedly been accused of pandering to Vladimir Putin’s demands in trying to negotiate a peace deal in Ukraine – including reports this week that U.S. security guarantees in the region are tied to Kyiv ceding its entire eastern Donbas region to Russia.

Reform and Farage have attracted criticism for cosying up to Trump and for backing his war in Iran.

Orr has previously been dismissive of the Ukraine war, which has resulted in an estimated two million casualties and at least 500,000 deaths since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Speaking in August 2025, Orr labelled the war a “regional Slavic conflict,” adding that “it is a conflict happening in the world that I don’t care very much about.” 

However, he gave a very different view at CPAC Hungary, calling Putin’s invasion “scandalous” and saying that “in Britain we’re very proud that we welcomed 200,000 Ukrainian refugees.”

Dearden of Global Justice Now said: “Farage’s policy chief sharing a panel with a white nationalist shows just how far Reform is willing to go to gain power. But it also shows their weakness. They know that their policies – from deploying a British version of ICE, to backing Trump’s foreign policy disasters, to ripping up climate action – are not popular here in Britain.”

A version of this article was published by The Mirror.

The post Reform Policy Chief James Orr Shared Stage With White Nationalist appeared first on DeSmog.

Ofgem has rejected calls from MPs to force energy companies to write off £1 billion of customer debt after intense energy industry lobbying, DeSmog can reveal.

In October, MPs sitting on the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee told the regulator that excess returns made by the industry from soaring energy prices since 2021 should be used to fund a debt relief scheme. 

The recommendations were also backed by Citizens Advice, which said that energy network operators had a “social obligation to contribute to alleviating the hardship of those affected by the cost of living crisis” after having “made genuine windfall profits” during the energy crisis.

Last week, Ofgem rejected the committee’s proposal, writing that it instead planned to recoup the costs through energy bills “following extensive stakeholder consultation”.

Documents submitted to the watchdog’s consultation reveal that energy companies pushed back strongly against having to fund the scheme.

Cadent, the UK’s largest gas distribution network, said the “proposed debt relief scheme is not an appropriate way to address the debt challenge” and suggested that it could lead to inequities between “consumers who decided to prioritise energy bill payments versus others who opted to use their limited disposable income on other essentials”.

Simon Francis, coordinator of the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, said: “The suggestion from some network companies that indebted households may have chosen to spend their money on ‘other essentials’ rather than energy bills shows how detached parts of this industry have become from the reality facing millions of people across the UK.”

Northern Gas Networks said it did not support the introduction of a debt relief scheme and that requiring network operators to fund it would put their financial stability at risk. SP Energy Networks also argued that financing debt write-off “risks adversely affecting NWOs’ financeability and future cost of Capital”.

The Energy Security and Net Zero Committee pointed out that energy network companies made £4 billion in excess returns since 2021, in a report on the energy crisis published in October. They stated that this figure “coincidentally, is almost equal to the total value of consumer energy debt”, which sat at approximately £4.15 billion at the beginning of 2025.

The report argued these profits were not necessarily earned through performance but resulted from “flaws in the price control system” that overestimated the impact of inflation on the networks’ borrowing costs.

Several retail energy suppliers also lobbied against having to fund the scheme, including Ecotricity, run by Labour-donor Dale Vince, which said that the “costs of debt relief should be met through general taxation” rather than energy companies. Centrica (British Gas), the UK’s largest gas supplier, said that the funding of a debt relief scheme should be “cost neutral” for the individual suppliers delivering it.

Energy UK, the trade association for the energy industry, told Ofgem that the scheme “should not be paid for by energy suppliers”, writing that “they do not have the financial capacity to fund this scheme”.

A report by Unite published in 2025 said that the UK’s energy network operators made combined pre-tax profits of £6.8 billion in 2024 and had an average profit margin of 38 percent in comparison to 7 percent across the economy as a whole. It found that energy suppliers declared profits of £2.8 billion that same year but that their profit margins were far lower at 5 percent.

Several organisations responded to Ofgem’s consultation calling on the regulator to use excess returns to fund a debt relief scheme.

Leeds City Council cited research by the End Fuel Poverty Coalition which found that 20 energy companies made £483 billion in profits since the start of the crisis and argued that “it therefore does not seem reasonable for customers to pay increased prices” to fund the scheme.

Groundwork UK, an environmental charity, said that the “huge increase in supplier profits should be used to support vulnerable households”, while Money Advice Trust urged Ofgem to look at “supplier-contribution funds”.

Debt Justice told DeSmog that energy companies lobbying against funding the scheme “turns the stomach”.

Toby Murray, the organisation’s policy and campaigns manager, said: “With another crisis looming, the government must get serious. Ofgem’s debt relief scheme is long overdue being rolled out. It must be prioritised and funded from energy company profits, not customers who can’t afford yet higher bills.”

An Ofgem spokesperson said its decision was “based on the risk that reopening the price control could lead to other costs to consumers that outweigh the potential benefits from recovering any gains.”

A Cadent spokesperson said, “We have supported Ofgem through the process and we recognise the societal importance of addressing energy debt and welcome targeted interventions that support those most in need.”

A spokesperson for Future Energy Networks, which represents several network operators, said: “Gas network operators remain committed to supporting vulnerable customers and working across the industry to tackle the very real problem of high consumer debt, including by ensuring that any returns generated adhere to the strict regulatory framework set by Ofgem.”

The post Energy Firms Dodge £1 Billion Debt Relief Bill After Corporate Lobbying appeared first on DeSmog.

Late in the run-up to last year’s federal election, an open letter signed by 33 business leaders ran as a full-page advertisement in newspapers across the country. Representing industries that ranged from banks and investment firms to mining and oil-and-gas companies, they demanded more support for pipelines, mines, and energy projects, and ended the letter with an endorsement of Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre.

The presence of one signatory, former fracking CEO Gwyn Morgan, brought a particularly powerful level of media and policy influence to this rarefied coalition of business elites.

Today, DeSmog is publishing an interactive map that reveals the fullest picture yet of Morgan’s political influence machine.

Since 2007, Morgan has used his foundation to channel over $9.5 million into a sprawling network of libertarian think tanks, right-wing media outlets, and conservative organizations, a detailed analysis of tax records reveals. They are all right-wing megaphones amplifying variants of a similar message: that governments need to cut taxes, slash red tape, and allow the fossil fuel industry to grow without restraint.

Experts contacted by DeSmog said that this machine has helped ensure that the interests of oil and gas executives stay at the centre of Canada’s political discourse, even as scientists warn with increasing urgency that the burning of fossil fuels is destabilizing the climate.

To use the map, hover your cursor over one of the circles. It will show in thick yellow lines the connections to other members of Morgan’s universe. Click on a name in the map to get more information about the person, company, or organization. Or click on the banner that says “Start Story” for a guided tour of Morgan’s influence machine.

It’s hard to ignore the parallels between Morgan and Charles Koch, the United States fossil fuel billionaire who, for decades, has been funding and supporting a constellation of right-wing think tanks and political advocacy groups pushing for free-market policies while maligning climate science, blocking regulations on climate-heating emissions, and advocating for continued dependence on fossil fuels.

“You could describe [Gwyn Morgan] as the Charles Koch of Canada,” said University of Victoria Sociology professor William Carroll, who co-directed the Corporate Mapping Project, a research initiative that focused on the fossil fuel industry’s influence in Canada. 

In the U.S., the expansive libertarian network funded and backed by Koch’s oil company has been referred to as the “Kochtopus,” owing to the vast reach of its various arms. Similarly, said Emilia Belliveau, Energy Transition Program Manager at the non-profit Environmental Defence Canada, Morgan’s network in Canada has been able “to sort of wrap their tentacles around all these different societal institutions.”

“That’s why addressing climate change has been so challenging,” she added.

Bankrolling the Global Ultra-Right

In another similarity to Charles Koch, who with his late brother David Koch made early investments in processing heavy crude from Canada, Morgan earned his fortune by pioneering unconventional methods of extracting hard-to-reach oil and gas in Alberta. He claims credit for overseeing the first fracking sites in North America.

Morgan helped establish the Alberta Energy Company (AEC) in the 1970s, then was the founding CEO of Encana Corp, now called Ovintiv, which formed in 2002 out of a merger between AEC and the PanCanadian Energy Corporation. Since retiring from Encana at the end of 2005, Morgan has given sizable grants to influential conservative groups through his charitable organization, the Gwyn Morgan and Patricia Trottier Foundation.

Tax records filed to the Canada Revenue Agency, and analyzed by DeSmog, show that from 2007-2024, the foundation has given over $9.5 million (approximately USD $6.9 million) to think tanks, advocacy groups, and media outlets that regularly promote oil and gas while downplaying the climate emergency.

In interviews, Morgan has described growing up as a young boy in Alberta who did farm chores for hours before going to school. He then became an engineer in the fossil fuel industry, at a time when he claims “people believed that Canada had a responsibility” to “supply the energy we all needed”.

Having played an important role in Canada’s fossil fuel industry over multiple decades, it is clear that Morgan is still dedicated to preserving the industry he helped build. Nevertheless, Morgan has called himself an environmentalist because he “even has a compostable toilet at his estate”, and has “hiked every trail in the rocky mountains.”

Morgan did not respond to detailed questions from DeSmog.

Funding Atlas Network Groups

Many of Morgan’s biggest donations have gone to Canadian think tanks affiliated with the Atlas Network, a global coalition of more than 500 free market organizations that has been called the “Johnny Appleseed of anti-regulation groups.” Atlas affiliates have been instrumental in spreading climate denial and obstructing policies to cut carbon emissions for decades.

Koch-linked foundations have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Atlas Network, which also has a history of receiving at least $1 million in funding from ExxonMobil.

According to available tax records, Morgan’s foundation has given $700,000 since 2020 to Atlas Network partner Second Street, whose co-founder, Mark Milke, played a key role in former Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s “Energy War Room,” an Alberta government corporation that fought against supposed “domestic and foreign-funded campaigns against Canada’s oil and gas industry.” Since 2019, Second Street has commissioned multiple public opinion polls on carbon pricing that emphasize personal costs to consumers rather than the benefits of shifting to a greener economy.

Morgan’s foundation has donated $1,015,000 to the Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) (another Atlas partner) between 2010 and 2024. In February 2022, CCF filed a legal challenge against the federal government’s use of the Emergencies Act to disband the Freedom Convoy that occupied Ottawa’s downtown for three weeks in January and February 2022. Recently, CCF intervened in a court ruling in support of the Ontario Conservative government’s legislation forcing Toronto to tear up certain bike lanes. 

Morgan has also donated $706,500 to Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF), a legal advocacy organization whose mission is to “defen[d] the constitutional freedoms of Canadians through litigation and education.” Morgan’s largest donation to JCCF of $550,000 was made in 2022 while JCCF launched into action supporting the Freedom Convoy. It continues representing convoy organizers and participants, as well as campaigning for “parental rights” and against Indigenous land acknowledgements, and opposing legislation to ban fossil fuel advertisements.

John Carpay, JCCF’s president and founder, was disbarred in 2021 for hiring a private investigator to surveil a Manitoba judge.

The Frontier Centre for Public Policy (FCPP), which has received $200,000 from Morgan’s foundation, has advocated against municipal bans on natural gas, calling it “the green extremists’ unjustified war on natural gas furnaces and stoves”, and has argued against Canada’s now scrapped electric vehicle mandate, stating “electric vehicles produce more pollution than the gas-powered cars they’re replacing.”

The Montreal Economic Institute (MEI), recipient of $150,000 from Morgan from 2009-2024, has called itself a “veritable training ground for dynamic public figures” such as Maxime Bernier, the leader of the far-right People’s Party of Canada. DeSmog reported on how the MEI has fought the federal government’s electric vehicle mandate. MEI has also advocated against the federal emissions cap on the oil and gas industry, and is now advocating in favour of building an LNG plant in Québec.

Morgan’s foundation has also given $1,500,000 to the Fraser Institute, a prominent Vancouver-based free-market think tank. Morgan himself was a board member as recently as 2023, according to the group’s 2024 annual report.

The largest donation of $1,000,000 came in 2007, then $500,000 in 2022. The group, which has previously received funding from ExxonMobil and the Koch Foundation, is a vocal supporter of fossil fuels and regularly promotes well known climate crisis deniers like Steve Koonin and Ross McKitrick. 

McKitrick was part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s “2025 Climate Working Group,” a handpicked team of scientists renowned for their climate denial, to author a report that was designed to help the Trump administration overturn federal climate regulations.

None of these Atlas partners responded to questions from DeSmog.

Funding Right-Wing Media

In addition to supporting think tanks, Morgan’s foundation also gives hundreds of thousands of dollars to far-right media. DeSmog revealed in 2024 that since 2019, Morgan had given the True North Centre for Public Policy, the parent group of the far-right website True North, $530,000. In total, True North has received $995,000 from the foundation between 2018 and 2024.

True North’s founder and editor-in-chief, Candice Malcolm, is well-connected to conservative Alberta politics. She previously worked as press secretary to Alberta premier Kenney in 2011 and as a special assistant and in strategic communications for the political party formerly led by current premier Danielle Smith from late 2010 until 2012.

True North contributors regularly repeat climate disinformation: They’ve called climate advocates “conspiracy theorists,” and claimed, erroneously, that arsonists were to blame for the wildfires that raged across the country in 2023, insisting that the disaster was “NOT climate change.” The site, which recently re-branded itself as Juno News, has decried “Carney’s ‘Green’ Agenda” and “Carney’s ‘Climate Cult.”

In a 2024 interview with Morgan, True North described him as “a legend in the Canadian oil and gas sector,” and in 2025 the site promoted Morgan’s endorsement of Poilievre, while not mentioning that it had received funding from Morgan’s foundation.

Morgan has also supported the climate denial group Energy Probe Research Foundation to the tune of $100,000. Energy Probe is led by Lawrence Solomon, who calls himself “one of Canada’s leading environmentalists” and has spread climate denial as a columnist with the Financial Post, Globe and Mail, and National Post.

Neither True North nor Energy Probe responded to DeSmog questions.

Backing the Conservative Movement

Morgan has played an important role in the broader political conservative movement. He has donated to the Conservative Party of Canada nearly 90 times since 2004, according to Elections Canada filings. He is also a strong supporter of the Manning Foundation for Democratic Education, the group behind the Canada Strong and Free Network (CSFN), with donations totalling $703,250 to date. The CSFN, formerly the Manning Centre, aims to support “conservative and libertarian activists and ideas in Canada” and is an Atlas Network member. It didn’t respond to DeSmog’s request for comment.

CSFN’s annual conference, which brings together conservative politicians, strategists, and journalists, was sponsored in 2025 by oil companies including Koch Inc., Imperial Oil, Tourmaline Oil, Suncor, Valero, and Cenovus. During the conference, representatives of Amazon and TC Energy, a pipeline construction company, discussed how to bring Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) from the United States to Canada.

Morgan’s financial support for the conservative movement links him to a network of advocacy groups operating on Facebook and other social media platforms, which post memes and other content promoting conservative politicians and policies.

This social media influence machine is coordinated in part through a group called Canada Strong and Proud, also known as Proud to Be Canadian, which doesn’t disclose its funders but implies that it’s run on behalf of “grassroots Canadians”. It didn’t respond to DeSmog questions.

During the 2025 election, according to federal third-party filings, Canada Strong and Proud dispersed funding to a wide network of conservative social media pages that published posts and advertisements criticizing Mark Carney and praising Pierre Poilievre. The pages — which include Proud To Be Canadian, Nova Scotia Proud, Quebec Proud, Newfoundland Strong, Saskatchewan Proud and West Coast Proud— have a combined following of 9.3 million on Facebook.

The network regularly promotes anti-Liberal and anti-woke content including posts expressing skepticism of low carbon technologies and in some cases spreading climate denial explicitly. For example, a recent post from Proud To Be Canadian argues that “global warming” is not a man-made phenomenon because 2026 has been a snowy year in Toronto.

Canada Strong and Proud’s third-party advertiser filings in 2025 were completed by Susan Burrows, the Chief Financial Officer for Modern Miracle Network (MMN). MMN is a pro-oil advocacy group founded by oil and gas CEO Michael Binnion, who happens to be the Board Chair for the CSFN. Binnion in 2018 reportedly urged fossil fuel companies to help fund parts of this social media network.

Several Canada Strong and Proud network pages are reportedly tied to Jeff Ballingal, who runs a public relations company called Mobilize Media, and helped establish the right wing social media publisher Canada Proud. His company has been hired by both former and current Conservative Party leaders Erin O’Toole and Pierre Poilievre.

Op-Eds, Ads, Influence

Morgan’s influence extends across the anti-climate ecosystem through his connections to mainstream legacy media. Carroll noted that Morgan could be “Charles Koch plus” because in addition to funding the anti-climate movement, “he’s having direct influence through his own intellectual production.” Morgan frequently writes opinion pieces for the National Post/Financial Post and Times Colonist, and is listed as a contributing writer for the Globe and Mail (although his last article was published in 2017). 

In his pieces, Morgan regularly denies the need for meaningful climate action. In a February 2025 opinion piece the Financial Post headlined “Build east-west pipelines? We were doing that, remember?”, he admonishes Liberal governments for cancelling past proposed pipelines in Canada. In 2019, Morgan downplayed the need for Canada to take climate action in the Times Colonist, writing “Canada’s contribution to global CO2 emissions is a minuscule 1.6 per cent”, while listing other countries that are signatories to the Paris Accord and were building coal-fired plants.

In 2023 in the Times Colonist he argued that climate policy is economically harmful and ultimately futile, stating “if all our gasoline and diesel-powered cars and trucks were taken off the road for one year, the total emissions avoided would offset China’s emissions for just 58 hours.” Morgan regularly promotes LNG as a climate solution, for instance in a 2024 opinion piece in the Calgary Herald he said “Canada’s rich endowment of natural gas offers us the chance to both reduce global emissions and also rescue a Canadian economy ravaged by the Liberal government.”

More recently, Morgan published an opinion piece in January 2026 in multiple outlets including the Financial Post called “We should learn from Germany’s mistakes” that admonishes Germany for having closed nuclear energy plants and quickly devolves into an anti-immigration tirade, warning of “demographic suicide” by immigration.

A Shadowy Network

It is difficult to gauge the direct impact of Morgan’s spending, including how it has affected policy and public opinion. That being said, some of the ideas championed by groups in his influence machine, including that climate policy needs to be weakened in order for fossil fuels to expand, are now at the mainstream of Canadian politics.

One of Carney’s first actions upon becoming Canadian prime minister last year was to cancel the consumer carbon tax. Last fall, the Liberal Party leader eliminated a cap on oil and gas emissions as part of a deal with Alberta encouraging a new oil pipeline to the west coast. 

Carney, once touted as a climate champion, has in the past year axed the electric vehicle mandate, cut significant funding for climate and environmental programs, and is giving considerable support to potential future fossil fuel projects.

It is clear to experts that climate policy has now taken a backseat to the financial interests of oil and gas executives. According to Belliveau, Morgan has helped advance this agenda using multiple tactics from the fossil fuel industry’s playbook.

“You have the sort of traditional funding of these oil advocacy groups that are pushing a deregulation agenda, and then you have the financial flows from those groups to the anti-climate movement mobilization and astro-turf groups,” she said.

However, “because his reputation is not widely known, like the Koch brothers are, he’s sort of able to still operate in more mainstream spaces without the same level of controversy,” she argued.

The post How ‘The Charles Koch of Canada’ Created a $9.5 Million Influence Machine appeared first on DeSmog.