U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be UK ambassador runs a firm with investments in several oil and gas companies, DeSmog can reveal.
Billionaire Warren Stephens, a major Trump donor who was nominated on Monday to be the next UK ambassador, is chairman, president, and CEO of Stephens Inc., one of the largest privately-owned investment banks in the U.S..
The firm’s portfolio includes at least five companies that make their money from oil and gas exploration and production, including one, Stephens Natural Resources, which is “solely owned” by the Stephens family business.
“President-elect Trump’s promise to boost U.S. fossil fuel production is reflected in his choice of UK ambassador, raising concerns about the potential impact on the UK’s own climate leadership”, said Fossil Free Parliament campaigner Carys Boughton.
Tessa Khan, executive director of the environmental campaign group Uplift, told DeSmog the appointment was a sign that “the UK is going to be under pressure from American fossil fuel interests to slow its transition away from oil and gas”.
Trump has vowed to “drill, baby, drill” for oil and gas in the U.S. while his presidential campaign received the backing of major fossil fuel interests. The president-elect has called climate change a “hoax” and is expected to once again pull the U.S. out of the flagship 2015 Paris Agreement, which established a global ambition to limit warming to 1.5C above industrial levels.
The Stephens hire comes just weeks after the UK Labour government unveiled an ambitious new climate target to cut emissions by 81 percent by 2035. The move was criticised by Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch, who this week flew to Washington DC reportedly to build ties with senior Republicans ahead of a second Trump presidency.
As DeSmog revealed last week, Badenoch has hired advisors who have criticised climate action and have links to fossil fuel-funded think tanks. Badenoch, who describes herself a “net zero sceptic” has also received donations from the head of Net Zero Watch, a climate science denial group.
Oil and Gas Investments
Stephens Inc.’s investments in oil and gas include Stephens Natural Resources, a company run by Warren’s uncle Witt Stephens.
The company, which trades as Stephens Production, “has a rich history of drilling and producing both oil and natural gas”, according to its website, and “continues to expand its production and reserves in the continental U.S. and offshore Gulf of Mexico”.
The company is “solely owned” by the Stephens family, whose investment stretches back to 1953, according to the website.
Stephens Inc.’s other current investments, which date back to the mid-2010s, include Four Corners Petroleum, an oil exploration and production company based in Colorado.
Stephens Inc. lists RK Supply in its portfolio, a “leading distributor of piping, oil and gas valves, fittings, and other oilfield service equipment” based in Texas. It also lists Dakota Midstream, a company that “provides infrastructure support to oil and gas exploration and production”, based in Colorado.
Another company in the Stephen Inc. portfolio, Texas-based Basin Oil & Gas, buys “non-operating oil and gas interests”, and is developing carbon capture and sequestration projects. Carbon capture is a favoured climate solution of the oil and gas industry, and is often used simply to extract more fossil fuels.
Stephens Inc. lists a firm called Capture Point in its portfolio, which specialises in enhanced oil recovery – a method for extracting hard-to-get oil. Capture Point told DeSmog that Stephens Inc. was not an investor in the company, though did not respond when asked if Stephens Inc. was previously an investor.
All the companies cited were approached for comment.
Trump Tensions
Stephens’s appointment comes at a critical time for the UK’s energy transition, and highlights the differences between the new Labour government and the incoming Trump administration.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer last month attended the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, pledging that the UK would restore its role “as a climate leader on the world stage”. In its 2024 election manifesto, Starmer’s Labour Party pledged to ban all new licenses for oil and gas exploration in the North Sea. However, after five months in office, the government has yet to implement that promise.
“While the UK government has pledged to turn the UK into a ‘clean energy superpower’, it has not enacted its manifesto commitment to ban new licenses, nor provided a plan for a just transition away from fossil fuels”, Carys Boughton told DeSmog.
“Trump’s choice of ambassador will gift the fossil fuel industry yet more influence within UK politics, which is particularly concerning while the government is still wavering on the future of fossil fuels.
“It is therefore yet more important that the government take action to restrict fossil fuel industry influence – to protect its developing climate and energy policy from the industry’s polluting interests.”
As DeSmog has reported, Trump’s would-be energy secretary Chris Wright, chief executive of fracking company Liberty Energy, has praised Danish climate crisis denier Bjorn Lomborg as a friend. Wright’s nomination was welcomed by the CO2 Coalition, a climate science denial group which has received funding from the Koch Industries oil dynasty.
Analysis by the climate outlet Heated found that all of Trump’s cabinet picks have made misleading statements about climate change.
Science denial and an enthusiasm for fossil fuels are also views shared by Trump’s UK supporters. In September, DeSmog reported that Trump ally Nigel Farage, the Clacton MP and leader of Reform UK, was a keynote speaker at an event in Chicago run by the Heartland Institute, where he called on the U.S. to “drill, baby, drill” for more fossil fuels.
“It’s no surprise that this appointment – like the rest of Trump’s administration – is shot through with oil and gas interests”, Uplift’s Tessa Khan, told DeSmog.
“Fossil fuel companies will prove extremely influential in the incoming U.S. government, and they want nations across the world to remain hooked on oil and gas for years to come just so they can keep profiting.
“The UK is going to be under pressure from American fossil fuel interests to slow its transition away from oil and gas. To succumb would be against the UK’s national interest”.
