Labour candidate Graham Stringer has refused to say if he will quit the board of a climate denial group after its director used an event hosted by an oil-funded foundation to claim that net zero will lead to authoritarianism. 

Benny Peiser, the director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), claimed at an event on 11 June that “if you have a net zero target then you have to basically control everything in the whole economy: what you eat, what you drive, where you go on holiday”.

Speaking at the panel organised by the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), Peiser claimed that net zero “requires governments to become authoritarian”.

Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change, said the comments were “further evidence that the Global Warming Policy Foundation is a club for extreme cranks and weirdos who deny the science of climate change and peddle daft conspiracy yarns”.

Stringer, a Labour MP since 1997 and the party’s candidate for Blackley and Broughton in Greater Manchester, is a director of the GWFP, having joined its board of trustees in 2015. A year earlier, Stringer was one of only two MPs on the Energy and Climate Change Committee to vote against accepting the conclusion of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that humans are the dominant cause of global warming.

DeSmog asked Stringer if he agreed with Peiser’s remarks and, if not, whether he would be reconsidering his support for the GWPF. Neither Stringer nor Peiser responded to our requests for comment.

It is “a scandal” that the Labour Party continues to support Stringer, campaigners previously told DeSmog. Labour’s manifesto accuses the Conservative Party of a “denial of reality” over climate action and says that failing to implement net zero policies will increase energy costs and expose “us to insecurity”. 

By contrast, Stringer has claimed that the policies adopted by the UK to limit emissions “make China stronger, make us vulnerable to supply chains that we have no control over, and cost large amounts of money.”

Kevin Anderson, a professor of energy and climate change at the universities of Manchester, Uppsala, and Bergen, said that rising temperatures – not net zero policies – are already impacting what we eat.

“The climate impacts of our emissions are already destroying the lives and livelihoods of communities in the Global South, with such impacts rapidly worsening and spreading to the Global North,” he said. “Increased migration, military tensions, heatwaves, floods, droughts, and unstable food supplies are the legacy we are bequeathing our children.

“Ironically, given Peiser’s claims, continued reliance on fossil fuels is almost certain to lead to increasingly authoritarian states, as governments struggle to deal with rapidly worsening climate impacts detrimentally impacting the lives of their citizens.”

Peiser in Texas

Climate researchers have accused the GWPF, which for years has cast doubt on the scientific consensus on climate change, of exploiting the energy crisis to spread propaganda about net zero. The group says its purpose is to “advance the public understanding of global warming and of its possible consequences”.

Peiser, who has headed the GWPF since it was founded in 2009, was speaking at a panel hosted by the TPPF titled: “Lessons of Europe’s Net Zero Policy Failures”. 

The TPPF, which says its mission is to “promote and defend liberty, personal responsibility, and free enterprise in Texas and the nation” has received millions of dollars in funding from the billionaire fossil fuel industrialist Koch brothers, who are major funders of climate science denial, as well as the oil giants ExxonMobil and Chevron.

Peiser told the audience that by delaying the deadline for banning the sale of new combustion engine vehicles from 2030 to 2035, the UK government was encouraging others to follow suit. Peiser’s remarks came just hours after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak unveiled his party’s election manifesto which pledged to mandate annual North Sea oil and gas licensing rounds, and proposed reversing London’s expanded ultra-low emission zone.

“Once governments start to roll back, others will follow,” Peiser said.

Peiser also pointed to Labour’s decision to reduce its £28 billion a year green investment plan as evidence that the mainstream left is split on tackling climate change.

The panel was chaired by TPPF’s policy director Brent Bennett, who said that those divisions were “seeds of hope” for opponents of net zero. He told the audience that TPPF was highlighting the alleged costs of net zero in order to “break apart the coalitions needed to pass these destructive policies”.

Bennett claimed the foundation had recently led a successful campaign to ban textbooks that contain climate science from being approved for use in Texan schools. He described GWPF as a “sister” organisation.

When asked for comment, a TPPF spokesperson thanked DeSmog for the “free publicity”.

The GWPF’s Political Links

The GWPF was co-founded in 2009 by Peiser and the late Nigel Lawson, a former Conservative chancellor. It has received support from a number of Tory politicians and right-wing figures. Lord David Frost, a Tory peer and the UK’s former chief Brexit negotiator, is a trustee of the organisation alongside Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson. 

Tory Andrea Jenkyns, who is standing for re-election in Morley and Outwood in West Yorkshire, is a director of Net Zero Watch, the lobbying arm of the GWPF.

Jenkyns, who joined the board of Net Zero Watch in 2023, is running on her own manifesto which promises “No to Net Zero”. Her party has committed to delivering the UK’s 2050 net zero emissions target, despite Sunak having watered down policies needed to meet it.

In May, Jenkyns secured a parliamentary debate on what she called the “true costs of net zero”, which she described at the time as a “woke ideology”. 

Jenkyns did not respond to requests for comment about whether she would resign from the board of Net Zero Watch following Peiser’s comments. 

The GWPF does not disclose its donors but has received donations from major funders of the Conservative Party. In 2022, openDemocracy revealed that the GWPF’s U.S. funders included a foundation with millions of dollars in oil and gas interests.