Reform UK leader Nigel Farage was the “special guest of honour” at the launch of the Heartland Institute’s new European offshoot on Tuesday (17 December). 

The Heartland Institute – one of the organisations involved in the radical Project 2025 agenda for a second Donald Trump term – has been at the forefront of denying the scientific evidence for man-made climate change, and received at least $676,000 between 1998 and 2007 from U.S. oil major ExxonMobil. 

Heartland is known “for its persistent questioning of climate science”, according to Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, and it has received tens of thousands in donations from foundations linked to the owners of Koch Industries – a fossil fuel behemoth and a leading sponsor of climate science denial.

A Union of Concerned Scientists report in 2007 alleged that nearly 40 percent of the total funds received by Heartland Institute from ExxonMobil since 1998 were designated for climate change projects.

In a press release announcing its new UK-EU branch, based in London, Heartland boasted that it is “the world’s most prominent think tank supporting skepticism about man-made climate change”. 

Heartland Institute president James Taylor added that, “During recent years, a growing number of policymakers in the UK and continental Europe have requested Heartland establish a satellite office to provide resources to conservative policymakers throughout Europe”.

This has included Farage, who spoke at the Heartland Institute’s 40th anniversary fundraising event in September and called for the group to open an offshoot in Europe. “Give us your wisdom, give us your guidance, give us your discipline. I’d love to see Heartland on the other side of the pond,” he said.

Reform UK has called for the UK’s 2050 net zero emissions target to be scrapped, and Farage’s Heartland speech urged the U.S. to re-elect Trump and “drill baby drill” for more oil and gas. 

DeSmog revealed in June that – between the 2019 election and the beginning of the 2024 campaign – Reform UK received 92 percent of its funding (£2.3 million) from oil and gas interests, highly polluting industries, and climate science deniers.

Heartland’s European branch will be run by Lois Perry, a climate science denier who has said it’s her “personal belief” that climate change “is happening” but “is not man made”. Perry followed in Farage’s footsteps earlier this year by becoming the leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), though stood down after just 34 days. 

Perry formerly ran the anti-net zero pressure group CAR26, which has claimed that carbon dioxide is “essential to all life” and that its “welcome growth has greened our planet saving countless human and other lives”.

She told DeSmog that Heartland is “advocating for a balanced, evidence-based approach to climate policy, not the one-size-fits-all alarmism that seems to make headlines.” 

Perry added: “As for my past with UKIP and CAR26, I wear those roles with pride. I’ve always been upfront about my views: climate change happens, but the hysteria around human causation is, frankly, a bit of a stretch. CO2 is indeed vital for life, turning our planet into a blooming, green paradise rather than a barren wasteland.”

In reality, authors working for the world’s foremost climate science body, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), have said that “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 “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 “will put a disproportionate burden on low-income households and thus increase poverty levels.”

Farage and Project 2025

Farage’s views on climate change appear to reflect those of Perry and the Heartland Institute. 

Although two thirds of his constituents are concerned about climate change, Farage stated in an interview with climate science denier Jordan Peterson in July that: “I do find it extraordinary that people call carbon dioxide a pollutant, because as I understand it, plants don’t grow without carbon dioxide.”

In his speech to the Heartland Institute in September, Farage also claimed that the UK’s efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions doesn’t “make any bloody difference at all”, due to the emissions produced by larger countries like China. 

He also repeated the misleading claim that “man-made carbon dioxide is only about 3 percent of global, annual production of carbon dioxide”. In fact, human activity has raised the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide content by 50 percent in less than 200 years, according to NASA.

Farage has been attempting to cultivate ties between Reform UK and senior figures associated with Donald Trump, who has called climate change a “hoax” and is expected to once again pull the U.S. out of the flagship 2015 Paris Agreement. 

Farage this week met with key Trump ally and donor Elon Musk, who invested at least $277 million in the Republican’s re-election campaign, and said that he would seek to “negotiate” a donation from Musk to Reform UK.

“The threat of U.S. interference in our democracy isn’t just contained to Elon Musk’s touted $100 million donation to Reform,” said Hannah Greer, Good Law Project campaigns manager. “Farage has now helped a fossil-fuel-funded American climate science denial think tank to set up shop in the UK.

“Having the Global Warming Policy Foundation and Net Zero Watch around to pollute our politics is bad enough already; now it seems they will have some competition. But is there enough floorspace left at 55 Tufton Street for them all to share?”

During the recent presidential campaign, Democrats highlighted that Trump’s second term agenda was being drafted by another radical right-wing think tank, the Heritage Foundation, under the banner Project 2025. 

The document proposes a range of radical anti-climate policies, including slashing restrictions on fossil fuel extraction, scrapping investment in renewable energy, and gutting the Environmental Protection Agency. 

Project 2025 – heavily funded by just six family fortunes – has been accused of being “extreme” and “authoritarian” for setting out a plan to rapidly “reform” the U.S. government by shuttering bureaus and offices, overturning regulations, and replacing thousands of public sector employees with hand-picked political allies of Trump. The agenda also proposes radical tax cuts, and a crackdown on reproductive rights. 

Farage has been heavily criticised for venturing regularly to the U.S. since his election in July, rather than spending time in his constituency of Clacton. The Reform UK leader has made six trips to the U.S. as an MP, often meeting with avowed climate deniers, despite his coastal constituency being at risk of flooding due to global warming. 

Reform UK and the Heartland Institute were approached for comment.