Christopher Monckton

Credentials

According to George Monbiot at The Guardian, Monckton “has a degree in classics and a diploma in journalism and, as far as I can tell, no further qualifications.”¹

Background

Christopher Walter Monckton, the third Viscount Monckton of Brenchely, is a former British politician affiliated with the UK Independence Party. He was a former advisor to UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and was a “special advisor to Thatcher’s Downing Street policy unit” in the 1980s.

Monckton’s first claim to fame was his creation of the “eternity puzzle,” a board game that Monckton believed was so challenging that he offered 1 million euros to the first person to solve it. To his surprise, the eternity puzzle was solved in 16 months.² ³

While Monckton’s educational background is in journalism, he has been credited by many think tanks as an expert in the field of global warming.⁴

For example, his archived profile at the Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI) states:⁵

“His [Monckton’s] contribution to the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report in 2007 – the correction of a table inserted by IPCC bureaucrats that had overstated tenfold the observed contribution of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets to sea-level rise – earned him the status of Nobel Peace Laureate. His Nobel prize pin, made of gold recovered from a physics experiment, was presented to him by the Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Rochester, New York, USA.”

Monckton later conceded that claiming to be a Nobel Peace Laureate was “a joke, a joke” and “never meant to be taken seriously.” But the above claim remained on the SPPI website until at least Oct, 2011. ⁶ The claim has since been taken down from Monckton’s SPPI profile.⁷

Stance on Climate Change

March 1, 2022

In an article for American Thinker, Monkton argued that Russia and China have funded “Communist front groups posing as environmental campaign entities” to “silence” the “debate” surrounding climate change.⁸

Monckton also argued that: “Global warming will continue to be, as it has long been, small, slow, harmless, and net-beneficial”. He added: “Not a cent need or should be spent on attempts – futile in any event – to abate it.”

February 21, 2021

In a blog post on climate science denier Anthony Watts’ website Watts Up With That, Monckton wrote:⁹

“If there is going to be little more than 1 K anthropogenic warming over the next century or so, there is absolutely no need to do anything to prevent it. The flight of major manufacturing industries to China, which profiteers mightily from the climate scam sedulously promoted in the West by the fawning front groups that it subsidizes, can and should be reversed.”

June 19, 2019

In a letter to Pope Francis originally posted by Marc Morano on his Climate Depot blog and later reported by the far-right news site, WND, Monckton wrote:¹⁰

“I have listened carefully, and I can inform Your Holiness that science is divided on the climate question. A small number of totalitarian profiteers of doom in various self-serving national academies have issued pompous statements about it, but a large number of papers from reputable scientists, and a larger amount of hard data, suggest that global warming is and will continue to be a non-event.”¹¹

2014

”[…] there has been no global warming for 18 full years.”¹²

August 28, 2010

Monckton led a Tea Party crowd in Washington, DC in a call-and-response: “Global warming is? [Crowd response] “Bullshit!” “Obama cannot hear you. Global warming is?” “bullshit.” “That’s bettah.”

March 12, 2010

Speaking at an Americans for Prosperity “Defending the American Dream” summit in Wisconsin, Monckton led the crowd in a call and response. “I think that you may have a word in American speak for global warming. And I’m trying to remember what the word is.” Crowd replies “Bullshit!” Monckton: “Thank you very much. Can we all say that. Global warming is…?” Crowd shouts “Bullshit!” Monckton: “I couldn’t hear that. Global warming is?” Crowd replies: “Bullshit!” Monckton: “Need I say more? God bless you.”

2010

“Yes, there is a greenhouse effect. Yes, CO2 contributes to it. Yes, it causes warming. Yes, we emit CO2. Yes, warming will result. But not a lot.”¹³

2006

“Why haven’t air or sea temperatures turned out as the UN’s models predicted? Because the science is bad, the ‘consensus’ is wrong, and Herr Professor Ludwig Boltzmann, FRS, was as right about energy-to-temperature as he was about atoms.”¹⁴

1988

According to a newspaper clipping, apparently from the Evening Standard in 1988, Christopher Monkcton highlights the risks associated with climate change and CO2 increases:

An old newspaper cutting, apparently from Evening Standard in 1988, discussing the risks of rising CO2 & potential solutions. Note author. pic.twitter.com/VFbLWykhSz

— Ed Hawkins (@ed_hawkins) June 13, 2017

Monckton wrote on what the increase of CO2 would entail, a very different commentary than what he would come to claim in the future:¹⁵

“The enemy Is invisible but deadly: A gas called carbon dioxide. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been increasing In fact, it is twice what it used to be and it continues to increase. Too much carbon dioxide is dangerous because it trap s heat from the sun in the atmosphere, This is known as the ‘greenhouse effect’. Just as the glass in a greenhouse keeps in the sun’s heat and allows the tomatoes to ripen, so the carbon dioxide in the air stops the heat radiating off from the atmosphere into space at the normal rate.¹⁶

“So the world gets warmer. After shivering through last winter, many British people might be tempted to think that’s a good thing. But the extra warmth in the atmosphere could have calamitous effects.¹⁷

“As the average air temperature rises, so the seed gets warmer. As it expands, the mean sea level rises. As it rises, it floods low-lying land. Many of the world’s cities, including London, are on low-lying land.”¹⁸

Key Quotes

March 2, 2021

In a blog post on climate science denier Andrew Watts’ website ‘Watts Up With That,’ Monckton stated:¹⁹

“If anything, one is more likely to get phase transitions in the climate object if the weather cools than if it warms. Warmer weather reduces the temperature differentials in the system that lead to violent weather, which is why – contrary to what is generally reported in the Marxstream [sic] media – in recent decades there has been a decline in just about every indicator of severe weather worldwide.”

He added:

“However, there is so much internal variability in the climate that even if it were in our power to hold global temperature fixed, which it is not, phase transitions would occur all the time. They are called ‘weather.’”

August 2018

Speaking at Camp Constitution, a “family camp,” Monckton showed a graph he had developed and claimed it hasn’t been shown in mainstream media for political reasons:²⁰

“It’s very rare to see such information because the so-called mainstream news media, the CNNs and the Washington Posts and so forth, they are all in the hands of totalitarians, communists, fascists, socialists, call them what you will, and they will no longer tell you anything like this even though that is a fact. That is true.

They don’t tell you because it doesn’t fit the communist party line on the climate.”

On climate science, Monckton declared:

“You’ve been told that climate change is settled science, yes? You’ve heard that, right? Well it isn’t settled science.”

October, 2016

“[Y]ou don’t have to worry about the cuddly polar bear. They are going to be just fine. Because what this means is that global warming will not affect us for the next 2,000 years, and if it does, it won’t have been caused by us. I therefore declare the climate scare officially over.”²¹

October 18, 2015

“This (environmental treaty) process has nothing to do with the weather. It has nothing to do with man’s impact on the weather. It has everything to do with establishing the socialist international at the heart of the UN and making every nation bow the knee to this new dictatorship, and the climate is merely a fig leaf to cover what they are trying to do.”²²

June, 2015

Monckton on Pope Francis, the encyclical on the environment, and climate change:

“My message to the Pope would be, don’t take sides on the science. Don’t make the same mistake as seven out of 10 judges in the trial of Galileo, when they invited him to retract his views.”²³

April 28, 2015

Christopher Monckton travelled to Vatican City, Italy, with Marc Morano of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), and Calvin Beisner of the Cornwall Alliance, for a press event hosted by the Heartland Institute in order to “dissuade Pope Francis from lending his moral authority to the politicized and unscientific climate agenda of the United Nations,” according to a Heartland Institute press release.²⁴ ²⁵

DeSmog attended the event and noted that “just nine journalists made up the audience at Heartland’s press conference”:

“The main reason, Your Holiness, of why we are here today, is it is not the business of the church to stray from the field of faith and morals and wonder into the playground that is science… it is not the business of the church to pronounce on science.

“Of course, it doesn’t very much matter to the rest of the world what view the church takes now on this – very nearly all governments around the world have already already made up their minds on this.

“Some ‘me too’ statement from someone who is not a physicist but a chemist is not likely to carry very much weight in the councils of the world. The damage that would be done by a statement straying into the science of this question – on either side – would be to the church herself. For yet again, she would have gone beyond what she was founded to do… and yet again got the science 100 percent plumb wrong.”²⁶

September 9, 2014

Appearing on “More from Nights with Steve Price,” Monckton declared:

“You will get 100 year records set with exactly the same frequency they always have […] What you can’t say is that it is getting any worse.”²⁷

Archived audio below:

November 23, 2014

Monckton wrote an article at WorldNetDaily (WND) titled “Calling the non-heterosexuals’ bluff” where he asserted some gay men “had as many as 20,000” in their “short, miserable lives” and declared HIV “chiefly a disease of homosexuals and drug-abusers.”²⁸

“The wages of promiscuity is deadly disease. It is now at last admitted, even in official circles, that HIV is chiefly a disease of homosexuals and drug-abusers – and that a far greater percentage of homosexuals than heterosexuals do drugs. AIDS, then, is at root a ‘gay’ disease, and officialdom’s terrified refusal to admit that fact has killed 36 million worldwide,” Monkcton claimed.²⁹

Then-UKIP leader Nigel Farage denounced Monckton’s comments in a column for The Indepedent:³⁰ ³¹

“Now, I’m not sure where Viscount Monckton is getting his statistics, but to frame these comments as he has is both deeply offensive and fundamentally wrong,” Farage wrote.

“This sort of disruptive, crass and insensitive work serves to underscore why people with views such as these, openly mocking while seeming oddly threatened by homosexuals, should get no support from Ukippers.”

June 18, 2014

Lord Christopher Monckton speaks at an ideacity Conference in Toronto, Canada with a talk entitled, “Global Warming is a Hoax by Lord Christopher Monckton,” Monckton states:

2:35-3:00 “Now, part of the problem with the climate debate is that so much gas board language like that [the IPCC’s language] has been used and there’s been too little plain, scientific, and economic thinking. And so, the entire political class has been captured by an idea, which as always with the best bad ideas has a grain of truth in it, which is then exaggerated beyond all reason. This has happened before—one thinks of the Dreyfus case, for instance.”³²

5:56-6:24 “The breaching of the Berlin Wall and the melting down of the Iron Curtain marked not the end of totalitarianism, but the end of its confinement. The new menace to liberty is groupthink gone global. The globalization of groupthink is guilefully disguised under the green fig leaf of pietistic environmentalism. From behind that fig leaf, emerges today’s tumescent totem of totalitarian tyranny: climate change.”³³

March 1, 2013

“The only scientists who are capable of coming to a conclusion as barking mad as that [that climate change is man-made] are computer modelists. And these are typically zitty teenagers sitting in dark rooms with a can of Coca-Cola and too many doughnuts and playing on their Xbox 360.”³⁴

November 2012

“Win or lose, though, Mr Obama was not and is not the president. The Hawaiian long-form ‘birth certificate’ he publicly endorsed and posted at the White House website last year as proof that he was born in the jurisdiction of the U.S. and is thus constitutionally eligible to be president is a forgery.

[…]

The probability that the ‘birth certificate’ and other Obama identity documents are genuine is just 1 in 75 sextillion.”³⁵

May 2012

“Even among governments now there is a realization that even if the science were as settled as the usual suspects are trying to tell us it is, the economic side of it is really very clear and that is that it is orders of magnitude cheaper and more cost effective to do nothing now and sit back and enjoy the sunshine than it is to try and spend money now on making global warming go away. It’s cheaper to let it happen and adapt in a focussed way to any adverse consequences of warming that may occur.”³⁶

July 21, 2011

“The House of Lords says I’m not a member of it. My passport says I am – get used to it.” [National Press Club Debate]

March 26, 2009

“The right response to the non-problem of global warming is to have the courage to do nothing.”³⁷

“Mitigation is always unnecessary – it is also disproportionately expensive. Green jobs are the new euphemism for mass unemployment.”³⁸

“[T]here is only one way to stop AIDS. That is to screen the entire population regularly and to quarantine all carriers of the disease for life. Every member of the population should be blood-tested every month […] all those found to be infected with the virus, even if only as carriers, should be isolated compulsorily, immediately, and permanently.”³⁹

Key Actions

March 1, 2022

In an article for American Thinker titled “The Strategic Threat from Net-zero Emissions”, Monkton argued that Russia and China have funded “Communist front groups posing as environmental campaign entities” to “silence” the “debate” surrounding climate change.⁴⁰

Monckton wrote:

“A relentless, targeted campaign of desinformatsiya – systematic reputational destruction or ‘unpersoning’ by Communist front groups posing as environmental campaign entities but in reality fostered, funded and too often founded by Moscow and Beijing – has all but silenced thousands of skeptical climate researchers who had formerly been able to debate the climate question in the sunlight of the agora, and has deterred tens of thousands more who would have spoken out in their support but dare not do so.”

Monckton added that “unpersoning” has been used with “particular efficacy in silencing almost all those who would otherwise have dared to question the official narrative on global warming”, and implied that “every environmental pressure group with an innocent-sounding name is, first and foremost, a Communist-led front group”.

Referring to the KGB, the Soviet Union’s twentieth-century state security and intelligence organisation, Monckton wrote:⁴¹

“The kamitet realised that, if the climate change narrative could be captured, it would be possible to induce Western ministers and opinion-formers fearful of being unpersoned to fall as culpably silent as the opponents of Nazism in the years leading to Hitler’s takeover in 1933.”⁴²

He added that the KGB was “firmly in control of the environmental movement” with the potential to “impoverish and even bankrupt the Western economies” and “inflict on their people so many pettifogging environmental restrictions in the name of Saving The Planet that the freedoms we have long taken for granted would, in effect, be no more.”

In subsequent paragraphs, Monckton referred to Wikipedia as “Wokipedia”, commenting that “The growth of the internet [has] greatly facilitated the unpersoning of climate skeptics”. He also suggested that the 2020 US Presidential election result was fixed by “tech giants” who had already “doubled down on their censorship of non-Communists, especially climate skeptics”.

Monckton also argued that Russia was “actively assisted by China” to “capture” Western environmental movements.

Monckton then criticised the decommissioning of coal-fired power stations, writing:

“As the price of electrical power continues to rise as coal-fired stations are needlessly shut down, not only the capital cost but also the running cost of electric buggies will put personal transport – one of the greatest freedoms the West has given to the world – far beyond the reach of the ordinary motorist.”

Monckton also argued that: “In the real world no longer inhabited by Western politicians, net-zero carbon dioxide emissions are not in practice achievable”, and that “Global warming will continue to be, as it has long been, small, slow, harmless, and net-beneficial”. He added: “Not a cent need or should be spent on attempts – futile in any event – to abate it.”

Monckton concluded by writing that the West has capitulated to “Communist propagandists paid by Russia and China to peddle to the official global warming narrative”.

He also argued that “the voters of the West” are partly to blame for Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, writing:

“After decades of imprudent self-disarmament aggravated by the global-warming stupidity by which we have long been funding the militaristic expansions both of Putin and of Xi, we are scarcely less at fault for the plight of Ukraine than is Vlad the Invader himself.”

Monckton also used the terms “net-zero foolery” to describe net zero policies and “true believing climate fanatics” to describe environmental groups.

May 9, 2021

Monckton wrote a blog post on Anthony Watts’ blog Watts Up With That, which disputed the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on climate change, arguing that solar activity played a primary role.⁴³

He claimed: “Heat originating from solar irradiance follows precisely the same natural laws as heat originating from the greenhouse effect does. All that counts in analysing the behaviour of a physical system is the total heat content, not its original source or sources.”⁴⁴

Monckton concluded: “The bottom line is that climatology is simply wrong about the magnitude of future global warming. No government should pay the slightest attention to anything it says.”⁴⁵

April 5, 2021

The Guardian reported Monckton owned an an environmental consultancy that received £10,000 from the UK’s COVID-19 furlough scheme in December 2020 and January 2021. According to data from Gov.uk, Monckton Enterprises Ltd. was the recipient.⁴⁶ ⁴⁷

According to Companies House documents (listed below), Monckton Enterprises LTD. (SC361157) was incorporated on June 12, 2009. The nature of the business lis listed as “Environmental consulting activities.”⁴⁸

March 2, 2021

Monckton wrote a blog post on climate science denier Andrew Watts’ website ‘Watts Up With That,’ criticising Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s speech at a UN security council meeting. Monckton wrote: “Russia and India both vetoed Johnson’s ludicrous proposal (Johnson had called on other UN members to commit to net zero carbon emissions by 2050), for he and his officials had not done their groundwork in the chancelleries of empire before he wasted everyone’s time with his silly proposal.” He also wrote that the UN “peddles the climate nonsense relentlessly because it is profitable and gives that corrupt bureaucracy an apparent role and a quasi-legitimacy that is otherwise strikingly absent.”⁴⁹ ⁵⁰

Monckton also criticised Sir David Attenborough’s appearance at the event, describing him as “militantly ignorant and downright dishonest,” and “a mere propagandist.”

February 16, 2021

In a blog post on climate science denier Anthony Watts’ website “Watts up with that,” Monckton disputed the accuracy of climate science, writing: “The climate question – on which the totalitarians driving the scam know perfectly well by now that they were simply wrong from the get-go – was one of the earliest on which they began shutting down a debate they had come to realise they could not win by fair means.”⁵¹

Elsewhere in the blog post, he disputed that climate change had caused rising temperatures, writing: “In Britain we’ve just had the coldest cold snap in a quarter of a century. Even the unspeakable BBC has almost gone without mentioning cloimate chynge [sic] for almost a week.”

September 24, 2020

Appearing in Marc Morano’s 2020 film Climate Hustle 2: Rise of the Climate Monarchy, produced by the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow [CFACT], Monckton characterised the climate crisis as “merely the pretext for shutting down the hated capitalist west,” adding: “they [elite politicians] want to introduce socialist totalitarianism on a global scale and the one thing that still stands in the way is the Western love of freedom and the prosperity that the capitalist system brings. They have to tear that down.”⁵²

Monckton criticized “the anti-humanity agenda, which is a very strong thing on the Left now, where they wish to reduce the population of the Earth.”⁵³

During a discussion which characterised the climate crisis as a pretext to usher in an authoritarian political agenda, Monckton suggested that the U.N “wanted a global government,” and that “it would give them more money and more power if the United Nations were able to get the climate treaty through.”⁵⁴

Commenting on the UN’s commitments to reversing climate change, Monckton stated: “they’ve established a thousand new bureaucracies, which are the sinews of this new global government,” adding: “the absolute control over people that a modern bureaucracy has through modern methods of record keeping and communication is terrifying. And that’s what they’re trying to impose on us.”⁵⁵

May 18, 2020

Christopher Monckton wrote at JunkScience.com, the website run by Steve Milloy, claiming that Naomi Seibt—the Heartland-affiliated teenage Youtuber often refered to as the “Anti-Greta”—“needs your urgent financial help” after supposedly being fined by German officials, directing readers to her new Patreon account.⁵⁶

“Without a hearing, German officials have fined her and demanded costs on the ground that in her devastatingly effective videos she has dared to question the Party Line about what officialdom profiteers by presenting as ‘dangerous’ manmade global warming,” Monckton claimed at JunkScience.

As a result of this arbitrary and capricious prosecution and conviction without trial, Naomi has had her earnings cut off. Please donate securely and directly to her Patreon account at https://www.patreon.com/naomiseibtmy. May I suggest at least $10 per month? That would be a real life-saver, and would enable Naomi to continue her valuable work.”

Monckton added that “Naomi has engaged a lawyer pro bono.”

The fine arises from Seibt’s work with the Heartland Institute. Daily KOS outlines Monckton’s claims of how Seibt’s YouTube channel was demonetized in addition to a $400 fine by the local Media Authority for promoting the Heartland Institute. Daily KOS wrote:⁵⁷

“Given that he doesn’t provide links to any of the original materials, it’s hard to tell the difference between the dramatic hyperbole of Monckton’s writing – which is basically how an arrogant and lazy British person thinks a witty and brilliant British professor-turned-thesaurus-salesman talked in 1820 – and what’s actually happened here in 2020. But it sounds like the German state in which Seibt lives has a new law regulating media that lobbies for or against specific policies, and that includes some sort of product placement, which her videos apparently do.”

Monckton went on to write to the German Ambassador in London over the supposed “Suppression of free speech by German officials” over Seibt’s videos.⁵⁸

“I recommend that the Landesregierung should give Fräulein Seibt immediate, full and unreserved apology on behalf of the defalcating Authority, together with substantial compensation – I suggest $10,000, with $2500 costs – for the distress and alarm to which its misconduct has unjustifiably subjected her and her family,” Monckton wrote in the letter.⁵⁹

Reuters performed a fact check on “The claim that social media platforms have deleted [Seibt’s] accounts for the views she has expressed is untrue” that has been spreading on social media.⁶⁰

Independent Reuters fact checkers found that “The claim that social media platforms have deleted her accounts for the views she has expressed is untrue” and that as of May 21, her social media accounts (YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter) were all active.⁶¹

In an April video, Seibt had posted a YouTube video explaining, in German, that she had chosen not to renew her three-month contract with the Heartland Institute as her affiliation had “resulted in the Landesanstalt für Medien NRW (Nordrhein-Westfalen) — a regional supervisory authority for private broadcasting — threatening to delete her YouTube account and her videos, alleging that through her collaboration with the American think-tank, she was spreading U.S. conspiracy theories in Germany ( here ). Seibt claimed that the allegation was not true, and that it violated her freedom of expression.”⁶²

A fundraising page on the CLINTEL website asks for support for Seibt and claims “the authorities ‘demanded a fine of about $400 and costs on top, and instructed Naomi that she must not mention the Heartland Institute in her videos. The insubstantial ground for this attempt at silencing Naomi was that such mentions constituted unlawful product placement under a recently-enacted law of the North-Rhine Westphalia region.’”⁶³

The Landesanstalt für Medien NRW confirmed to Reuters via email that it did not yet issue a fine to Seibt:⁶⁴

“Ms. Seibt was requested to delete two YouTube videos because they violate German law. The basis of our decision is the prohibition of third party influence on the editorial content in audiovisual media according to articles 7 para. 7 sentence 1 in connection with 58 para. 3 sentence 1 of the Interstate Broadcasting Treaty (Rundfunkstaatsvertrag-RStV).

“Ms. Seibt was heard on the facts of the case. Her statement was not able to invalidate the accusation of illegal thematic placement (in German ‘Themenplatzierung’). Unlike in America, in Germany it is prohibited by law to provide media content, if a third party has exerted influence on it and if the cooperation is based on a compensation. Unlike in America, in Germany Freedom of speech is not touched by this ban.”

Seibt’s legal representative told Reuters that Seibt had requested an extension of time to respond to the Allegations and had not received a reply. The Landesanstalt für Medien NRW maintained to Reuters that Seibt was given sufficient time to respond. Seibt later appealed against the decision and a court is set to decide if her videos must be deleted or if she would pay a fine.⁶⁵

January 5, 2020

Monckton wrote a lengthy opinion piece on the Australian bushfires, absolving anthropogenic climate change for contributing to the severity of the fires:⁶⁶

“ […] it is necessary to nail the childish myth that global warming caused the bushfires in Australia,” he wrote.⁶⁷

Claiming that poor land management was the primary catalyst behind the massive fires, he even suggested that they could have been the work of “environmentalist extremists trying to ‘raise awareness’ of global warming.”⁶⁸

Monckton proceeded to downplay the recorded rise in global temperatures:⁶⁹

“The warming in central England has been equivalent to only 3 C°/century. Is that a bad thing? No. In our miserable climate, we want all the warming we can get.”⁷⁰

Claims that environmental policies and arson were to blame for the bushfires have been debunked, though they continue to be propagated by social media bots and fringe websites such as Alex Jones’s InfoWars.⁷¹

October 2019

Monckton signed the “Realist Catholic Climate Declaration,” drafted by Heartland Institute policy analyst William Briggs, which stated, “the earth’s climate has always changed, is changing now, and will never cease changing. The extent to which man is responsible for climate change is not known, only surmised. There is no earthly force capable of stopping climate change,” and that, “the salvation of souls is of more pressing concern than the air temperature. Pray to God and pray for your neighbor, not to the planet.”⁷² ⁷³

The declaration was endorsed by Anthony Watts’ blog Watts Up With That, in a post by Charles Rotter, which stated, “please share this as widely as possible. With the concept of ‘eco-sins’ being bruited, and the return of paganism, this declaration is timely and important.”⁷⁴

According to a post at William Briggs’s website: “This statement is to be in contradistinction to the hyperbolic and inaccurate ‘U.S. Catholic Climate Declaration’,” Briggs wrote of the draft. “The goal is to have something short, sweet, certain, and Catholic.”⁷⁵

September 19, 2019

Monckton appeared on an episode of the Alan Jones Breakfast Show radio program to promote the theory that school children were being used to politicize climate change, which the host referred to as a “hoax.”⁷⁶

During his conversation with Jones, Monckton made numerous statements dismissing the threat of climate change and the scientific consensus that the Earth is warming:⁷⁷

“Drought doesn’t come from global warming. In fact, you would expect the reverse.”⁷⁸

“There’s a very large political element in this climate storyline but the science is collapsing in all directions.”⁷⁹

“These huge computer models […] simply don’t know what they’re talking about. They are incapable of forecasting anything to do with global temperature. So the entire formal case for saying we’re going to have a problem with the climate has just spectacularly collapsed.”⁸⁰

Asked what his message to energy consumers was, Monckton responded:

“Junk the Paris targets, do not spend a single cent on global warming. It is totally unnecessary and wouldn’t achieve anything even if you spent it, and start rebuilding the modern form of coal-fired power stations. […] Get a grip and junk this entire climate nonsense.”⁸¹

May 14, 2019

Monckton appeared at a climate change denial symposium staged in the German parliament by the far right AfD (Alternative für Deutschland) party. Other featured speakers at the event included Thomas Wysmuller, Gernot Patzelt, and Henrik Svensmark.⁸²

The European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE) promoted the event on its website to “set facts against CO2 hysteria and climate activism.”⁸³

Germany’s AfD intensified its promotion of climate science denial following the emergence of Swedish activist Greta Thunberg in August 2018. A smear campaign against Thunberg mocked her autism as a form of “psychosis” and compared her to a cult leader and a member of a Nazi youth organization. AfD attributed Thunberg’s popularity to the work of “PR professionals seeking to bedevil the plant-nutrient carbon dioxide.”⁸⁴ ⁸⁵

Speaking to the Guardian, a representative of Greenpeace Germany said of the event:

“The AfD is using the Bundestag as a stage for its dissemination of climate lies. They invite fake experts to a so-called symposium on climate change to generate content for mass dissemination via social media channels and stir up hatred and anger on the internet. We are experiencing a shift to the right on social media and in society. In a short period of time, the new right has established its own counter-society on climate issues. With troll armies, agitating magazines and the support of climate skeptics like EIKE, it has created its own sphere that is massively underestimated.”⁸⁶

September 2018

Monckton gave presentations at Camp Constitution, a group targeting children with the stated mission “to enhance understanding of our Judeo-Christian moral heritage, our American heritage of courage and ingenuity, including the genius of our United States Constitution, and the application of free enterprise, which together gave our nation an unprecedented history of growth and prosperity, making us the envy of the world.”⁸⁷

According to the camp schedule, Monckton presented on “A Reverent Look at the United States Constitution” and “Climate Summit and the United Nations.” He was also interviewed by Dave Kopacz for “Red Pill Politics” and helped deliver closing ceremonies.⁸⁸

View videos below:

Among those listed at the camp’s “Speakers Bureau” is Tom DeWeese, founder of the American Policy Center and a promoter of the Agenda 21 conspiracy that contends the United Nations are aiming to establish a totalitarian world government.⁸⁹ ⁹⁰ ⁹¹

Camp Constitution also posted multiple photos of Monckton posing with children at the camp. Willie Soon was also a speaker at the camp.

March 2018

Monckton was one of several prominent climate change deniers who offered “friend of the court” briefs as part of a case in which San Francisco and Oakland are suing fossil fuel companies over the costs their cities face due to climate change.⁹²

As of March 19, U.S. District Judge William Alsup said he had received two of the briefs. One group included Willie Soon and Monckton, while the other included Richard Lindzen and Steven Koonin, who has advocated for a “red team, blue team” approach to debating climate science.⁹³

Authors also included David Legates, who has received funding by various industry groups such as the American Petroleum Institute, Charles G. Koch Caritable Foundation, Southern Company, and ExxonmobilWilliam M. Briggs, a statistician; Michael Limburg, vice president of the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE) that has co-hosted climate change denial events with the Heartland Institute; Dietrich Jeschke from the University of Applied Sciences in Flensburg, Germany; and James Morrison, whose only listing is as an undergraduate in Environmental Scienes at the University of West Anglia. “It’s unusual to list an undergraduate student as a scientific expert, particularly in a brief related specifically to a tutorial on the scientific evidence underpinning a case,” Climate Liability News noted.⁹⁴

ICN described the case—which included a “climate tutorial”—as an “an unusual arrangement, seemingly borrowed from patent litigation, where judges commonly hear initial testimony from both sides on pertinent scientific details,” would take place in a mock classroom and included a set of basic preliminary questions about climate to start the discussion.⁹⁵ ⁹⁶

Lindzen’s group summarized their message as follows:⁹⁷

“To summarize this overview, the historical and geological record suggests recent changes in the climate over the past century are within the bounds of natural variability. Human influences on the climate (largely the accumulation of CO2 from fossil fuel combustion) are a physically small (1%) effect on a complex, chaotic, multicomponent and multiscale system. Unfortunately, the data and our understanding are insufficient to usefully quantify the climate’s response to human influences. However, even as human influences have quadrupled since 1950, severe weather phenomena and sea level rise show no significant trends attributable to them. Projections of future climate and weather events rely on models demonstrably unfit for the purpose. As a result, rising levels of CO2 do not obviously pose an immediate, let alone imminent, threat to the earth’s climate.”⁹⁸

Monckton and Soon’s group had their brief submitted by a Heartland Institute lawyer:⁹⁹

“There is no agreement among climatologists as to the relative contributions of Man and Nature” to observed planetary warming, they claimed. As for the consensus view, it “says nothing about whether anthropogenic global warming was, is or will be catastrophic.”¹⁰⁰

InsideClimateNews noted that the judge requested that the groups of climate change deniers each file a statement by the end of the day on Tuesday declaring who paid for their research, whether they received support from anyone “on either side of the climate debate,” and whether any of them were “affiliated in any way (directly or indirectly)” with parties to the litigation.¹⁰¹

“And why, he asked, did they wait so long to present their documents, limiting the time for others to respond to them?” ICN added.¹⁰²

The case is one of several in which cities have filed lawsuits against fossil fuel companies regarding knowledge about climate change, and damages related to to their products due to the addition of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.¹⁰³

October 17, 2017

According to Steve Bishop, reporting at the Independent Australia Party, “After nearly two decades of telling the world the Earth was not warming, this cardinal proponent of the climate-denying movement [Monkcton] – whose skewed views seem to be accepted as gospel by broadcaster Alan Jones and columnist Andrew Bolt – is now admitting temperatures did increase over that same period.”¹⁰⁴

Bishop attributes Monckton’s “violent U-turn” to a graph Monckton had posted on his website, which claims to show a real increase in global temperatures of between January 2001 and April 2016 of 0.47ºC per century. While Monckton contrasts this to predicted warming of 4.2 degrees C, it is also a departure from his previous claims that the world has not warmed in the past 18 years.¹⁰⁵

While Monckton’s website was not online when Bishop published, the graph — originally posted in 2016 — can still be found on a number of other denier websites. Reposted below.¹⁰⁶

Monckton’s claim, whether he intended it or not, translates to that “the world isn’t warming fast enough.” Bishop writes that Monckton’s 0.47 degree Celsius calculation is a “result of his mathematical prestidigitation.” Bishop’s interpretation of NASA figures, subtracting 2016 average temperatures from 2000 average temperatures, returns actual warming of 0.57 degrees.¹⁰⁷

“So, on that basis, far from Monckton’s claim that the world is not warming as fast as predicted it is actually warming faster,” Bishop writes.¹⁰⁸

June 22 – 23, 2017

Christopher Monckton was a speaker at the inaugural Red Pill Expo, an event DeSmog’s Graham Readfearn described as a “parade of conspiracy theories” including “vaccines (dangerous), the United Nations (a global power grab), cancer cures (a cover up of ‘natural’ cures) and the 9/11 terrorist attacks (a controlled explosion).”¹⁰⁹ ¹¹⁰

The Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported on the event, quoting a director at the Montana Human Rights Network who called the event a recruitment drive for the “alt right.” The Expo was organized by Freedom Force International (FFI), a group founded by conspiracy theorist G. Edward Griffin.¹¹¹

The theme of the conference, as DeSmog noted, was a general fear of Communism and that only those taking the “red pill” are able to see the truth. Speaking on commodities, on that note, Monckton said:

“It’s a good idea to keep silver rather than gold. Communists tend to confiscate gold but silver takes more storage, so they don’t confiscate that. So the thing to do is hold silver.”¹¹²

During his speech at the event, Monckton claimed to have found errors in the methods used by scientists to calculate rising levels of carbon dioxide. Earlier in June, Monckton appeared on the Alex Jones Show to suggest his theory, although he admitted that he was having difficulty in finding a journal to publish the research.¹¹³

According to his full presentation at the Red Pill Expo, Monckton’s co-authors included David Legates, Michael Limburg, Willie Soon, Alex Henney, and James Morrison.¹¹⁴

June 1, 2017

Monckton appeared on the Alex Jones Show to suggest flaws in the methods used by scientists to calculate rising levels of carbon dioxide. Regarding his new equation, Monckton said that “this is going to change everything,” although he went on to admit that he was having difficulty getting published in any scientific journals.¹¹⁵

“The real idea of this climate change nonsense is to take America down,” said Monckton. “That’s the objective here — it’s got nothing to do with the climate.”¹¹⁶

March 24, 2017

Christopher Monckton was a speaker at the Heartland Institute‘s 12th International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC12). He spoke during the Breakfast Keynote on March 24, 2017. Video below.¹¹⁷

February 23, 2017

Monckton was a signatory of a petition (PDF) organized by Richard Lindzen of the Cato Institute urging President Donald Trump to pull the United States out of the United Nations international convention on climate change (UNFCCC).¹¹⁸

“In just a few weeks, more than 300 eminent scientists and other qualified individuals from around the world have signed the petition below,” Lindzen wrote in the letter.¹¹⁹

Media outlets including Fox News, The Hill, and the Daily Caller reported on the list, describing signatories as “eminent scientists” and “qualified individuals.”¹²⁰ ¹²¹ ¹²²

DeSmog investigated the list, and found that only a small handful of the signatories could be considered “even remotely ‘qualified’ or ‘eminent’ — but not in the field of climate science.” The list included individuals “interested in climate,” and one signatory who only identified as an “emailer who wished to sign the petition” while some signers provided no affiliation or address whatsoever.¹²³

February, 2017

Christopher Moncton claimed that his team of “very distinguished professors and doctors of science” had discovered a “major, significant, substantial error in the way in which the computer models calculate how much warming they would predict should be happening.”¹²⁴

“Take that error away, and there is no longer any climate problem,” Moncton claims. “You might get one or two celsius of warming, a doubling of CO2 concentration, but you won’t get much more than that.”¹²⁵

December 6, 2016

Christopher Monckton is featured as a speaker at a meeting of The Siskiyou County Republican Women for a “discussion of issues facing rural Americans.” According to the event description, Monckton is “coming to this area to study and learn about the issues in the region, including the proposed removal of Klamath River dams, logging and more.”¹²⁶

December 3, 2016

Christopher Monckton is listed as a speaker at Freedom Force International’s “3rd Congress” event titled “Global-Warming; an Inconvenient Lie.” Freedom Force International describes the event as “a gathering of the world’s top experts on this subject who will put an end, once-and-for-all, to the myth of anthropogenic (man-caused) global-warming.”¹²⁷

Monckton’s speech is titled “Global Warming Is A Monstrous Hoax.” Monckton’s short bio notes that he is a member of the “Freedom Force Hall of Honour.” The complete speaker list is below:¹²⁸

Lord Christopher Monckton – Global Warming Is A Monstrous Hoax
William Happer – The Real Inconvenient Truth; More CO2 Benefits the Earth
Tim Ball – Global Warming Is the Biggest Deception in History
G. Edward Griffin – Why Do They Deceive?
Holly Swanson – They Call It Education; Global Warming and Political Indoctrination
Dan Happel – They Call It Green; Global Warming and Agenda-21
Patrick Wood – They Call it Science; Global Warming and Technocracy
Alex Newman – They Call It News; Global Warming and Propaganda
Debbie Bacigalupi – They Call It Smart Growth: Global Warming and The Depopulation of Rural America
Elaine Willman – Native Americans – Pawns in the Agenda-21 game
Jim Lee – Geoengineering, Weather Modification, and the Weaponization of Nature
Michael Shaw – Agenda-21; Bringing the Soviet System to America
Willie Soon – Man vs. Sun; Put Your Money on the Sun
Istvan Marko – CO2 Is Not Pollution. It is Our Friend.

October 4, 2016

As part of his speaking tour in Montana, Christopher Moncton spoke at a Kalispell event sponsored by Northwest Liberty News and Concerned Citizens of Northwest Montana. Monckton contended that scientific models have been exaggerated by “climate communists,” reported the Flathead Beacon. Moncton’s speech was titled “Global Climate Change and BREXIT”:¹²⁹ ¹³⁰

“Wearing a cowboy hat and bolo tie, Monckton called for the abolition of the United Nations and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; urged the repeal of Agenda 21, which is the UN’s non-binding action governing sustainable development; exhorted a ban on environmental groups like Greenpeace; and trumpeted Montana’s right to secede from the United States,” The Beacon wrote.¹³¹

“[Y]ou don’t have to worry about the cuddly polar bear. They are going to be just fine,” Monckton said to laughter and applause. “Because what this means is that global warming will not affect us for the next 2,000 years, and if it does, it won’t have been caused by us. I therefore declare the climate scare officially over.”¹³²

Desmog has noted that a portion of Moncton’s Montana speaking tour was supported by Republican activist Dan Happell, a failed candidate for the state’s Republican party in 2015.¹³³

August 2016

Monkcton is listed as the president of a new group titled Climate Exit (Clexit). According to Clexit’s founding statement (PDF), “The world must abandon this suicidal Global Warming crusade. Man does not and cannot control the climate.”¹³⁴ ¹³⁵

As Desmog reports, another key member of Clexit’s “60 well-informed science, business and economic leaders” is Hugh Morgan, a former board member of the Reserve Bank of Australia and former CEO of Western Mining Corporation with close ties to Australia’s Liberal party.¹³⁶ ¹³⁷

According to Clexit’s founding statement:

“If the Paris climate accord is ratified, or enforced locally by compliant governments, it will strangle the leading economies of the world with pointless carbon taxes and costly climate and energy policies, all with no sound basis in evidence or science […]”¹³⁸

June 2016

Lord Christopher Monckton advocated Texas secede from the United States—what he calls “Texit”—as a way to preserve the best of America. According to The Daily Caller, Monckton views Texas as a lifeboat while the rest of america “is on the verge of being overrun with Islamic invaders which will be accompanied by ‘imminent’ financial destruction.”¹³⁹

“The United States Constitution has not proven sufficiently robust against the relentless increase in federal power and wealth at the expense of the states,” Monckton said, “and the Supreme Court has increasingly aggrandized itself by inflicting new law on all states.”

“Unquestionably,” Monckton continued, “the quickest solution to this problem for Texas is to exercise the right of secession, which instantly cuts off altogether the power of the federal government to interfere in Texan affairs.”

“Texas has always retained the right — which I think is unique among the states — to secede from the Union,” Monckton added.¹⁴⁰

While Monckton admits to being “no expert on the constitutional and administrative law either of the United States or of the Lone Star State,” he saiys that Texas’s legal right to secede can be found in “internatinoal law.”

With relation to border security, Monckton calls Donald Trump’s wall “daft” and suggests a different approach:

“Texas currently faces incursions from two principal directions – Islamic refugees, genuine or not, and Hispanic migrants from Mexico and all parts of South America. Military action would not necessarily be the most effective method of controlling immigration,” said Monckton.

“Mr. Trump’s proposal to build and staff a Great Wall of America right along the southern border would, if implemented, be expected to have the same disastrous effect on the national economy as the Great Wall of China had.”

“Instead, it should enhance the competitive advantage that its independence will confer upon it by paying lower welfare rates than the Union pays.” Monckton further suggested “denying both the right of permanent residence and the right to receive any welfare benefits” to anyone from outside Texas and anyone who has not lived in Texas for at least five years.¹⁴¹

He also proposed a solution to dealing with Muslim refugees:

“Texas might also consider whether and in what manner to outlaw incitement to hatred or to violence. For instance, the Quran contains – on almost every page – violent passages inciting Muslims to hate and even to kill unbelievers,” said Monckton.

“One measure to deal with this problem might be to require every edition of the Quran circulated within Texas to mark out in red all such passages and to contain a plain warning in an introductory page that reading any such passages out loud…would be prosecutable as an offense of incitement to hatred and violence.”¹⁴²

May 2, 2016

Christopher Monckton was listed among “Key Scientists” appearing in Marc Morano‘s movie, Climate Hustle. The full list included the following:¹⁴³

Marc Morano’s Climate Hustle was released in U.S. theatres on May 2, 2016. Bill Nye described it as “not in our national interest and the world’s interest.”¹⁴⁴

The film was produced by the Committee for Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) and CDRCommunications. As noted at Desmog’s project, ClimateHustler.org, CFACT has received funding from ExxonMobil, Chevron, as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars from foundations associated with Richard Mellon Scaife. CFACT has also received at least $7.8 million in “dark money” through DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund.¹⁴⁵ ¹⁴⁶

CDR Communications was behind the 2010 video by the Cornwall Alliance titled Resisting the Green Dragon, which claimed environmentalism was a “false religion” and a “global government” power grab. Chris Rogers of CDR Communictions is also chairman of The James Partnership, the umbrella arm that includes the Cornwall Alliance as one of its projects and pays the salary of Calvin Beisner, Cornwall’s founder and spokesperson.¹⁴⁷

Climate Hustle initially premiered on December 7, 2015 in Paris, France during the COP21 United Nations summit on climate change.¹⁴⁸ ¹⁴⁹

“We are putting together what I think is the most comprehensive, unique, entertaining and humorous climate documentary that has ever been done or attempted,” Morano had said before the film was released.¹⁵⁰

“The reason that this is a unique film,” Morano has said, “is that we are going for a pop culture-friendly… sarcastic approach and we actually give both sides in this movie.”

In an interview with Ezra Levant, Morano said:

“I am not interviewing a lot of the main climate sceptical scientists because I feel like they have been interviewed by many other people and their stories have been told. I am trying to find another layer of scientist whose stories have not been out there yet. You will see a lot of new names in this.”¹⁵¹

See a preview of the film below:

At the Paris premier of the film, reporters from Desmog and the Irish Times were denied entrance after having their RSVPs accepted days earlier.¹⁵²

April 22, 2016

Christopher Monkcton was a signatory to a complaint to the BBC (PDF), accusing it of bias on climate change coverage for not including the positions of climate change skeptics.¹⁵³

“We and many others alongside us have come to the opinion that the BBC’s continuing bias on the climate question – its performance is too often like a scientifically illiterate, naïve, oft times emotive green activist organisation – is unacceptable and must now be brought to an end. In future, both sides in the climate debate must be fairly heard, whether BBC staff like it or not,” the letter reads.¹⁵⁴

Among the letter’s recommendations is to “arrange for Lord Monckton to co-ordinate a team of leading sceptical scientists and economists to give a day-long, high-level briefing for senior BBC executives.”¹⁵⁵

It suggests that “The Trust should require that the section on ‘Consensus’ in the impartiality topic under the BBC’s Guidelines should be rewritten or deleted,” and that “The BBC should employ at least one climate sceptic in a senior journalistic role,” among numerous other recommendations.¹⁵⁶

The complaint was posted on Paul Homewood’s blog, NotALotOfPeopleKnowThat.¹⁵⁷

Signatories included:

Piers Corbyn
Richard Courtney
David T C Davies MP
Philip Foster
Roger Helmer MEP
Alex Henney
Paul Homewood
Lord Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
John Whitfield
Rupert Wyndham

December 7, 2015

Christopher Monckton appeared at the United Nation’s Conference on Climate Change, COP21, in Paris, France with the Heartland Institute, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), and the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) to “hold a ‘counter-conference’ … called the Day of Examining the Data.”¹⁵⁸ Other notable climate science deniers that were in attendance at the “counter-conference,” included: Robert Carter, S. Fred Singer, Christopher Essex, James Taylor, Patrick Moore, Wolfgang Müller, James Inhofe, and Willie Soon.¹⁵⁹

Watch Christopher Monckton’s “counter-conference” presentation with the Heartland Institute, below (Christopher Monckton’s presentation begins at 5:54:40):

December 2015

Lord Christopher Monckton commented at a meeting of climate change deniers at Rue de la Rochefoucauld in Paris held by Roger Helmer MEP and Piers Corbyn. The event was titled PCC15 (“The Paris Climate Challenge”).¹⁶⁰

With reference to the COP21 climate conference, “They are trying to establish a single world government,” Monckston said. “You can argue whether it is communist or fascist depending on whether you think the people concerned are crony capitalists, in which case it’s fascist, or whether they are collectivists, in which case it’s communist.”¹⁶¹

The session was chaired by Tom Harris. Some of Monckton’s talking points included that CO2 is beneficial and a “life-giving gas on the planet,” that ocean acidification “is not a threat,” that climate change is solar-driven, and that we should be increasing fossil fuel use otherwise we are “depriving the poor of inexpensive fuel.”¹⁶²

View video of Monkcton’s talk below:

October 18, 2015

Christopher Monckton was cited in an article published by LifeSiteNews titled, “Monckton: Harper defeat in Canada election will allow “world government” win at UN Paris climate meet.” In the article, Monckton refers to Stephen Harper as “the last man standing against the establishment of a ‘one world government.’” With Justin Trudeau succeeding Stephen Harper as the new Prime Minister of Canada, Monckton warns that “world governance will finally begin with a successful December, 2015 Paris Climate Conference.”¹⁶³

“This (environmental treaty) process has nothing to do with the weather. It has nothing to do with man’s impact on the weather. It has everything to do with establishing the socialist international at the heart of the UN and making every nation bow the knee to this new dictatorship, and the climate is merely a fig leaf to cover what they are trying to do.”¹⁶⁴

June 11–12, 2015

Christopher Monckton was a speaker on Panel 9: “Climate Change Reconsidered II: Human Welfare, Energy, and Policies,” at the Heartland Institute’s Tenth International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC10) in Washington, D.C., with Craig Idso, Bob Carter, and S. Fred Singer.¹⁶⁵

View Christopher Monckton’s Panel 9 presentation at the Heartland Institute’s ICCC10, below:¹⁶⁶

Christopher Monckton was a speaker on Panel 11: “Attacks on Scientists and the Corruption of Science,” at the Heartland Institute’s Tenth International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC10) in Washington, D.C., with Bob Carter, Tim Ball, and William Briggs.¹⁶⁷

View Christopher Monckton’s Panel 11 presentation at the Heartland Institute’s ICCC10, below:¹⁶⁸

May 12, 2015

Christopher Monckton is a signatory to an open letter to Pope Francis on climate change. The letter invites the Pope to reconsider his views on climate change before his upcoming encyclical letter on the environment, which is widely expected to call for measures to prevent climate change in the interests of the world’s poor.¹⁶⁹

The open letter was coordinated and signed by Calvin Beisner of the Cornwall Alliance. According to the letter, “Good climate policy must recognize human exceptionalism, the God-given call for human persons to ‘have dominion’ in the natural world (Genesis 1:28), and the need to protect the poor from harm, including actions that hinder their ascent out of poverty.”¹⁷⁰

Judith Curry comments on her blog Climate Etc. that “Arguably the most effective ‘pushback’ comes from Cal Beisner of the Cornwall Alliance, who coordinated An Open Letter to Pope Francis on Climate Change.”¹⁷¹

March 2015

Christopher Monckton is one of several climate change skeptics cc’d on an email from S. Fred Singer in hopes of countering the documentary film “Merchants of Doubt,” which exposes the network of climate change skeptics and deniers trying to delay legislative action on climate change.¹⁷²

The October, 2014 email was leaked to journalists before the documentary was released. “Can I sue for damages?” Singer asked in the email. “Can we get an injunction against the documentary?”¹⁷³

InsideClimate News reports in their article “Leaked Email Reveals Who’s Who List of Climate Denialists,” how “Many of those copied on the email thread, such as Singer and communications specialist Steven Milloy, have financial ties to the tobacco, chemical, and oil and gas industries and have worked to defend them since the 1990s.”¹⁷⁴

InsideClimate News also documented all those who were cc’d on the email, including the following skeptics and groups:¹⁷⁵

Ron Arnold
Timothy Ball
Joseph “Joe” Bast
Joe Bastardi
Michael Bastasch
William Briggs
Russell Cook
Judith Curry
Joe D’Aleo
James Delingpole
David Paul Driessen
James Enstrom
Steve Goddard
Pierre Gosselin
Greenie Watch
William Happer
Jim Lakely
Patrick J. Michaels
Steven J. Milloy
Christopher Monckton
Marc Morano
Joanne Nova
Roger Pielke Sr. (Or Roger Pielke Jr. – Unclear in Email)
Thomas P. Sheahen
S. Fred Singer
Wei-Hock (Willie) Soon
Roy Spencer
James Taylor
Anthony Watts

February 2015

Christopher Monckton wrote a letter defending Willie Soon after pieces were published in The Guardian and the New York Times that accuse Soon of failing to disclose a conflict of interest in recent scientific papers. Monckton was also the co-author of one of the papers, titled “Why models run hot: results from an irreducibly simple climate model” published in January in the Science Bulletin, the journal of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The New York Times writes “He has accepted more than $1.2 million in money from the fossil-fuel industry over the last decade while failing to disclose that conflict of interest in most of his scientific papers.” These articles were written in light of documents obtained by Greenpeace through freedom of information filings.¹⁷⁶ ¹⁷⁷

Christopher Mockton writes, “It is apparent that the well-funded, highly-organized, concerted campaign of hatred and libelous vilification against Dr Soon has a rankly political motive. Certainly, as you will see from the attached note of the various instaquotes from rent-by-the-hour climate ‘scientists’, their attempts to attack the science in our paper have been remarkably insubstantial, unmeritorious and too often intellectually dishonest.”¹⁷⁸

In addition to Monckton, James Delingpole and Bob Carter also defended Soon with similar articles and letters, available in the Breitbart.¹⁷⁹

September 18, 2014

Christopher Monckton and Willie Soon co-authored an opinion piece in The Washington Times titled, “Boycotting the U.N. climate summit; Awareness grows that faulty science would keep millions in the dark.”¹⁸⁰

Soon and Monckton state Narendra Modi, India’s Prime Minister, “is right to have no more to do with such murderous nonsense. It is time to put an end to climate summits,” also noting the President of China and the Chancellor of Germany “likewise intend to skip the event”:¹⁸¹

“The spiritual yet down-to-earth Mr. Modi knows that 300 million Indians still have no electricity. His priority is to turn on the lights all over India. In Bihar, four homes in five are still lit by kerosene … The world’s governing elites, however, no longer care about poverty. Climate change is their new focus.”¹⁸²

July 7—9, 2014

Christopher Monckton was a speaker at the Heartland Institute’s Ninth International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC9) in Las Vegas, Nevada.¹⁸³

DeSmog has done in-depth research on the other speakers and sponsors from Heartland’s ICCC9.¹⁸⁴

November 2013

Then-UKIP-chief Nigel Farage reportedly “sacked Scottish party leader Lord Christopher Monckton in an attempt to end infighting north of the Border.”¹⁸⁵

Monckton told the Sunday Herald: “There isn’t any Ukip in Scotland. It’s been wiped out.”¹⁸⁶

Farage reportedly fired Monckton by email. Farage wrote: “After much thought and many weeks of dialogue between yourself, your committee and the officers of the party I have decided, with the support of the NEC, to remove from you the position of leader of Ukip Scotland.”¹⁸⁷

Monckton was among several who withdrew as candidates for European parliamentary seats in protest of alleged tactics used to select European Parliamentary candidates.¹⁸⁸

Asked about the resignations, Lord Monckton said: “I just want to confirm where we’ve got to with London. Once that’s been sorted out, the position will become clear.”¹⁸⁹

Asked why he resigned, he said: “We will go into all of that after London has come up with its answer.”¹⁹⁰

September 26, 2013

Monckton revealed in a segment of the Alex Jones show that he gave “detailed briefings on climate change” to Tony Abbott. Abbott, the leader of the Liberal Party of Australia, has claimed that climate change is “absolute crap.”¹⁹¹ ¹⁹²

April 2013

In early April, Monckton arrived in New Zealand for a speaking tour sponsored by the Climate Realists Network titled the “Climate of Freedom Tour.” According to the event description, Monckton will speak on “Climate Change and its underlying idealogical framework, the United Nations Agenda 21 and the threat this is to freedom.”¹⁹³

Agenda 21 (PDF available here) is a plan created by the United Nations with the primary purpose of promoting sustainable development. A full list of Monckton’s tour venues and dates is available online.¹⁹⁴

An article in The New Zealand Herald published near the start of his tour questioned Monckton’s motives and qualifications to speak on climate science. The article suggests that Monckton’s views are not based on science: James Renwick, associate professor of physical geography at Victoria University, told the paper that “[Monckton] has no training and has studiously avoided learning anything about science[…]”¹⁹⁵

Monckton responded to the letter and threatened the New Zealand Herald, saying that he would send a complaint to the Press Council if the Herald did not publish his email or correct the article’s “factual inaccuracies.” He also claims that the scientists quoted in the original article were being “malevolently inaccurate about climate ‘science’.” While Monckton’s letter was published by the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition on April 3, it does not appear the Herald has responded.¹⁹⁶

Michele Hewitson interviewed Monckton in a separate article for the New Zealand Herald on April 6 where, she reported, that he “He had got the huff and walked out of the interview” after she brought up the episode when Monckton called youth activists in Copenhagen members of the “Hitler Youth.”¹⁹⁷

Early on in his tour, Monckton also appeared on ZBTV’s Leighton Smith Show to talk about “climate change and public interest in it.” According to Monckton:¹⁹⁸

“The direct effect of putting CO2 into the atmosphere is not really going to be much more than 1 degree celsius of warming per doubling of CO2 concentration. And that is the generally accepted figure, of which only half, or about 0.5 or 0.6C would come through in the first 100 or 150 years. During which you’re doubling the CO2 concentration.”¹⁹⁹

Monckton also made a number of other claims recording article sea ice during the recording, all of which are discussed and reviewed here. According to Monckton:²⁰⁰

There was less sea ice in the 1920s and 1930s than now.
Arctic sea ice has only declined for a few weeks in summer.
Water can’t get underneath the Antarctic ice sheet.
Increases in Antarctic sea ice make up for half of the losses in the Arctic
Arctic sea ice set a new record high in March, 2013

May 21–23, 2012

Christopher Monckton was a speaker (PDF) at the Heartland Institute‘s 7th International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC7).²⁰¹

DeSmog researched the co-sponsors behind Heartland’s ICCC7 and found that they had collectively received over $67 million from ExxonMobil, the Koch Brothers and the conservative Scaife family foundations.²⁰²

July 2011

The House of Lords have had an ongoing dispute with Monckton over his membership, as authorities have said Monckton is not and never has been a member and that there is no such thing as a non-voting or honorary member of the House.²⁰³

In July 2011 the House took the “unprecedented step”²⁰⁴ of publishing online a cease and desist letter (PDF) to Monckton from the Clerk of the Parliaments, which concluded:²⁰⁵

“I am publishing this letter on the parliamentary website so that anybody who wishes to check whether you are a Member of the House of Lords can view this official confirmation that you are not.”²⁰⁶

July 19, 2011

Christopher Monckton debated Richard Dennis at the National Press Club Address in Canberra Australia on the subject of global warming. Video below:²⁰⁷

June 2010

John P. Abraham, an associate professor at the University of St. Thomas, made an online presentation refuting Monckton’s Oct 14th, 2009 presentation at Bethel University.²⁰⁸

Monckton’s response was to personally attack Abraham, calling him “snake-like”, saying he had the face of “an overcooked prawn” while speaking in an “irritatingly nasal tone” and having arguments that are “venomously ad-hominem.” He further describes Abraham as belonging to a “Bible college.”²⁰⁹

In an interview on the Alex Jones Show, Monckton described Abraham as “a wretched little man.”²¹⁰

December 2009

When a group of 50 young activists stormed Monckton’s stage during his conference at Copenhagen (with, according to SustainUS, a “paltry audience of five conference attendees”²¹¹), Monckton exploded on live webcast, calling the students “Hitler Youth” and “Nazis.”

The clean energy activists still managed to get their message through on the Americans for Prosperity sponsored video feed, chanting “Real Americans for Prosperity are Americans for Clean Energy.”

After this incident, Monckton later visited the SustainUs booth at the UN climate investigations and proceeded to lecture those present on his skeptical views on climate change, claiming that “there hasn’t been any global warming for fifteen years and you know it.”²¹²

When a representative from SustainUs responded to Monckton, saying that she would appreciate if he “stopped calling us Nazis,” Monckton told her that “you are killing millions by starvation in the third world,” and that “until you start caring, I will call you the Hitler Youth.”²¹³

June 2, 2009

Monckton presented at the Heartland Institute’s Third International Conference on Climate Change.²¹⁴

DeSmog found that the sponsors Heartland’s 2009 International Conference on Climate Change had collectively received over $47 million from oil companies and right-wing foundations.²¹⁵

March 2009

In a speech at the Energy & Commerce Hearing on Climate Change Adaptation, Monckton agreed that reducing carbon dioxide emissions would be “taking away plant food from the atmosphere.”²¹⁶

Monckton also cites the Cambrian Period as proof plants love carbon dioxide, although it was a time period where there were no land plants.²¹⁷

February 1, 2009

Lord Christopher Monckton was a speaker at a luncheon lecture titled “Apocalypse? NO! ‘Global Warming’ is not a Global Crisis” co-hosted by the Australian Climate Science Coalition and the Institute for Private Enterprise. Ian Plimer accompanied Monckton.²¹⁸

October 8, 2008

Monckton wrote an open letter to Senator John McCain that asserts numerous scientific “facts” as interpreted by Monckton.²¹⁹

These include how polar bears are in no danger from global warming, that global warming will have a positive impact on crops, that carbon dioxide doesn’t significantly affect the climate, and that global warming is the result of solar activity. Monckton summarizes his responses to John McCain’s statements on climate change as follows (Monckton’s responses are on the right):²²⁰

“The scientists, politicians, and media behind ‘global warming’ are honest”: They are not;
“The debate is over and all credible climate scientists are agreed”: They are not;
“Temperature today has risen exceptionally fast, above natural variability”: It has not;
“Changes in solar activity do not much impact today’s global warming”: They do;
“Greenhouse-gas increases are the main reason why it is getting warmer”: They are not;
“The fingerprint of anthropogenic greenhouse warming is clearly present”: It is absent;
“Computer models are accurate enough to predict the climate reliably”: They cannot be;
“Global warming is to blame for present and future climate disasters”: It is not;
“Mitigating climate change will be cost-effective”: It will not;
“Taking precautions, just in case, would be the responsible course”: It would not be.²²¹

Monckton, however, did not include peer-reviewed climate research to back up the above responses and his points have now been debunked on numerous occasions.²²²

March 2008

Monckton endorsed of the Manhattan declaration on climate change and was also present at the Heartland Institute’s 2008 International Conference on Climate Change.²²³

The Manhattan Declaration asserts that “human-caused climate change is not a global crisis,” that CO2 “is not a pollutant but rather a necessity for all life,” that industrial carbon dioxide emissions do not affect climate change, and that “warmer weather is generally less harmful to life on Earth than colder.” Its recommendation is “that world leaders reject the views expressed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”²²⁴

The Manhattan Declaration was conceived by the International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC). The ICSC, Directed by Tom Harris, is affiliated with several high-profile climate skeptic organizations and websites including the Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI), Climate Audit and the Friends of Science (FoS).

Affiliations

Christopher Monckton worked for the British government between 1982-1986, and has previously claimed to be a “chief policy advisor” to former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

Christopher Monckton has been quoted as saying “I gave her advice on science as well as other policy from 1982-1986, two years before the IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was founded”, that he was “the only one who knew any science” and that “it was I who – on the prime minister’s behalf – kept a weather eye on the official science advisers to the government, from the chief scientific adviser downward.” He has also said that he “advised Margaret Thatcher, FRS, on scientific scams and scares.”²³³

Bob Ward at The Guardian investigated these claims and found them to be false. Interestingly, in Margaret Thatcher’s autobiography, she makes no mention of Monckton’s role as policy advisor. When she describes the issue of climate change, she refers only to “George Guise, who advised me on science in the policy unit.”²³⁴

Monckton had also claimed to have brought in “the first computer they had ever seen in Downing Street,” but Ward noted “that this novel and important innovation by Viscount Monckton was not recognized by the current minister for science and universities, David Willetts, who was also a member of the prime minister’s policy unit between 1984 and 1986.”²³⁵

@chris_monckton on Twitter.

Publications

Monckton’s articles on global warming were once published in Nexus magazine, alongside articles featuring conspiracy theories about government UFOs and a 9/11 “terrorist plot.”²³⁶

According to a search of Google Scholar, Monckton has never published peer-reviewed research in any journal at any time.

Movies

SPPI has released a DVD titled “Apocalypse? No!” based on Monckton’s lecture on climate change at the Cambridge Union Society.²³⁷

Apart from starring in the Great Global Warming Swindle as a bona fide climate change expert, Monckton has also funded its distribution in schools across the country as part of a campaign to counter what he considers the propaganda presented by Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.²³⁸

The Great Global Warming Swindle has received critical responses from the scientific community, including a complaint to ABC signed by thirty-seven British Scientists that claimed “the misrepresentations of facts and views, both of which occur in your programme, are so serious that repeat broadcasts of the programme, without amendment, are not in the public interest. In view of the seriousness of climate change as an issue, it is crucial that public debate about it is balanced and well-informed.”²³⁹

In an interview between ABC Australia’s Tony Jones and the film’s director Martin Durkin the film’s validity and scientific accuracy were also put into question.²⁴⁰