Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Energy, Chris Wright, is receiving enthusiastic approval from a climate obstruction organization that argues global carbon dioxide emissions should be increasing because the gas is “essential for life.”
“I had a chance to sit down one-on-one with Chris in 2022 in his Denver office,” claimed Gregory Wrightstone, executive director of a group called the CO2 Coalition. For nearly a decade, the organization has publicly disputed the fundamentals of climate science while receiving donations from foundations linked to corporate backers, including the oil and gas billionaire Charles Koch.
Wrightstone, who detailed the encounter with Wright in a recent newsletter, “was impressed with his knowledge and views on energy philosophy, which aligned closely with those of the CO2 Coalition.”
In a phone interview with DeSmog, Wrightstone elaborated on that alignment, explaining that “the main thing that he and I and the CO2 Coalition agree on is that increasing CO2 is a net benefit, it’s not the demon molecule, it’s the miracle molecule.”
Wright is currently the CEO of the fracking services company Liberty Energy and would bring no political or government experience to the role of energy secretary. Yet Wrightstone concluded that because Wright is “a petroleum engineer and energy executive, he will likely be the most highly qualified person ever to hold that position.”
After Trump announced the nomination last week, some industry observers hailed the appointment as a sign of political moderation within the Republican cabinet, with the head of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association arguing that Wright is “a pragmatic problem solver” and “not a climate denier.”
Yet the full-throated praise that Wright is receiving from the likes of Wrightstone raises serious questions about whether the future energy secretary even thinks climate change is a problem worth addressing, said Connor Gibson, an independent research specialist who’s spent years tracking the CO2 Coalition and other groups that obstruct climate action including for Greenpeace USA.
“The CO2 Coalition has been a persistent voice undermining the ABCs of climate change — that it’s happening, that it’s caused by human fossil fuel use, and that it’s going to be dangerous,” he told DeSmog.
Wright didn’t respond to questions via his company Liberty Energy nor via the Trump-Vance transition team.
Screenshot from CO2 Coalition emailed newsletter. Credit: CO2 Coalition
Backed by Koch
In email correspondence with DeSmog, Wrightstone explained how his meeting with the future nominee for energy secretary came about several years ago: “I was speaking at an event in Denver and set up a meeting in his office,” he wrote.
“We had a wide-ranging conversation, but I can’t recall any particular details,” he added during a phone interview. Yet Wright made a positive impression on the executive director of the CO2 Coalition. “The key takeaway is that he’s a big supporter of the continuing use of fossil fuels, including coal, oil, and natural gas,” Wrightstone said.
According to Wrightstone, he and Wright’s views align on other key points, including the factually incorrect or dubious claims that “there is no man-made climate crisis,” “science is not consensus and consensus is not science,” “fossil fuels cannot be replaced by intermittent and unreliable solar and wind power,” and “history tells us that warmer periods have been beneficial, while cold periods have been horrific to humanity.”
These talking points have for years been disseminated by the CO2 Coalition, which was recently cited by Alberta’s United Conservative Party in a resolution that abandoned the oil-producing Canadian province’s net-zero targets and officially recognized “that CO2 is a foundational nutrient for all life on Earth.”
Gibson referred to the CO2 Coalition in a recent report he co-wrote along with Robert Brulle of Brown University as an “organization solely focused on disputing climate change science.”
During the first Trump administration, William Happer of the CO2 Coalition was appointed to the National Security Council but exited after only a year. White House advisors reportedly feared that his extreme views were a liability to Trump’s reelection. In 2017, Happer argued that the “demonization” of carbon dioxide “really differs little from the Nazi persecution of the Jews, the Soviet extermination of class enemies, or ISIL slaughter of infidels.”
Nevertheless, the CO2 Coalition received more than $76,000 from foundations linked to the oil and gas billionaires Charles and David Koch during Trump’s first term, according to Gibson’s report. Greenpeace calculations show the group got $620,000 in Koch-related contributions between 2004 and 2015.
“We have not received Koch Industries money since I’ve been here,” Wrightstone, who took over in 2021, said when asked about Koch contributions.
Gibson argues that Wright, as a fossil fuel executive, is slightly more nuanced in expressing his views on climate change than his supporters at the CO2 Coalition. Wright acknowledges that human-caused global heating is real and potentially a problem while saying in a video posted to his LinkedIn last year that “there is no climate crisis.”
“It seems to me to be the calculated words of a CEO who recognizes that there is a potential liability of telling an outright lie to the public,” Gibson said. “Yet the effect of his comments is to leave people with the impression that climate change is not happening.”
