Prominent think tank beloved by corporate media took money from fossil fuel firms

An investigation from DeSmog has found that the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) accepted around £480,000 from fossil fuel giants between 1957 and 2005. The finding is significant not only because the IEA keeps its funding hidden, but also because the thinktank claims it is featured 14 times a day in the corporate media.

As DeSmog noted:

the IEA has campaigned against climate action after taking cash from fossil fuel firms.

Fossil fuels capture

The IEA has long campaigned against action on climate change and for keeping the climate-destroying fossil fuel system. And the media laps up their opinions. Yet 97% of publishing scientists agree that man made climate change is happening, primarily because of burning fossil fuels. There has been a steady increase in global temperature since the industrial revolution.

Archives seen by DeSmog show some of the largest donations the IEA received were £150,000 from BP, £124,000 from Esso and £106,000 from Shell. The fact these figures are only coming to light for the first time is alarming, as DeSmog wrote:

However, the IEA does not publicly disclose its donors and this is the first time that its historic funding sources have been revealed in detail – exposing the financial interests that helped the group to become an influential force in British politics.

“Lobbying”

Ami McCarthy, Greenpeace UK’s head of politics, said:

This self-styled economic think tank is really a lobbying shop for the harmful and polluting industries that fund it, with fossil fuel giants chief among them.

She added that the IEA:

spent years downplaying the climate crisis while taking loads of cash from some of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies

The lobbying comes from the corporate playbook of tobacco companies that for years sought to question the fact that smoking causes cancer. Fossil fuel giants are now doing the same through downplaying the impact of oil and gas on the environment, despite overwhelming evidence.

As DeSmog further points out, the IEA said lifting the ban on fracking was the “moral and economic choice”, while celebrating the Conservative’s pledge to scrap the Climate Change Act.

“Weaponised profits”

Labour MP Clive Lewis said of the report:

This revelation confirms what many of us suspected: the fossil fuel industry has weaponised its profits to exert undue influence over the policy agenda, through organisations like the IEA

Robert Palmer, deputy director of Uplift, added:

These historic payments give us a window into the enormous fossil fuel lobby that has spent decades trying to shape our politics and media to increase their profits and strip back regulation, regardless of the harm to ordinary people and the natural world. Today, the costs to the rest of us are obvious: we have an energy system that impoverishes people through unaffordable bills, as well as mounting climate costs, whether that’s flooded homes, rising food prices or extreme heat and wildfires. Thankfully, the influence of the oil and gas companies and their proxies is starting to wane in this country as we shift to renewable energy. People increasingly realise that the oil and gas giants want us – our resources and money – a lot more than we need them.

Featured image via the Canary