Climate denying Tories Lord Nigel Lawson and Peter Lilley MP have close associations with the oil industry. The grandees have 13 years of Cabinet experience.
Left Foot Forward can reveal that two Tory grandees who have consistently criticised domestic and international efforts to abate climate change – Lord Nigel Lawson and Peter Lilley MP – have close associations with the oil industry. The duo, with 13 years of Cabinet experience between them under Margaret Thatcher and John Major are on the payroll of companies directly engaged in, or associated with, the lucrative oil and gas industry.
On Monday, Nigel Lawson wrote an article in the Times titled, “Copenhagen will fail and quite right too”. Lawson said:
“The greatest error in the current conventional wisdom is that, if you accept the (present) majority scientific view that most of the modest global warming in the last quarter of the last century — about half a degree centigrade — was caused by man-made carbon emissions, then you must also accept that we have to decarbonise our economies.”
This blog has shown the errors and falsehoods of that article in a point-by-point motivations but Lord Lawson’s true motivations are now becoming clear. The Register of Lords’ Interests details that Lord Lawson chairs and has “significant shareholdings” in the Central Europe Trust (CET). He is described as a “senior advisor to clients on strategy and politics“. CET boast on their website to being, according to a quote in Forbes, “the company to call when you want to do business in Eastern Europe.” Their clients include oil and gas giants Total Fina Elf, Royal Dutch/Shell Group, Texaco, and BP Amaco.
Lawson is also Chairman of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a group who’s “primary purpose is to help restore balance and trust in the climate debate that is frequently distorted by prejudice and exaggeration.” They are based at 1 Carlton House Terrace SW1Y 5DB and share premises with the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining who have a Petroleum and Drilling Engineering Division, which includes two employees of the BP Exploration Operating Company Ltd.
Peter Lilley is a vocal opponent of the UK Climate Change Act 2008 and was one of only five MPs to vote against it. But as the Register of Members Interests claims to show, he is also a paid non-executive director of Tethys Petroleum Limited – a giant oil and gas exploration “focused on Central Asia“. But a look at his profile on the website reveals he’s also the Vice Chairman and – according to his biography – “was a Director of Greenwell Montagu Securities (1986-87) where he headed the oil investment department and which he joined in 1972.” Mr Lilley receives £40,000 “annual retainer” (p.94) from the company.
The Tethys website also states that he was an election observer for the 2005 Kazakhstan presidential elections, which is handy given that Tethys is “proud to be the first non-Kazakh oil and gas company listed on the new RFCA exchange in Almaty”. In 2005, the Times reported that Lilley’s British team were accused of a “Kazakh poll whitewash“:
The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which sent 460 observers, said that the election did not meet international democratic standards. Flaws included restrictions on campaigning, interference at polling stations, multiple voting, pressure on students to vote, media bias and restrictions on freedom of expression, it said.
“There was harassment, intimidation and detentions of campaign staff and supporters of opposition candidates, including cases of beatings of campaign staff,” said the OSCE mission, led by Bruce George, the British Labour MP.
But Lord Parkinson’s seven-strong team, calling itself a “British parliamentary group”, pre-empted the OSCE report with a much more positive assessment. “The presidential election of 4 December represents a very significant advance,” said the report by his team, which also included Peter Lilley, the former Tory Trade Secretary. “The election was genuinely competitive and voters were given a real choice between candidates. We found no reason to doubt the integrity of the election process.”
70 Responses to “Oil links of Tory climate denial grandees”
Dave Cole
Anon E Mouse,
Three points.
1. The figures for my (sadly fictional) bank account over the last twenty weeks are:
10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 91, 90.
Overall trend is upwards, particularly as the bit before would (in this crude analogy) extend for rather longer.
2. You will note that I talk about climate change rather than global warming. Although average global temperatures may drop, variation may increase and there may be significant changes in particular areas. The polar ice could completely melt, flooding loads of places, but the average temperature of the planet could still drop (I’m not saying this is likely, just conceptually possible).
3. Why do you think all of those organisations I listed have come out to say that climate change is real, anthropogenic and dangerous?
Anon E Mouse
Dave Cole – My end point is that since Lucas is honest (which is why I qualified the point about overall trend) why do Climate Cooling Deniers like Rupert Read not agree the planet is cooling?
Your numbers put up a fair (at present) and easy way to illustrate the situation as you see it. Why can’t Rupert Read?
I agree that climate change exists, is serious but having not had time to read the info on your links I don’t know why they would say it.
Dave Cole
Anon E Mouse,
I think you have misunderstood me. The fact that there have been drops in global average temperature over the last ten years doesn’t mean parts of the planet haven’t been warming (the bits covered in ice that will melt and flood us all, but hey ho) and doesn’t mean that the trend isn’t upwards. Put another way, banging on about ‘climate cooling denial’ is based on an oversimplification so gross as to be useful and, frankly, a little bit pointless.
I kept asking the question about the organisations I listed because you said
and
and
and
and
Which suggested to me that you did not accept that climate change was real, anthropogenic and serious. The logical conclusion I drew was that you had to disagree with all the learned bodies was that you considered them wrong through scientific incompetence or outright fraud.
I want to clarify what you mean by ‘climate change exists’. That’s a bit like saying ‘gravity exists’. Do you believe that climate change is occurring because the activities of our species and that this change poses a serious threat to us? If not, do you think all those organisations I listed are stupid or lying?
Anon E Mouse
Dave Cole – I believe that the changes in our climate occur naturally and go in cycles.
I believe that the actions of mankind burning fossil fuels increase the proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere which in turn increases global warming.
I do not believe an increase in the overall temperature of the magnitude we have seen since 1850 (ie not much) poses a serious threat to us – solutions will be found – it was believed that the planet couldn’t sustain 9 billion people but it does and (globally) food isn’t short – something will come along. And anyway as the oil runs out there will be less of it to burn so less fossil fuels will produce less CO2 proportionately(ish).
I believe there are other reasons for climate change not just the man made production of CO2.
Lastly I believe the CRU were both lying AND stupid and they certainly falsified the data in their favour to show greater expected increases in temperature to suit their case. Then just to be sure they weren’t rumbled they destroyed the data so no one can challenge it.
That stinks and is inexcusable behavior and the persons involved should have been sacked the day this was discovered.
Of course they weren’t and so called “evidenced based” opinionated sites like this actually have articles like “Climatic Research Unit data is valid – don’t let the sceptics tell you otherwise”.
Well however you look at it that data is invalid – they have tainted and admit that themselves.
Had these people not destroyed the raw data we could have checked it but they did so whether you like it or not the data is NOT valid from the CRU and where’s the stink from the Climate Cooling Deniers, annoyed that their case is weakened?
There isn’t one because it’s a leap of faith and (presently) I don’t wish to take that leap. Sorry Dave.
Dave Cole
Then I have to ask the question again: are all those organisations I listed bad scientists or conscious frauds?