The Heritage Foundation is leading on the plan dubbed Project 2025.
A right-wing American think tank, which has close links with the Tory Party, has developed a $22million battle plan for the next Republican administration to dismantle policies aimed at tackling climate change.
The Heritage Foundation, which has had Tory MPs like Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden speak at its events, is leading on the plan dubbed Project 2025, which it says will form a key part of the first 180 days of a future Republican presidency and which would see the shredding of ‘regulations to curb greenhouse gas pollution from cars, oil and gas wells and power plants, dismantling almost every clean energy program in the federal government and boosting the production of fossil fuels’, the New York Times reports.
The paper also adds: “The Heritage Foundation worked on the plan with dozens of conservative groups ranging from the Heartland Institute, which has denied climate science, to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which says “climate change does not endanger the survival of civilization or the habitability of the planet.”
At a time when climate change is leading to record breaking temperatures, with the month of July on track to be the world’s hottest month on record and with heat waves causing wildfires in Europe’s Mediterranean region, this is yet another worrying development.
It could also have ramifications for the UK and the development of Tory policy towards the climate, given how close the Heritage Foundation is with Tory politicians.
Not only has Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden spoken at events organised by the Heritage Foundation, where he decried ‘woke psychodrama’, former Home Secretary Priti Patel has also given a speech at the Heritage Foundation.
Former Prime Minister Liz Truss, whose premiership ended in disaster, has also lavished praised on the Heritage Foundation and delivered a keynote address for the group, where she told the audience that she was right all along.
It’s also worth pointing out that The Heritage Foundation has its own Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom. Thatcher gave them a large donation in 2005 in order to fund the centre.
Tory links to the think tank will cause alarm for those of us worried about the dangers of climate change.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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