UK Warned On Liz Truss' Deep Ties With Anti-Climate Change Lobby

Lobbying by US think tanks endorsed by Liz Truss made it impossible for Barack Obama to pass climate laws, and the UK should be “concerned” about their links to the Tory leadership favorite, a former US government adviser has warned, Adam Bychawski reported for the UK’s openDemocracy.

Photo Insert: Foreign Secretary Liz Truss (left) and Patricia Espinosa (right), Executive Secretary United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, greet Justin Trudeau (center), Prime Minister of Canada, at COP26.

The foreign secretary held secret meetings with think tanks pushing for the UK to adopt a hardline free market agenda while on a visit to the US as a treasury minister in 2018 to drum up interest for a UK-US trade deal.

Speaking to openDemocracy, a former Obama administration climate adviser warned it would spell disaster if Truss sought to replicate the tactics of groups such as the Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Cato Institute, and American Legislative Exchange Council.

“One of the reasons that the politics around climate change in the US is different to the UK right now is because of this powerful force of right-wing think tanks funded by fossil fuel interests,” Jonathan Phillips, who advised the US House of Representatives’ climate committee, told openDemocracy.

“You should be concerned if the tactics used by those groups are applied in the UK, because they have polarised the issue of climate change to the point that there is zero space for political debate, negotiation, and compromise from the Republican Party.”Asked if it was concerning that Britain’s next prime minister could be someone so close to these groups, he said: “Join the dots.”

The Heritage Foundation was among the groups Truss met in 2018. It had been directly involved in shaping Donald Trump’s policies to scrap environmental regulations and withdraw from the landmark Paris climate agreement.

Truss paid a second visit to the think tank in 2019, praising it for being at “forefront of Republican thinking” in a speech given at its Washington DC headquarters – just two weeks after she was promoted to international trade secretary.

Truss, who is the favorite among Conservative Party members to succeed Boris Johnson, asked senior representatives from Heritage “what can we learn from ‘Reaganomics’ on things like regulation and red tape”, according to a briefing note for the meeting obtained by the Unearthed section of openDemocracy.

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