The Heartland Institute's Going Shopping - For Hard-Right Members Of The European Parliament
Climate science deniers from a US-based thinktank have been working with rightwing politicians in Europe to campaign against environmental policies, the Guardian can reveal. MEPs have been accused of “rolling out the red carpet for climate deniers” to give them a platform in the European parliament, amid warnings of a “revival of grotesque climate denialism”. The Heartland Institute, which has links to the Trump administration and has drawn on funding from companies including ExxonMobil and wealthy US Republican donors, has seized on a time when rightwing anti-climate action sentiment has been surging, and has set up a new European base in London.
For the past two years, representatives of the thinktank have been working with MEPs and have spoken in the European parliament to campaign against bills, including the nature restoration law. They have sought to cast doubt on established climate science, and connected climate-sceptic MEPs from Poland, Hungary and Austria to help coordinate campaigns against proposed environmental laws. Heartland has made some extreme and incorrect comments on climate. In the past, it has compared people who believe in global heating to the Unabomber, the US terrorist jailed for killing three people and injuring many others, as well as branding the concept of human-caused climate change “fake news”.
The Guardian and DeSmog understand that the organisation first established a foothold among rightwing MEPs in February 2023, when the far-right Austrian MEPs Harald Vilimsky and Roman Haider from the anti-migration Freedom party (FPÖ) attended Heartland’s International Conference on Climate Change in Orlando, Florida.
A few months later, the pair visited the thinktank’s offices to request help “to counter climate alarmism”. James Taylor, the president of Heartland, was welcomed to speak in the European parliament the following March, at the invitation of the two MEPs, where he forged links with Hungarian politicians to discuss climate policy and the nature restoration law. Later that month, a vote on the law was delayed when Hungary withdrew its support, but the bill eventually passed in June. In September 2024, Vilimsky was a guest of honour at Heartland’s 40th anniversary gala in the Hilton Chicago, where the guest list included the rightwing UK politician Nigel Farage – who later helped launch Heartland’s branch in London. Vilimsky spoke at the Chicago event, urging closer ties between the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, and Donald Trump.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jan/22/us-thinktank-climate-science-deniers-working-with-rightwingers-in-eu-parliament-heartland-institute