A green energy think tank that Ed Miliband relied on to draw up policy is partly funded by overseas cash, leading to questions about the influence of “shady” green lobbyists and financiers in Britain’s Net Zero policies. The Telegraph has more.
Ember, which inspired the Energy Secretary’s pledge to lower bills by £300 by 2030, is funded by a number of overseas climate-focused donors including the Netherlands-based European Climate Foundation (ECF) and the Sequoia Climate Foundation, headquartered in California.
The funds are listed on Ember’s website as contributions from the founders of the London-based think tank, though exact donation figures are not provided.
Ember, which says it “aims to accelerate the clean energy transition”, is one of a number of pro-Net Zero and green energy think tanks funded by overseas investors.
According to the Spectator, the ECF donated £338,000 last year to the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), a Left-leaning think tank, and has provided £114,000 to the New Economics Foundation, another Left-wing think tank whose stated purpose is to create a “new economy that works for people and within environmental limits”.
Opposition parties said there were questions to answer about the transparency of funding behind think tanks seeking to influence Britain’s Net Zero debate.
Andrew Griffith, the Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade, said: “There’s a murky world financing the advocacy of climate policies, the purpose of which seems to indulge the luxury beliefs of the uber-rich whilst the poor pay the price.
“Whilst the Government refuses to meet oil companies, shady green organisations seem to have a direct line to Ed Miliband.”
Richard Tice, the deputy leader of Reform, said: “Serious questions need to be answered around overseas green lobbyist influence on this Labour Government and Ministers.”
A 2023 report by Ember into how expanding renewables could help cut bills was taken up by Miliband, who used it as the basis of his pledge to lower household bills by £300 by 2030, made during the 2024 election campaign.
Labour has made little progress towards that goal and Miliband has since been widely criticised for the promise, though the Energy Secretary has stood by the pledge.
Of course, this won’t be news to Daily Sceptic readers. But it’s good to see the mainstream media finally catching up.
Worth reading in full.
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Just wait until we have low wind speeds during a cold winter and there is a drought in Norway, there could well be blackouts especiallly as Milliband wants to fit carbon capture systems to gas generating station which will reduced their power output by 20 – 25%
I give an example of Ember climate propaganda at work in this post which gives unequivocal proof that Net Zero is a dangerous fraud: https://thinkscotland.org/2026/07/revealed-severe-setbacks-to-establishment-net-zero-narrative/.
Interesting website Mr Brodie. I don’t like being taken for a fool by politicians either 🙂
“aims to accelerate the clean energy transition”
There is nothing to make clean. Traditional energy production using latest or even recent western technology produces very little pollutant. So-called green energy, by contrast, is very dirty. The extraction, refining and manufacture create shocking levels of polluting chemicals invidious to the health of those involved.
BESS fires, wind turbine fires and disposal as well as the BESS units and solar panels create uncontrolled pollution and health dangers.
Is anyone supprised really?
For years now, those of us who do not believe in anthropogenic change in the weather have put up with the screaming of the green lobby that everything we say is funded by the oil industry, as though that is wrong, while we have retorted with questions about Bloomberg and rafts of other foreigners who pump millions, if not billions, into the green blob. The normal response of some multicoloured hair weirdos is to look blankly back at us, trying to make out that they are just a bunch of local activists with no money behind them. They refuse to accept that every argument they spout comes from research funded by the international green cartel. These financiers are intelligent investors, they don’t put their money onto a roulette wheel in the vain hope that their number and colour will come up, so what is the fortune they are anticipating from the de-industrialisation of the globe?
I though the big money had learned its lesson from World War One.