Net Zero Secretary Claire Coutinho Took Donation From Climate Science Denial Funder, Sam Bright | DeSmog

Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary Claire Coutinho accepted a £2,000 donation in January from Lord Michael Hintze, a funder of the UK’s leading climate science denial pressure group, DeSmog can reveal.
The donation, which was registered on 4 January and declared on the MPs’ register of interests this week, was to aid Coutinho’s local East Surrey Conservative association with its campaigning activities.
Hintze, a Conservative peer and hedge fund manager, was one of the early funders of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), founded by the late Conservative chancellor Nigel Lawson.
The GWPF’s director Benny Peiser has suggested it would be “extraordinary anyone should think there is a climate crisis”, while the group has also expressed the view that carbon dioxide has been mis-characterised as pollution, when in fact it is a “benefit to the planet”.
Scientists have recently confirmed that 2023 was the hottest year on record, driven by human-caused climate change and the El Niño weather event, where warmer surface waters in the East Pacific Ocean release additional heat into the atmosphere.
The Guardian revealed that Hintze gave £3,000 to Conservative MP Steve Barclay in October, weeks before he was appointed as environment secretary. A source close to Barclay told the Guardian that “Lord Hintze is a Conservative peer and regular party donor who supports a number of Conservative MPs. Steve has never discussed environmental policy with him. Steve is fully committed to the government’s net zero aims.”
The Conservative government has weakened a number of flagship net zero policies in recent months, since Coutinho was appointed as energy security and net zero secretary in August 2023. The party has announced that a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles will be pushed back from 2030 to 2035, while it has also watered down schemes to phase out gas boilers and scrapped new energy efficiency regulations on rented homes…