Russia did not fund UK anti-fracking campaigns
Climate sceptics are also obsessed with Russia. But there was no need for Moscow to get involved in backing green groups, because Western governments and billionaires had already got it covered.
A "Russia funded green/anti-fracking groups" thread...
I see this claim fired up routinely.
I don't deny its possibility. I do deny it has any basis in evidence. The first time I heard the claim was in 2014. I wrote this about why it's not plausible.
The claim was from NATO's secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
I have been 'following the money' since the 2000s, and the claim didn't stack up. By 2012 (2 years earlier), green billionaire philanthropists were pumping over a $billion per year into campaigning organisations.
Those handful of billionaires & foundations were mostly based in America, and some were European/British.
Additionally, the EU and UK governments funded big green NGOs. The anti-fracking WWF for example, received over £30 million from the UK taxpayer in that decade.
Another example of that is the UK government funding green lawfare outfit ClientEarth. The taxpayer supported ClientEarth with £4 million, and ClientEarth took the government to court nine times in that same decade.
But that's by-the-by -- we're talking about Russia & fracking.
The question I posed was, why would Moscow fund green organisations that were already stupidly well-funded? Yes, green organisations seemingly (unwittingly?) support Russia's interests. But there was no possible intervention that could have done more than was already being done.
Despite by now TENS of $billions having flowed from billionaires, corporations and western governments into green NGOs campaigning funds, these claims have persisted, and I'd seen no evidence to support them, despite having worked for over a decade on this issue.
Then, at last, a claim emerged. According to a US Senate report on "Russian Attempts to Influence U.S. Domestic Energy Markets by Exploiting Social Media", Russian-backed NGOs spent "$95 million [on] NGOs that seek to persuade EU governments to end shale gas exploration".
The Cardin Report referred to speaks about the "Weaponization of Civil Society, Ideology, Culture, Crime, and Energy". Russia was funding NGOs!
How dare they!
And those NGOs had persuaded European governments against shale gas exploration.
Now cited by two US Senate reports about Russian meddling in US and EU and UK affairs, then, you'd expect this evidence to be rock solid, right?
Don't hold your breath...
The source of the claim is a report called "The Bear in Sheep’s Clothing | Russia’s Government-Funded Organisations in the EU" published by the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies. PDF here.
And here's the page on which all the evidence of Russia's funding of anti-fracking campaigns exists...
The entirety of the evidence against Russia is based on an "Interview with anonymous contributor" on 12 May 2015.
Whut?
So who are the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies?
They are the official, EU-funded think tank for the European People's Party (EPP). EPP is the party of Ursula von der Leyen and the original green technocrat, & now green blobber, Connie Hedegaard.
If UvdL & Hedegaard seem to you like pro-fracking operators, you probably need to adjust your antennae. Neither they, nor the EPP, nor the EC needed any encouragement to be against fracking. They have long been the dominant group in the EU. They funded anti-fracking orgs.
So what we have is hearsay at the centre of a story. A year before the 'evidence' was published, the EU pushed for a coup in Ukr against the democratically-appointed, but seemingly pro-Russian government.
This evidence was held by US Democrats during the Trump administration to support their claims of Russian interference. They said that Russia was supporting NGOs operating in the west.
Maybe so. But look at all these grants from the US National Endowment for Democracy that fund "civil society" organisations in Ukraine.
And I dare say we'd find plenty of EU & UK government funded "civil society" organisations, too.
Indeed, that's what Peter Hitchens argues in one of his talks on the subject. I believe in this video.
Now, you might say that there is clearly push-and-pull here. And rightly, we should ask to what extent Russia-backed "civil society" and media organisations exist, and to what end & effect.
But perspective and proportion are required.
For example, all charitable giving, including "philanthropy", in the USA is equal in size to one fifth of the entire Russian economy. And we can draw straight lines from that "philanthropy" to national/domestic and global policymaking, in the EU & UK too.
In fact, Western policymaking *depends* on "civil society" organisations, which have been almost entirely bought by "philanthropists" -- *billionaires* to you and me.
We can be 100% sure, that western billionaires were behind the movement to abolish coal in the EU & UK.
And we can be 100% sure that those same networks have lobbied for over 20 years to make sure that nuclear did not replace coal.
So, to me, the notion that, having secured the abolition of coal, and the minimisation of nuclear, those blobs packed up their stall and were ambivalent about fracking makes absolutely zero sense.
Those blobs are even bigger & more powerful now than they were in 2012.
The claim that Russia has 'interfered' in UK, EU or US energy policy is a fantasy. The only evidence is hearsay. It was produced in a decade in which every problem in the west was blamed on Russia.
And it exists in contrast to overwhelming evidence that the problem lies closer to home. It is domestic western governments, civil society organisations, "academics" and billionaire "philanthropists" which are our problem.
*They* have produced bad energy policy, and, if Russia can now "weaponise" energy, it is *they* who made it possible. *They* made the "weapon", put a bow on it, and sent it to Moscow. *We* pay for *their* incautious, dangerous, and self-serving interventions.
Finally, to the people who get antsy when I say that Russia narratives are bullshit. I have been arguing since the 2000s in favour of fracking, against the deindustrialisation of the UK and against the destabilisation of energy sector.
I have been arguing that the green agenda is a colossal act of self-harm, that it is undemocratic, and that it will require an unprecedented (to us) form of authoritarianism to sustain it, the power for which will require a supranational institution as ballast.
I have, for the same duration, argued that the UK's desire to project is power in the world belied its domestic legitimacy, either as green policy or military interventions, the latter of which allows the government to withdraw domestic civil rights and freedoms.
I am not now and never have been 'pro-Russian'. I am against the British government, under each of the legacy political parties, dismantling democracy and establishing their power, for the benefit of billionaire cronies, in global institutions.
I will not be distracted by "but Russia..." stories.
They are, each and every one of them, a scam.
As was Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and more.
The UK government is not a force for good in the world