No tracking. No cookies
Subscriptions
Subscriptions
Support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system
Packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, and features
The Reform UK-led Kent County Council has put forward a motion which questions whether climate change is anthropogenic and relies on discredited sources as its evidence, with the aim of rescinding the council’s 2019 declaration of a climate emergency.
The motion, proposed by two of Reform’s Kent councillors Chris Hespe and Paul Chamberlain, argues that anthropogenic climate change is “unproven” and claims that the science on climate change is not settled. The motion also calls on the council to be “openminded but sceptical of anthropogenic climate change” and claims that “bodies pushing the narrative of anthropogenic climate change” such as NASA, have used “inaccurate data”.
Numerous studies have found that there is a consensus between 97-99+% of climate scientists that climate change is anthropogenic, i.e. caused by human activity.
Sources for the motion’s claims include the World Climate Declaration, a climate-change denial document that states that “there is no climate emergency” signed by 1,200 supposed experts. A 2022 fact check of the document by Euro News Green found that several of the signatories have backgrounds in the fossil fuel industry, work as lobbyists, fishermen, pilots or in scientific roles unrelated to climate change.
Reform UK Accused of Breaking Climate Law as Opponents Challenge Local Net Zero Ban
Opposition councillors in one of the party’s flagship new councils are challenging the legality of its decision to ban all climate and Net Zero pledges
Another source listed in the motion’s notes was Climate The Movie: The Cold Truth, a 2024 documentary directed by Martin Durkin, described by critics as a “propaganda film”. An analysis of the documentary by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment found that several of the film’s claims relied on misrepresentations of data.
Referring to the motion’s claims, Bob Ward, Policy and Communications Director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment told Byline Times that: “all of its rubbish. They are talking points that have been made up over the years and discredited numerous times, the thing that really undermines their case, most of all, is the fact that they cannot explain why the earth is warming now. They do not have an explanation. And saying it’s natural is like saying it’s magic. They just cannot explain it”.
Ward added “there’s not a single reputable scientific organisation that doesn’t accept anthropogenic climate change and the risks associated with it, though you can find cranks who will claim that’s not the case”.
Ward has recently written to Nigel Farage and Richard Tice urging Reform UK to take the science on climate change seriously.
ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE
Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account.
We’re not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe.
The KCC motion attacks the integrity of the Intercontinental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stating that: “the scientific compendium [published by the IPCC] is rarely radical, even stating that there has been no discernible increase in the number or severity of extreme weather events including droughts, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires and heat and cold extremes. However, the politically produced shorter document meant for wider dissemination tends to doctor and catastrophise the messages for the general public”.
The most recent IPCC Synthesis Report, AR6, states that “there is strong evidence that characteristics of many individual extreme events have already changed because of human-driven changes to the climate system”.
Kent County Council’s motion has been strongly criticised by the opposition Green Party and Labour Party, though it is reportedly being supported by the five remaining Conservative councillors, according to the BBC.
Kent’s Conservative Councillor Harry Rayner said in a statement to this paper that his party’s councillors would “consider” the motion and “listen to the debate” before formally deciding whether to support it.
Green Cllr Stuart Jeffery said: “Kent is at the forefront of climate impacts. We are severely water stressed, we will suffer most from summer heatwaves, the sea level rises will devastate communities, and we will have new diseases such as dengue to contend with. This is most definitely an emergency”.
Green Cllr Mark Hood told Byline Times: “Kent Tories have trashed their previous commitments to Net Zero in order to appease Badenoch as the Conservative Party continues to lurch to the right. This is a shame because we had a climate consensus at KCC”.
Local Labour Cllr Alister Brady described the motion as “incoherent” and said that “it flies in the face of overwhelming scientific consensus.”
He added: “Our county is already experiencing hotter summers, wetter winters, and increased flooding. These changes aren’t abstract—they’re already affecting our communities. Kent has one of the highest numbers of properties at risk of flooding in the UK. The Severe Weather Impacts Monitoring System (SWIMS) has recorded a sharp increase in flood-related service disruptions across the county.”
The motion states that the council “must consider any energy scheme proposal with an analysis of its business case; which should consider economic, social and environmental impacts and consequences”. However, some opposition councillors fear that the move could endanger Kent’s access to decarbonisation funding.
Cllr Hood said: “officers had worked extraordinarily hard to win many millions of pounds of nationally available municipal decarbonisation funding. That allowed KCC to purchase two solar farms which enable us to power every streetlight in Kent from a renewable source. What concerns us is that Reform will not sanction future bids for decarbonisation funding so other parts of England will benefit while Kent misses out”.
How Reform UK Is Importing Conspiracy-Fuelled MAGA Politics to the UK
Reform’s annual conference was filled with anti-vaxxers, climate change deniers and senior advisers to the Trump administration
Data from the Met Office’s UKCP18 database of climate change projections suggests that Kent will experience hotter summers and wetter winters over the coming decades, with up to 30% of additional rainfall projected across the Southeast of England by 2080, increasing the risk of flooding.
The Reform motion also positively cites the Heartland Institute and claims that “it is increasingly feared that the ‘climate emergency’ is being pushed as a means to increase state control over people’s lives”. The rhetoric echoes Lois Perry, the director of the Heartland Institute UK and Europe, who claimed at Reform UK’s conference in early September that the government “wants us in electric cars that can be remotely controlled […] and shut down”.
Heartland, a notorious climate change denial thinktank which once infamously compared believers in climate change to the Unabomber in a billboard campaign, confirmed recently that they are advising Reform UK. Heartland’s American director James Taylor stated that there was no climate emergency at the Reform conference.
Cllr Jeffrey added that “their [motion] looks like someone typed in to ChatGPT ‘summarise all the climate conspiracy theories for the past 30 years’. Frankly, we are dealing with people who are anti-science and dangerous.”
The motion will be debated on Thursday 18 September.
Reform councillor Chris Hespe told Byline Times: “Kent County Council will not be issuing any statement prior to the motion being democratically considered by Full Council”.