A close ally of Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has helped to launch the central European offshoot of a U.S. climate denial group alongside far-right figures.
Lois Perry – executive director of Heartland UK-Europe – claimed on social media last week that she was “In Poland to launch [the] Heartland Institute Central Europe”.
The U.S.-based Heartland Institute has described itself as “the world’s most prominent think tank supporting scepticism about man-made climate change”, and has strong ties to U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.
At the launch of the new branch in Warsaw on 13 May, Perry appeared alongside Mariusz Zagórski, a speechwriter for Poland’s former president Andrzej Duda of the national conservative Law and Justice Party. Zagórski, who will be the branch’s official representative, told DeSmog it would “propose solutions” on energy costs and “evaluate climate policy”.
The Heartland Institute’s U.S. president James Taylor was also in attendance. Taylor is a Trump ally who has dismissed what he calls the “mythical global warming crisis”.
