Kathryn Porter, a consultant to the fossil fuel industry and a prominent critic of emissions reduction policies, has joined the UK’s foremost climate science denial group. Porter appears frequently in the media as an ‘independent’ expert on energy issues and has been interviewed on the BBC, LBC, GB News, and TalkTV, while her research is often covered in conservative media. She also writes a column for The Telegraph, and in recent weeks she spoke on energy panels at both Labour and Conservative party conferences. Porter’s consultancy Watt-Logic advises the oil and gas industry. Its website states that she works for ‘businesses with projects across the electricity, gas and oil industries’, including ‘clients with conventional energy assets including gas-fired power stations, gas storage, upstream oil and gas production and [Liquefied Natural Gas]’. On 16 October, Porter joined the board of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), a lobby group set up by Conservative peer and former chancellor Lord Nigel Lawson in 2008 to counter the growing consensus on the need to address man-made climate change. The group, which is currently led by Tory peer Lord Craig Mackinlay, has said CO2 has been ‘mercilessly demonised’ when it is a ‘benefit to the planet’ – claiming that the atmosphere’s CO2 concentration should be ‘two or three times’ higher than it is now. The group does not publicly declare its funding. Subscribe to Desmog Get the weekly intelligence you need to hold polluters accountable Name –> Email Address Sign Up Send me intelligence from: All US/Global team UK/Europe team Sign Up –> In a statement on the GWPF website, Porter said: ‘I am delighted to be joining the Board of Trustees. Nigel Lawson understood the importance of open debate, rigorous analysis and challenging conventional wisdom, and I look forward to helping build on that legacy.’ Porter has authored two reports for the GWPF, and one for its campaign arm Net Zero Watch, since 2023. She will sit on the board alongside The Telegraph’s chief interviewer Allison Pearson, and Labour MP Graham Stringer. Porter has publicly criticised climate policies. In a post on X in January 2025, Porter attacked what she called an ‘excessive focus on CO2’ in energy policy, and in February she suggested the UK’s landmark Climate Change Act should be repealed. As DeSmog revealed in July 2023, Porter has written blogs that contradict basic climate science. In a 2017 post, she wrote that ‘climate models overstate global warming’. In fact, climate models have accurately predicted global temperature rises, with observed warming reflecting scientific forecasts. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s foremost climate science body, has stated that it is ‘unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land’. It has also stated that carbon dioxide ‘is responsible for most of global warming’ since the late 19th century, which has increased the ‘severity and frequency of weather and climate extremes, like heat waves, heavy rains, and drought’. While Porter and the GWPF claim that reaching net zero emissions by 2050 is unaffordable, a succession of heatwaves during the British summer led to mass school closures, public transport disruption, and a ‘disaster’ harvest – ultimately costing the economy an estimated £4.4 billion. The Climate Change Committee, an independent government advisory body, has estimated that reaching net zero will cost 0.2 percent of GDP per year – and that its total cost will be less than one fossil fuel price shock. Porter and the GWPF were approached for comment. Conservative Connections Porter and the GWPF have several connections to the Conservative Party. In January, Clare Coutinho, the then Tory shadow energy secretary, helped to launch a paper written by Porter claiming that renewable energy development could cause blackouts – a claim rejected as ‘nonsense scaremongering’ by the government. Coutinho had previously suggested that the Labour government should hire Porter to vet its energy policies. The Conservative Party under Kemi Badenoch has ditched its past support for climate action, declaring it would be ‘impossible’ to reach net zero by 2050, and vowing to repeal the Climate Change Act. Badenoch has banned any Tory candidate from supporting net zero. Earlier this month, Porter spoke at the Conservative Party’s conference in Birmingham on a panel entitled ‘Solving Britain’s Energy Crisis’ alongside newly-appointed shadow energy secretary Andrew Bowie, head of policy at Octopus Energy Jack Pardoe, and Liam Halligan, a former GB News presenter and the director of the Centre for Policy Studies think tank. Porter also spoke on a GWPF panel at last year’s Tory conference entitled ‘Can Britain survive Ed Miliband?’, where she called for net zero to be scrapped and for increased fossil fuel extraction. As DeSmog revealed in September 2024, GWPF donors have given more than £7 million to the Conservatives over the past two decades. At this year’s Labour Party conference in Liverpool, Porter also spoke on an energy panel organised by the oil exploration company EnQuest, whose CEO Amjad Bseisu is a Conservative Party donor. Speaking alongside Bseisu, GMB general secretary Gary Smith, and Labour donor Dale Vince, Porter called for taxes to be reduced on the fossil fuel industry and for the UK to expand its North Sea drilling. The post Oil Industry Consultant Joins Climate Denial Group Run by Tory Peer appeared first on DeSmog.