Former UK Prime Minster says, “any strategy based on either “phasing out” fossil fuels in the short term or limiting consumption is a strategy doomed to fail”.  

On April 29^th the Tony Blair Institute For Global Change released, ‘The Climate Paradox: Why We Need to Reset Action on Climate Change’, which both contradicts and condemns the current Labour Governments Net-Zero plans. In the statement, Blair states that carbon capture should be central to climate policy, in addition to nature-based carbon sinks, nuclear power, AI, planning restriction reform, philanthropy and climate finance.  

“The mainstream press and Westminster politicians sit up and take notice when Tony Blair has stuff to say” says Novara Media’s Aaron Bastani. Nicholas Stern (House of Lords member and Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics), described the paper to the BBC as “muddled and misleading”. But, when asked during the Prime Minister’s Questions, current UK Labour Prime Minister Kier Starmer stated that “if you look at the detail of what Tony Blair said he’s absolutely aligned with what we’re doing here.”  

This comes just days after the independent Climate Change Committee says government progress on Net-Zero is “either too slow, has stalled, or is heading in the wrong direction.”  

Aaron Bastani of Novara Media also comments on how “Kier Starmer has embraced AI, saying he wants to mainline AI into the veins of the government” “after the Tony Blair Institute published at least 11 reports on AI benefits and strategy this year alone” – highlighting a strong correlation between the former PMs opinions and the Labour Party’s policies. MIT’s recent article on “Generative AI’s environmental impact” explains that streamlining AI will have increasingly detrimental impacts on people and planet  from “increased carbon dioxide emissions and pressures on the electric grid” to straining and disrupting “municipal water supplies” and “local ecosystems” to the impacts of mining, manufacturing and transporting hardware components.  

Furthermore, Blair’s motivations have been increasingly under fire, as despite the Institute saying it’s “editorially independent”, according to a government source the Climate Paradox report could “have been affected by the Tony Blair Institute having received funding from oil rich Saudi Arabia” says the BBC.  

According to Novara Media, the Institute has also been funded by the US State Department, which The Globe and Mail says has “nixed” their “climate office” and “revamped energy bureau”. However, the main funder of the Tony Blair Institute, is 4^th richest person in the world, Larry Ellison, who is Founder of software giant Oracle and worth $187.9 billion as explained by Forbes.  

As reported by Novara, Mr Ellison has reportedly given TBI “over $100 million since 2021” and “plans to donate a further $200 million”. According to Forbes, “Larry Ellison has been a longtime supporter of Trump” and “is also a personal friend of presidential adviser Elon Musk”, as well as having ties to Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the ICC for ‘war crimes’ against the state of Palestine.