Thread by @_richardblack

Seems the 'Russia stopped #fracking in Europe and the UK by funding environmental groups' accusation is edging back into circulation

https://twitter.com/lefoudubaron/status/1499299938190172163

(h/t @afneil)

I'm not going to argue that the Russian state or any of its agencies never campaigned against fracking in the West, because I don't know - it's certainly credible that they would have done so

But on the part of the frackophiles, there is no evidence that Russia funded environment groups. Rather, one quote and one report circulate endlessly, as though they gain credibility through repetition.

The quote is from 2014, by NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen theguardian.com/environment/20…:

'I have met allies who can report that Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called NGOs - environmental organisations working against shale gas - to maintain European dependence on imported Russian gas.'

Rasmussen declined to give a single source or detail. His only reported clarification, 'That is my interpretation', suggests that he didn't have reliable sourcing and may have made the inference himself rather than being told directly

The report is The Bear in Sheep’s Clothing: Russia’s Government-Funded Organisations in the EU, by the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies martenscentre.eu/publication/th…. This is the relevant passage in its entirety (page 31):

'According to one interviewee, mining shale gas in the EU would disadvantage Russia due to its financial dependency on the EU’s gas imports. The Russian government has therefore invested €82 million in NGOs whose job is to persuade EU governments to stop shale gas exploration'56

Reference 56 turns out to be 'Interview with anonymous contributor, 12 May 2015'

And that is it.

Similar accusations have surfaced in the US but again, there is nothing on the record - no documentation, just quotes that circulate and circulate with no-one stopping to ask the most fundamental question of all - 'where's your evidence?'

Added to which, if Russia was trying to lobby against fracking in the US you'd have to say it wasted its money, with the US now being the world's biggest oil and gas producer

What Russia Today may have said or printed is a different matter. But if anyone's arguing it has influence in western capitals - I mean, seriously?

Interestingly, although there is no documentary evidence of Russian money going into environmental NGOs, there is some documentary evidence of how the rumour started and who started it desmog.com/2017/01/10/rus…. tl:dr version - US oil and gas interests

Two major ironies. One is the relentlessly enthusiastic endorsement of the Rasmussen and Martens Centre quotes as established facts by people like @mattridley who, on other issues, proudly proclaim their scepticism. (Google 'Journal of Geoclimatic Studies' for the exemplar')

The other is that allegations of misinformation on fracking generally come from people with a history of lobbying against action on climate change.

Remember 'the climate isn't changing'? 'The world is getting cooler'? 'Climate science is bent'? 'Adaptation is more cost-effective than mitigation'? 'The lights will go out if we switch to renewables'? 'Cutting emissions will crash the economy'? 'People hate wind turbines'?

Yep. Just the people to trust, whether in politics, business or the media, when it comes to allegations of misinformation

Reality: #fracking didn't happen in Europe and UK because it wasn't economic, the public didn't want it, Europe has a higher population density than the US plus different geology and land rights. And it's not coming back, for the same reasons

Frackophiles really need to just get over it - it's so tedious, seriously - and then let's start talking about sensible solutions. Oh - as if by magic - the @IEA just did

https://twitter.com/fbirol/status/1499339734371426304