Rupert Lowe, a newly elected MP for Nigel Farage’s anti-net zero party Reform UK, is the owner of a firm specialising in heat pumps – a flagship clean heating technology.
Reform’s 2024 election manifesto advocated scrapping the UK’s net zero targets and renewable energy subsidies, including those promoting the uptake of heat pumps.
Lowe, who shares Reform’s views on net zero, has previously claimed that there is a “cult of climate change” promoting unscientific theories about rising temperatures and their effects. The Great Yarmouth MP has suggested that “we are heading towards the Stone Age in a desperate pursuit” of net zero, has advocated for a referendum on the 2050 target, and has urged the government to cut its “net zero nonsense”.
However, Lowe’s register of interests shows that – despite his anti-climate views – he is the owner of Alto Energy, a UK supplier of air and ground source heat pumps.
Heat pumps use electricity rather than fossil fuels, and are up to five times more efficient than gas boilers according to the International Energy Agency. As the UK increases the proportion of electricity that it generates via renewable energy sources, the widespread deployment of heat pumps will allow the country to reduce its emissions from heating.
On 16 July, Alto Energy published an analysis saying that the new Labour government should “prioritise investments in green technologies like heat pumps”.
It added: “After all, moving away from fossil fuel heating systems is crucial for achieving energy independence and net zero targets.”
Reform’s leader Nigel Farage has openly criticised the move towards heat pumps, claiming on GB News that they are “a rich man’s game”.
Reform proposes scrapping government grants that promote the development and rollout of green technologies, which would have included a scheme used by Lowe to install heat pumps on his own properties.
Quoted by the Sunday Telegraph in August 2019, he said: “I have chosen to install heat pumps at a new stable and horse training facility on my farm in Gloucestershire. Heat pumps are definitely the way to go now as they’ll cost me far less to run than oil or [liquefied petroleum gas]. I’m also going to get a good return on investment under the government Renewable Heat Incentive scheme, which is paying me for installing green technology”.
The Renewable Heat Incentive scheme was the predecessor of the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, which offers a £7,500 grant for households to replace their fossil fuel heating system with a heat pump.
Lowe is also a shareholder in Kona Energy, which describes itself as “one of the UK’s leading clean energy development companies”. The firm is working on battery energy storage projects to help increase the use of “renewable power on the electricity system.”
The Kona Energy website says that battery storage is critical to meeting the UK’s “legally binding commitment to become net zero by 2050”. The website – which lists Lowe as an investor – says that Kona Energy is backed “by several highly supportive investors” and that it is seeking new partners “who share the company’s mission to deliver the zero carbon future.”
Lowe told DeSmog: “I’ve had a lifetime in business, which I’m incredibly proud of, and that’s equipped me with vital tools and experience that are severely lacking in Westminster. I make no apology for my involvement in a number of companies, across a wide range of industries. If more MPs had real business experience, the country wouldn’t be in such a sorry mess.”
Kona Energy and Alto Energy did not respond to DeSmog’s requests for comment.
Rupert Lowe’s Climate Science Denial
Lowe has openly contradicted established climate science in the past.
In January 2020, when Lowe was a Member of European Parliament (MEP) for the Brexit Party (now Reform UK), he used a debate on bushfires in Australia, which destroyed more than 3,000 buildings and killed 34 people, to dismiss the role of climate change.
“It’s disappointing that climate change has been blamed as the primary cause of these devastating bushfires by both our [European] parliament and other so-called climate experts”, Lowe said.
“The cult of climate change marches on with no definitive evidence to support or deny the factual accuracy of their assertions. Logic suggests that climate change has little to do with this natural catastrophe.”
Lowe suggested the fires were caused by campfires, sparks from electric transmission lines, “discarded cigarettes”, and “arson”. Blaming climate-influenced wildfires entirely on arsonists is a common trope used by climate science deniers. An analysis by the World Weather Attribution initiative in March 2020 estimated that the bushfires had been made 30 percent more likely by human-induced climate change.
When challenged on his remarks during the session, Lowe repeated that the fires had “nothing to do” with “dryness or heat”, adding that “we’ve had bushfires in Australia… for many centuries” and that “The biggest fires happened in 1974-75”. The claim that extreme weather has been worse in the past is another familiar climate denial argument.
In May 2023, Lowe also appeared to defend physical confrontations with climate protesters. He shared a video on X (formerly known as Twitter) of a man who was stopped by police for grabbing climate protesters, and said it was a “scandal” that officers were confronting a person who was “doing their job for them” by “removing these climate loons from blocking up the roads”.
Reform UK’s Anti-Climate Platform
Lowe’s views on climate science and net zero correspond with the policies of his political party.
Reform UK campaigns for net zero to be scrapped, claiming that “we must not impoverish ourselves in pursuit of unaffordable, unachievable global CO2 targets.”
Despite holding shares in two green tech companies, in July’s general election Lowe stood on a platform that claimed “net zero is crippling our economy” and that “renewables are not cheaper than fossil fuels”. Reform’s manifesto said that: “Our bills have increased dramatically in line with the huge increase in renewables capacity over the last 15 years.”
In reality, energy prices have risen dramatically since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine due to the UK’s dependence on gas. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Britain was the worst hit country in Western Europe following the invasion because of its over-reliance on gas.
Reform’s hostility to net zero can be explained by its opposition to climate science. Prior to the 2024 election campaign, Reform’s policy agenda promoted climate science denial, claiming that “climate change has happened for millions of years, before man made CO2 emissions, and will always change”.
Authors working for the world’s foremost climate science body, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), have said that “it is a statement of fact, we cannot be any more certain; it is unequivocal and indisputable that humans are warming the planet”.
The IPCC has stated that we are in the midst of “widespread and rapid [changes] … unprecedented over many centuries, to many thousands of years”.
Of the £2.5 million that Reform UK received in donations between the 2019 election and the start of the 2024 campaign, around 92 percent (£2.3 million) of that income was given by fossil fuel interests, polluting industries, or climate science deniers.
Farage has himself denied established climate science. Speaking on GB News in August 2021, Farage said that he was “very much an environmentalist” and that he couldn’t “abide things like plastics in our seas, pollution in our rivers.” However, on the issue of climate change, he added: “What annoys me though, is this complete obsession with carbon dioxide almost to the exclusion of everything else, the alarmism that comes with it, based on dodgy predictions and science.”
The IPCC has 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”.
Polling by More in Common and E3G during the 2024 general election period found that a majority of people in every UK constituency are worried about rising temperatures, including 65 percent in Nigel Farage’s Clacton constituency, which is at risk of flooding and sea level rises due to climate change.
The party’s former leader Richard Tice, who is now its chairman, is also a prominent climate science denier. Tice has claimed that “there is no climate crisis”, and has also expressed the view that “CO2 isn’t a poison. It’s plant food”.
Reform previously told DeSmog that: “Climate change is real, Reform UK believes we must adapt, rather than foolishly think you can stop it. We are proud to be the only party to understand that economic growth depends on cheap domestic energy and we are proud that we are the only party that are climate science realists, realising you can not stop the power of the sun, volcanoes or sea level oscillation.
“The deniers are those who continually gaslight the public into thinking you can stop these powerful natural forces. We must use the energy under our feet, rather than send our money and jobs abroad.”