The UK’s newly appointed minister for net zero is facing questions over her links to a think tank funded by oil giants that called for climate protesters to be jailed.
Claire Coutinho, appointed minister for energy security and net zero this week, was a senior fellow to the opaquely funded right-wing think tank Policy Exchange in 2021. Before that, she had contributed to a report for the group in 2020, and gave a speech there in July this year.
openDemocracy revealed in 2022 that Policy Exchange had helped write the UK’s controversial Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act after explicitly stating the government should pass legislation to target Extinction Rebellion (XR) in a 2019 report.
