The well-known climate skeptic Frits Böttcher published writings in the 1990s that questioned man-made climate heating. According to a report, he received financial support from several companies.
According to media reports, dozens of international companies such as the oil company Shell and the Dutch airline KLM have provided financial support for the prominent Dutch climate change skeptic Frits Böttcher for years. The “Shell Papers” published on Saturday by investigative journalists from the Platform for Authentic Journalism (PAJ) state that Böttcher received hundreds of thousands of euros from the companies between 1989 and 1998. The aim was to sow doubts about the man-made climate crisis.
The “Shell Papers” were published in the newspaper “De Volkskrant” and on the Dutch investigative portal “Follow the Money”. According to this, the now deceased chemistry professor Böttcher received a total of more than one million Dutch guilders (450,000 euros) from the companies that he used to publish articles that are skeptical about climate change and opinions.
According to the journalists, Böttcher’s most well-known supporters included the German industrial group ThyssenKrupp and the Dutch banking group ING in addition to Shell and KLM.
CO2 “good for the planet”
Böttcher was one of the founding members of the influential Club of Rome expert group in 1968. The chemistry professor at the University of Leiden was known to regard the greenhouse gas effect that leads to global warming as a “myth”. In his opinion, CO2 was even “good for the planet”.
Several of the companies named in the research stated that they could not verify the allegations. The alleged financial aid for Böttcher was too long ago. “That was 25, 30 years ago. We cannot speculate as to what exactly happened and in what context,” said Shell. KLM said there was “no evidence” that the company had supported Böttcher 30 years ago. ThyssenKrupp also said it could not confirm the allegations, but said the company did not support “climate change skeptics”. Böttcher himself can no longer make statements about the allegations. He died in 2008.
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