“Europe is falling behind the US and China while energy prices continue to rise. One of the reasons for this decline is climate policy, with the Emissions Trading System (ETS) being one of the major policy-induced factors.” This is how In Search of the Optimal Climate Policy, a report published by the Warsaw Enterprise Institute in early June 2026, opens. The report paints a bleak picture of the consequences of the ETS, the European system that requires companies to pay for their greenhouse gas emissions. Introduced in 2005, the scheme has helped cut EU emissions by almost 50%, according to the European Commission.
The Commission is currently reviewing the ETS. As a result, Europe’s industrial lobby has stepped up its campaign in recent months, calling for the system to be weakened. Several countries, including Italy, have even called for it to be suspended.
According to the Warsaw Enterprise Institute’s report, the ETS could increase heating costs in Poland by between 31% and 41%, while transport costs could rise by around 25%. Its proposed alternative? Deregulation, with decarbonisation left to market forces. But what lies behind the organisations in Europe pushing this deregulatory agenda in the name of “free-market environmentalism”? Once again, the trail leads back to the fossil fuel industry.
The climate denial network
The Warsaw Enterprise Institute (WEI) is a Polish foundation established in 2014 to promote libertarian values of economic freedom and private property. It has produced projects and analyses on the economic damage caused by lockdowns, criticised “prohibitionist” laws on alcohol and tobacco, and opposed public spending on environmental policies. In recent years, the foundation’s activities have expanded. Between 2020 and 2024, both its income and staffing more than doubled. In 2024, WEI received just under 1.5 million złoty (330,000 euros) in donations from private organisations, accounting for around half of its total income.
While the origin of these funds is not disclosed, looking at the network of organisations with which WEI collaborates places the foundation squarely within the constellation of think tanks that channel funding from the US fossil fuel industry into efforts to shape the climate debate. It is a member of the Atlas Network, which funds and supports hundreds of neoliberal organisations around the world. According to DeSmog,“many of the member think tanks of Atlas Network have supported climate science denial and have campaigned against legislation to limit greenhouse gas emissions”. Atlas Network has received millions of dollars from the oil industry, including funding from ExxonMobil and the foundations of the Koch oil magnates.
Nor is this an isolated case. One of the Warsaw Enterprise Institute’s projects is run in partnership with the Foreign Policy Foundation, which receives funding from the American Petroleum Institute, the largest trade association representing the US fossil fuel industry. Furthermore, WEI is a partner of The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank with considerable influence on US politics, which has criticised environmental regulations and organised the controversial “Project 2025”, behind the policies of Donald Trump’s second term. One of its pillars is to halt the expansion of renewable energy in the United States. The Heritage Foundation is funded by the fossil fuel sector, including foundations linked to the Koch brothers and the Scaife Foundation. The Warsaw Enterprise Institute did not respond to our requests for an interview.
An echo chamber in Europe
The activities of the Warsaw Enterprise Institute — like those of other European Atlas Network partners, including Italy’s Istituto Bruno Leoni — amplify the messaging of US climate delayers, who now oppose environmental regulation by invoking the need to protect industrial competitiveness. Or by arguing that the most efficient way to encourage decarbonisation is to cut taxes, as the Polish think tank's report on the Emissions Trading System does. The proposal mirrors those of another US think tank linked to climate-denial circles, which is also a signatory to the report: the Climate & Freedom International Coalition.
In 2024, the organisation published a proposal “for an International Free Market Climate Agreement” arguing that the climate crisis should be tackled by abandoning national climate policies in favour of alternative measures, including tax cuts for businesses that decarbonise and the sale of 50% of public land (“especially forests”, in order “to empower private conservation, reforestation, and sustainable resource use — raising trillions of dollars and reducing national debt”). The research cited in support of these proposals, however, once again leads back to the fossil fuel world. Among the sources are The Heritage Foundation and other organisations linked to the oil and gas industry, including the Cato Institute and C3 Solutions.
The ETS report is signed by Rod Richardson, co-founder of the Climate & Freedom Coalition and also chairman of a US foundation, the Grace Richardson Fund. Among the organisations receiving funding from the Richardson family’s foundation are other well-known names in the world of climate change denial: the Reason Foundation and Students For Liberty. In 2016, the vice-president of the Reason Foundation criticised the adoption of the Paris Agreement, saying it would do “more harm than good”.
Why Poland?
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Poland has become an increasingly important market for US fossil fuel exports. After ending imports from Russia, the country rapidly increased its purchases of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States. There is no point in risking a decline in this market. At The Nations First Forum in February 2026 — an event organised by the Warsaw Enterprise Institute together with The Heritage Foundation — this point was made almost explicitly. During the conference, speakers discussed geopolitical instability and the importance of maintaining the US–Poland energy relationship, but referred to only two energy sources: natural gas and nuclear power.
The extent to which the interests of US oil companies in Europe may directly influence EU policymaking is reflected in the political connections enjoyed by think tanks such as the Warsaw Enterprise Institute. The Nations First Forum was organised by the Polish think tank together with New Direction, the foundation affiliated with the European Conservatives and Reformists Group in the European Parliament, of which Italy’s Brothers of Italy party is a member. Their analyses are presented at the heart of the EU institutions. In October 2024, WEI held an event at the European Parliament attended by Polish MEPs from the nationalist radical-right Law and Justice party.
Leading figures at the Warsaw Enterprise Institute also occupy active positions in Brussels. One example is Marcin Nowacki, a member of WEI’s board and head of the lobby European Enterprise Alliance. Nowacki also chairs the transport and energy section of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), a committee that brings the voices of entrepreneurs, workers and civil society to the attention of the European institutions. At the same time, Marcin Nowacki is also a long-standing collaborator with the Atlas Network and other think tanks funded by the fossil fuel industry, such as Americans for Tax Reform and the Leadership Institute. In 2022, he received the Steven M. Sass Economic Freedom Award from The Heritage Foundation. Marcin Nowacki did not respond to our requests for an interview.
The network of organisations and think tanks financed by the fossil fuel industry is stronger than ever in Europe: an unrelenting factory of reports, events and narratives that rapidly adapt to shifts in the political debate. Today, amid concerns over Europe’s energy security arising from the wars in Ukraine and Iran, environmental policies are increasingly portrayed as obstacles to industrial competitiveness, tinsels that drive up energy prices (despite the substantial body of evidence showing that investing in renewable energy and decarbonisation would in fact reduce them).
To the established repertoire of climate denial tactics, the network of libertarian think tanks has added another: presenting themselves as “green capitalists”, while calling for tax cuts (and therefore fewer public resources to support a just and equitable energy transition) in the hope that an unfettered hand of the market will take care of the rest.
Cover: Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto/Shutterstock, IPA Agency