LONDON (AP) — It’s a photo that sent a tremor through British politics: Elon Musk flanked by British politician Nigel Farage and a wealthy backer, in front of a gilt-framed painting of a young Donald Trump.
Taken this week at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, the image suggested that Musk, a key player in the incoming U.S. administration, could soon turn his disruptive attention to the U.K.
Farage, Trump’s highest-profile British champion, confirmed talks are underway about Musk making a hefty donation to Farage's party Reform U.K. The Times of London reported it could be as much as $100 million, which would be far and away the largest political donation in U.K. history. The reports have sparked calls for Britain’s rules on political donations to be tightened — quickly.
“We did discuss money,” Farage told broadcaster GB News after the meeting with Musk. “That’s a negotiation we will go back and have again. He is not against giving us money. He hasn’t fully decided whether he will.”
Britain has strict limits on how much political parties can spend on elections, but they can accept unlimited donations, as long as the donors are U.K. voters or companies registered in Britain. Musk’s social network X has a British arm, Twitter U.K. Ltd., with a registered address in London.
Critics say that is a loophole that allows foreign influence in U.K. politics. The voting watchdog, the Electoral Commission, is calling for changes including limiting the amount a company can donate, so that it can't put in more money than it earns in Britain.
“It’s crucial that U.K. voters have trust in the financing of our political system,” the commission's chief executive Vijay Rangarajan told The Guardian. “The system needs strengthening, and we have been calling for changes to the law since 2013, to protect the electoral system from foreign interference.”
Britain’s center-left Labour Party pledged during the summer election campaign to tighten the rules on political donations, though legislation is not scheduled in the coming year. Prime Minister Keir Starmer's spokesman Dave Pares said Wednesday that work is already underway to “reinforce existing safeguards” against “impermissible proxy donations.”
Both the Labour government and the right-of-center opposition Conservatives are trying to figure out how to deal with Musk, who has taken a keen interest in the U.K. – and seemingly formed a strong dislike for Starmer.
Musk often posts on X about the U.K., retweeting criticism of Starmer and the hashtag TwoTierKeir – shorthand for an unsubstantiated claim that Britain has “two-tier policing,” with far-right protesters treated more harshly than pro-Palestinian or Black Lives Matter demonstrators. Musk has compared British attempts to weed out online misinformation to the Soviet Union, and during summer anti-immigrant violence across the U.K. tweeted that “civil war is inevitable.”
Farage has echoed some of those themes in his own social media output and his party’s anti-“woke” agenda, which includes pledges to slash immigration, scrap green-energy targets and leave the European Convention on Human Rights.
Founded in 2021, Reform U.K. is the latest in a string of small hard-right parties led by Farage that have had limited electoral success, but an outsized influence on British politics. Farage’s opposition to the European Union helped push the country toward voting in 2016 to leave the bloc, a seismic political and economic break with the U.K.’s nearest neighbors.
Reform U.K. won just five of the 650 seats in the House of Commons in July’s election, but came second in dozens more and secured 14% of the vote. Now it is pushing for fast growth, trying to professionalize its previously ramshackle organization and holding gatherings around the U.K. to recruit new members.
Farage, a strong communicator who has embraced TikTok and other platforms, aims to emulate Trump’s success in using the power of personality and social media to reach the “bro vote” — young men who are traditionally less likely to turn out at election time.
Farage told GB News that Musk has “already given me considerable help – understanding the process from start to finish, reaching disaffected communities who frankly feel there’s no point voting for anybody.”
The electoral power of social media was on show recently in Romania, where far-right candidate Călin Georgescu came from nowhere to win the first round of the presidential election in November, aided in part by a flood of TikTok videos promoting his campaign. Amid allegations that Russia had organized the social media campaign to back Georgescu, Romania’s Constitutional Court canceled the presidential election runoff two days before it was due to take place.
With Britain’s Conservative Party trying to recover from its worst election result since 1832, Farage dreams of making Reform the main opposition – or even the government — after the next election, due by 2029.
That’s a long shot, but Rob Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester, said a big donation from Musk could have “disruptive potential in all sorts of ways.”
He said Musk’s money would give Reform “the opportunity to try and build up a serious campaign organization, which is something that they have generally lacked.”
“It’s certainly adding a new joker to the pack of cards in British politics,” Ford said. “We’ve had no shortage of surprising developments here in the past few years. And maybe this is the next one.”
A previous version of this story incorrectly gave the reported amount of the donation as 100 million pounds. It is $100 million.
FILE - President-elect Donald Trump listens to Elon Musk as he arrives to watch SpaceX's mega rocket Starship lift off for a test flight from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, Nov. 19, 2024. (Brandon Bell/Pool via AP, File)
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage speaks during the New York Young Republican Club's annual gala at Cipriani Wall Street, Sunday, Dec. 15, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is pledging to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by more than 60% by 2035 as he fights to ensure his legacy on slowing global warming, even as President-elect Donald Trump vows to undo much of Biden's climate work when he takes office next month.
Biden said the new goal — which supersedes a previous plan to cut carbon emissions at least in half by 2030 — keeps the United States on track to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions economy-wide by 2050. The U.S. is making a formal submission of the new target, known as a Nationally Determined Contribution, to the United Nations under terms of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, Biden said Thursday.
The new goal calls for reducing net emissions by 61% to 66% below 2005 levels in 2035.
“I’m proud that my administration is carrying out the boldest climate agenda in American history,'' Biden said in a videotaped statement.
“We’re doing it by setting ambitious goals'' such as deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind and conserving at least 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030, Biden said. His administration also has set strict new standards to cut air pollution from cars, trucks and power plants and signed into law the most significant investments in climate and clean energy in U.S. history, he said.
The action by the Democratic president comes just over a month before he is set to leave office. Trump has already promised to unleash a series of executive actions that will seek to undo most or all of Biden's climate agenda as the Republican president-elect pushes for “energy dominance” around the globe.
Trump no longer dismisses climate change as a “hoax” but has pledged to dismantle what he calls Democrats’ “green new scam” in favor of boosting production of fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal, the main causes of climate change. Trump is expected to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord, as he did during his first term, and will likely move to repeal parts of the landmark Inflation Reduction Act, especially subsidies that benefit electric vehicles and offshore wind.
Biden aides tried to downplay the impact of Trump's return to the White House, insisting that states and local governments can continue to lead on clean energy.
“American climate leadership is determined by so much more than whoever sits in the Oval Office,'' said John Podesta, Biden's senior adviser for international climate policy.
Climate leadership “happens on the ground in our cities and states, from Phoenix to Pittsburgh, from Boise to Baltimore,'' Podesta told reporters Wednesday. “And I believe that with this new 2035 target as their North Star, leaders across America can show the world that we are still in this fight for a better future."
Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said that in his first term, Trump “produced affordable, reliable energy for consumers along with stable, high-paying jobs for small businesses — all while dropping U.S. carbon emissions to their lowest level in 25 years. In his second term, President Trump will once again deliver clean air and water for American families while Making America Wealthy Again.”
While carbon emissions dropped around the world in 2020, that was largely due to the economic shutdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Air travel and other activity came to a near standstill.
The U.S. Climate Alliance, a bipartisan coalition of governors that support climate action, pledged to work toward the new target, with or without help from the White House.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, the alliance's co-chair, said climate-conscious governors “will carry the torch forward'' after Biden leaves office. Hochul, a Democrat, said governors will use the new U.S. goal to “keep America on track toward a cleaner, safer future.”
“By continuing to stamp out climate pollution together, we’re safeguarding public health, protecting the environment, growing the economy and creating good jobs across the U.S,” said New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, another alliance co-chair.
Biden, in his remarks, called the new goal “ambitious” and said it would lead to thousands of well-paying jobs, more affordable energy, cleaner air, cleaner water and a healthier environment for all Americans.
“It is also creating real momentum because we’re unleashing American ingenuity and innovation. And together, we will turn this existential threat into a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform our nation'' for decades to come, Biden said. “I know we can do this.''
The proposal would require sustained changes across the economy, from power generation to transportation, buildings, agriculture and industry, including significant increases in renewable energy such as wind and solar power and steep cuts in emissions from fossil fuels such as oil and coal.
The U.S. pledge includes methane reductions of at least 35% from 2005 levels by 2035, Biden said. Cutting methane emissions is among the fastest ways to reduce near-term warming and is crucial to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Debbie Weyl, U.S. acting director of the World Resources Institute, a global research organization, said the new emissions target is “at the lower bound of what the science demands," but said it was “close to the upper bound of what is realistic if nearly every available policy lever were pulled" in the next decade.
“Assertive action by states and cities will be essential to achieving this goal,'' she said, adding that the United States needs to swiftly expand renewable energy and electric vehicles, modernize the electric grid and decarbonize heavy industry.
The nonbinding but symbolically important pledge is a key part of the Paris agreement, which calls for countries to submit so-called Nationally Determined Contributions every five years. A country’s NDC, or climate goal, outlines how it plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to help meet the global goal of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times.
The Paris Agreement requires that NDCs are updated every five years with increasingly higher ambition, taking into consideration each country’s capacity. The next deadline is February 2025, although Brazil, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates have already submitted their proposed NDCs.
“As the world’s largest producer of oil, the largest producer and exporter of fossil gas — and the largest historical climate polluter — the United States has an outsized responsibility to press forward in the climate fight no matter the political headwinds,'' said Manish Bapna, president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a leading environmental group.
He called the new climate goal a clear signal for governors, mayors and CEOs who support climate action to “step up" and defend climate progress.
“While the incoming administration has vowed to turn its back on the world — again — the majority of Americans want climate action, and the clean energy boom is unstoppable," Bapna said.
Associated Press writer Seth Borenstein contributed to this report.
FILE - President Joe Biden meets with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
President Joe Biden speaks during a Hanukkah reception in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)
FILE - President Joe Biden speaks during a Hanukkah reception in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Dec. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr., File)
