UK ministers ‘met fossil fuel firms nine times as often as clean energy ones’

Exclusive: revelations come amid rising concerns over government's plans to meet net zero target

UK government ministers have held private meetings with fossil fuel and biomass energy producers roughly nine times as often as they met companies involved in clean energy production, despite the increasing urgency of meeting the government's climate targets.

Analysis by DeSmog, the environmental investigation group, of publicly available data shows that ministers from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Beis) held 63 private meetings - with one company present, along with ministers and advisers - with fossil fuel and biomass energy producers between 22 July 2019 and 18 March 2021.