Chris Matthews Uses Colbert Show to Allege Russian Links to Fossil Fuel Lobbying

American political commentator and author Chris Matthews is the latest person of influence to use an appearance on a late night talk show to bring up the topic of climate change.

During his segment on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Matthews brings up the fact that Russia is a petro-state with a huge amount of oil and gas that they want to sell to the US, and that Russia may well have taken to lobbying and attempting to influence the election so that they can have the sanctions against them lifted in order to sell fossil fuels to the States again and, as Matthews says “be the world’s gas station.” Russia currently produces around 12% of the global supply of crude oil, which equates to 11 million barrels a day.

Matthews also mentions how the lobbying by Russia is an attempt to stop talking about climate change and to take it off the agenda. This is a significant point, given how we know that the Trump administration has a skeptical view of climate change, and how the administration has set about taking it off the national agenda. Russia has a huge amount to lose if fossil fuels are phased out early across the world, so it makes sense that it would want to protect its market share and hold back the move to renewable sources of energy and away from oil and gas.

Sanders, Bloomberg, and now Matthews

It’s great to see this topic being mentioned in front of such a large audience, and Matthews joins the esteemed company of former NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg and Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who both used Colbert’s talk show as a platform from which they could rail against climate change. The more strong political voices there are speaking up about these issues, the better, and praise to Colbert for providing a key forum for these discussions.

See the full interview below: