Climate sceptic thinktank received funding from fossil fuel interests
An influential thinktank that has led the backlash against the government’s net zero policy has received funding from groups with oil and gas interests, according to tax documents seen by the Guardian and OpenDemocracy.
Though the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has always said it is independent of the fossil fuel industry, the revelations about its funding will raise questions over its campaigning.
The thinktank has always refused to disclose its donors, but tax documents filed with US authorities reveal that one of its donors has $30m (£24m) of shares in 22 companies working in coal, oil and gas.
Over four years the GWPF’s US arm, the American Friends of the GWPF, received more than $1m from US donors. The vast majority of this, $864,884, was channelled to the UK group, with some being held back for expenses. Of the £1.45m the GWPF has received in charitable donations since 2017, about 45% has come from the US.
It received $210,525 in 2018 and 2020 from the Sarah Scaife Foundation – set up by the billionaire libertarian heir to an oil and banking dynasty. The US-based foundation has $30m-worth of shares in 22 energy companies including $9m in Exxon and $5.7m in Chevron, according to its financial filings.
Between 2016 and 2020, the American Friends of the GWPF received $620,259 from the Donors Trust, which is funded by the Koch brothers, who inherited their father’s oil empire and have spent hundreds of millions of dollars funding the climate denial movement.
“It is disturbing that the Global Warming Policy Foundation is acting as a channel through which American ideological groups are trying to interfere in British democracy,” said Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the LSE Grantham Research Institute
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