UK Climate Skeptic Think Tank Received Donations From US Fossil Fuel Lobby - Reports

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 04th May, 2022) The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), a UK-based non-partisan think tank that is one of the most vocal groups opposing the government's "net zero" policy, allegedly received donations from entities and groups with links to oil and gas industries, the Guardian and OpenDemocracy reported on Wednesday.

The GWPF was founded in 2009 with the core purpose "to scrutinize climate policies" and make the public aware of "the full range of costs and benefits" associated with them. Recently, the GWPF has been most active in campaigning to restart fracking, a controversial method of gas extraction which was halted in the UK in November 2021 over seismic risks.

The GWPF has long declined to disclose its sources of funding as it is registered as an educational charity, the report said.

Tax documents filed with the US authorities and reviewed by the Guardian and OpenDemocracy reveal that the US arm of the GWPF had received over $1.3 million from US donors since 2017.

According to the Guardian, at least 45% of all GWPF donations over this period came from the US.

The newspaper named two main US donor organizations, the Donors Trust and the Sarah Scaife Foundation. The Guardian said that the Donors Trust had given "hundreds of millions of Dollars" to climate skeptic groups and had received funding from the Koch brothers, who control a major oil company, Koch Industries. The Sarah Scaife Foundation is reported to have shares in 22 energy corporations, including Exxon Mobil and Chevron, and has a track record of supporting several US conservative causes.

According to the Guardian, the GWPF representatives disagree with these allegations, claiming that the Donors Trust is a "middleman, matching donors to those seeking funding" and the Sarah Scaife Foundation accumulated this wealth at the beginning of the 20th century. However, the revelation still fuels fears that powerful US energy companies are trying to export "climate denial" to UK politics, the report warned.