Exclusive: Bjorn Lomborg Think Tank Funder Revealed As Billionaire Republican 'Vulture Capitalist' Paul Singer

authordefault
on

A billionaire โ€œvulture capitalistโ€ and major backer of the US Republican Party is a major funder of the think tank of Danish climate science contrarian and fossil fuels advocate Bjรธrn Lomborg, DeSmogBlog hasย found.

New York-based hedge fund manager Paul Singerโ€™s charitable foundation gave $200,000 to Lomborgโ€™s Copenhagen Consensus Center (CCC) in 2013, latest US tax disclosuresย reveal.

The grant to Lomborgโ€™s think tank is revealed in the tax form of the Paul E. Singer Foundation covering that foundationโ€™s activities between December 2012 and Novemberย 2013.

Singer, described as a โ€œpassionate defender of the 1%โ€, has emerged as a major force in the Republican party in recent years and was a key backer and influencer during Mitt Romneyโ€™s failed tilt at theย Presidency.

The $200,000 grant represented almost one third of the $621,057 in donations declared by the Copenhagen Consensus Center inย 2013.

A spokesperson for the think tank told DeSmogBlog that โ€œnot one dollarโ€ of the Singer grant had beenย spent.

Lomborg, a Danish political scientist, is often cited on lists of the worldโ€™s most influentialย people.

He writes extensively on climate change and energy issues with his columns appearing in many of the worldโ€™s biggest newsย outlets.

The CCC think tank produces reports that consistently argue that cutting greenhouse gas emissions and increasing the roll-out of current renewable energy technologies should be low priorities for policyย makers.

Most recently, Lomborg wrote a column for the Wall Street Journal arguing climate change was not the urgent problem that manyย thought.

He wrote that โ€œthe narrative that the worldโ€™s climate is changing from bad to worse is unhelpfulย alarmismโ€.

Lomborg argues the poorest countries need fossil fuels to lift themselves out of poverty โ€“ a position that gained support from the worldโ€™s richest man, Bill Gates.

At a G20 side event in Brisbane last year, Lomborg appeared at an event sponsored by the worldโ€™s largest private coal company, Peabody Energy, where he again argued that the worldโ€™s poor needed fossilย fuels.ย 

The CCCโ€™s keystone project is the Post 2015 Consensus that is trying to influence the formulation of the next set of global development goals being discussed by the United Nations. Those goals will replace the millennium developmentย goals.

Lomborgโ€™s CCC think tank was registered as a not-for-profit in the US in 2008 and has attracted almost $5 million in donations since then.ย In 2013, the CCC paid Lomborg, its founder and president, $200,484 for his work. The previous year Lomborg was paidย $775,000.

The think tank has insisted that its funders, most of which are anonymous, do not influence its research.ย  The think tank says it does not accept funding from the fossil fuelย industry.

Despite being registered in the US, Lomborg has admitted that all but one of the think tankโ€™s seven staff are based elsewhere.ย  The think tankโ€™s address is a parcel service in Lowell, Massachusetts.

The discovery of support from Paul Singer comes after a DeSmogBlog investigation last year found that CCCโ€™s early funders included conservative think tanks with links to the network of organisations funded by the Koch brothers, who have pushed millions into organisations denying climate science and blocking action to cut fossil fuelย emissions.

In the 2014 US political spending cycle, data presented by OpenSecrets shows Singer spent $9.4 million influencing Republicans โ€“ the biggest disclosed individual spender on the conservative side of USย politics.

Singer, whose Elliott Management hedge fund manages about $25 billion in assets, has been branded a โ€œvulture capitalistโ€ enterprise due to investment strategies employed by his firm that targets foreign economies inย trouble.

A 2011 summary of โ€œvulture fundsโ€ in The Guardian said Elliott Managementโ€™s โ€œprincipal investment strategyโ€ was โ€œbuying distressed debt cheaply and selling it at a profit or suing for fullย paymentโ€.

Greg Palast, the author of Vultureโ€™s Picnic, documented in The Guardian how Singerโ€™s firm had managed to pocket $1.29 billion from the US Treasury after a โ€œbrilliantly complexโ€ financial manoeuvre in 2009 that saw Singer lead a consortium to buy the parts supplier of General Motors and Chrysler before claiming cash from a government bailout of the struggling autoย industry.

Singer, who according to Forbes is personally worth $1.8 billion, remains in conflict with the Argentinian government over debt bought by an Elliott affiliate and otherย investors.

As well as the generosity shown to Bjorn Lomborgโ€™s think tank, Singerโ€™s foundation gave $500,000 to the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, where Singer is chairman of the board ofย trustees.

The Manhattan Institute is also known for downplaying the impacts of climate change while promoting fossilย fuels.

In October 2014, Manhattan senior fellow Robert Bryce wrote a report Not Beyond Coal arguing that the future for the coal industry was bright and the fossil fuel was โ€œessentialโ€ for addressing poverty in developing countries โ€” a position identical to that pushed by Lomborg.

Bryce also attacks the wind industry claiming it cannot cut emissions, describing wind turbines as โ€œclimate change scarecrowsโ€.ย In testimony to the US Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in February 2014, Bryce said wind turbines were โ€œslaughtering wildlifeโ€ and killed 600,000 birds every year in the US.

A review of studies and data into US bird deaths has found about 600 million birds are killed annually in collisions with windows and buildings, but even this high number was only a quarter of the birds killed annually in the US by feralย cats.

Another large donation from Singerโ€™s foundation went to the Moving Picture Institute โ€“ an organisation that says it produces films that promote understanding of โ€œindividual rights, limited government, and freeย marketsโ€.

The MPI helped fund the 2004 pro-mining documentary Mine Your Own Business by Irish filmmakers Phelim McAleer and Annย McElhinney.

The two would go on to make the 2009 climate science denial film Not Evil Just Wrong, which was partly funded through a grant from DonorsTrust โ€“ a fund which stockpiles cash from conservative philanthropists and that has pushed millions into organisations promoting climate science denial while fighting action to cutย emissions.

Roland Mathiasson, Executive Vice President at the Copenhagen Consensus Center, told DeSmogBlog: โ€œNot one dollar of this grant has been spent. It’s for a potential future project, pending support from a broad range of political perspectives to underline the non-political nature of theย project.

โ€œIt is a project for the public conversation, so obviously there will be a lot of communication once broad support is secured, and the project isย launched.โ€

Mathiasson declined to provide furtherย details.

DeSmogBlog attempted to contact the Paul E Singer Foundation to ask about their donation to CCC, but email requests went unanswered.
ย 

Image: Flickr World Economic Fourm/TED

Related Posts

on

Tech firms like Amazon and Google โ€˜have enormous responsibilityโ€™ for driving fossil fuel expansions, climate expert argues.

Tech firms like Amazon and Google โ€˜have enormous responsibilityโ€™ for driving fossil fuel expansions, climate expert argues.
on

The Tory candidate is running her campaign from the home of a prominent anti-green activist.

The Tory candidate is running her campaign from the home of a prominent anti-green activist.
on

Peter Thiel, JD Vanceโ€™s former boss, also expresses confusion on climate, supporting expanded fossil fuel use while appearing unclear on the consequences.

Peter Thiel, JD Vanceโ€™s former boss, also expresses confusion on climate, supporting expanded fossil fuel use while appearing unclear on the consequences.
on

An emergency preparedness conference in Ottawa hosted two days of panels with only limited discussion of climate changeโ€™s root causes.

An emergency preparedness conference in Ottawa hosted two days of panels with only limited discussion of climate changeโ€™s root causes.