US Donors Gave $177k to UK Climate Science Denying Global Warming Policy Foundation

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The UKโ€™s premier climate science denial campaign group, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), received hundreds of thousands of dollars of US donations in 2017, recently published tax returnsย show.

The money was received at a time when the GWPF was allegedly coordinating with eight other right-wing thinktanks based in and around offices at 55 Tufton Street to push for a hardย Brexit.

Another of the groups, the Taxpayersโ€™ Alliance, received at least $286,000 (ยฃ223,300) from US-based donors in the last five years, the Guardian recently revealed โ€” raising concerns about the influence of foreign money at a time when lobby groups are pushing to cut regulation to secure trade deals with major polluters such as India, China and the US.

Public tax returns filed by the GWPFโ€™s US-fundraising arm, American Friends of the GWPF, show the organisation received $177,001 in grants and gifts in 2017 (worth approximately ยฃ137,900 at the time of writing). That includes a single $124,884 donation (worth approximately ยฃ97,265), according to theย documents.

The 2017 donations were a significant increase on the amount the GWPF received in 2016 โ€” $128,016 (approximatelyย ยฃ99,735).

US tax regulations only require the organisation to declare how much it has received in grants, without disclosing the source of theย donations.

GWPF founder, chairman, and former UK chancellor Nigel Lawson is listed as Chairman of the American Friends of the GWPF. The GWPFโ€™s Director Benny Peiser is listed as Secretary. Both spend approximately three hours per week working for the US organisation, the documents declare. Neither were paid for this work, according to theย filing.

Major US Republican donor David Herro is listed as the groupโ€™s Treasurer, and apparently spends about five hours per week working for theย group.

Herro told the Financial Times in 2015 that he was a funder of the UK climate science denial group the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF).

One week prior to the FTโ€™s article being published, Herro donated to the Heartland Instituteโ€™s appeal to fund its trip to the Paris climate conference in December of that year. Herro has also donated to the Cato Institute, another U.S. climate science denying thinkย tank.

The Cato Institute is a key organisation in a transatlantic web of lobby groups pushing for environmental deregulationย post-Brexit.

DeSmog UK recently revealed how this network of US libertarian campaign groups with links to fossil fuel magnates the Koch brothers and data analytics guru Robert Mercer increased their European and UK activities around the time of the Brexitย referendum.

Image credit: Chatham House/Wikimedia Commonsย ย CC BYย 2.0

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Mat was DeSmog's Special Projects and Investigations Editor, and Operations Director of DeSmog UK Ltd. He was DeSmog UKโ€™s Editor from October 2017 to March 2021, having previously been an editor at Nature Climate Change and analyst at Carbon Brief.

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