Lord Lawson's climate think tank faces investigation

[Anne]

And risks being dismantled if the claim is upheld.

A complaint filed with the Charity Commission against The Global Warming Policy Foundation claims that it has “persistently disseminated inaccurate and misleading information about climate change as part of its campaign against climate policies in the UK and overseas.”

The use of factually inaccurate material without a legitimate basis in science is an abuse of the foundation’s charitable status, which is all the more reprehensible because the public is more trusting of pronouncements made by charities, according to the complaint, filed by Bob Ward, head of policy at the Lord Stern’s Grantham Institute and a former communications director at the Royal Society.

“The foundation arrogantly ignores any challenges to the accuracy of the information it spreads, and has not been held to account for misleading the public. As I have discovered on numerous occasions, when the foundation is notified of inaccuracies, it simply refuses to admit it is wrong or to apologise,” said Mr Ward, who is a reviewer for the forthcoming International Governmental Panel on Climate Change report that will shape the action the world agrees to combat global warming.

Regulator the Charity Commission said it is “assessing the concerns to determine whether there is any regulatory action for the Commission to take”.

Details of the allegations, which of course GWPF strenuously denies, are in the long story in today's Independent.

I wish I had confidence that the Charity Commissioners will have the expertise to be able to make a fair judgment on this.

Are other similar challenges being made against other think tanks around the world?

[Anne]

"Lawson's charity 'intimidated' environmental expert"

The Independent on Sunday has the story.

Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment who made the complaint to the Charity Commission about The Global Warming Policy Foundation's uncharitable activities, now says that one of its trustees had written to Ward's employer, the LSE accusing him of making "unacceptable", "ill-informed" and "ranting" comments in the media about global warming and energy policies.

Ward doesn't name the trustee but the tactics remind me of Lord Monckton's attacks on climate scientists at Victoria University.

[Sigmetnow]

I was struck that the GWPF's response was not to change their tune, but rather to simply create a non-charitable arm which could continue to do the things a registered charity cannot.

...GWPF announced on Friday that it would create a non-charitable company that would be able "to conduct campaigns and activities which do not fall squarely within the educational remit of the charity".
...
And he said that setting up the new non-charitable body "just makes us more effective and allows us to be a little bit more outspoken because, under charitable law, you cannot really campaign".

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/nigel-lawsons-climatechange-denial-charity-intimidated-environmental-expert-9350069.html

http://www.thegwpf.org/global-warming-policy-foundation-to-establish-campaigning-arm/

[Jim Hunt]

Bob Ward's own article on the topic:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/09/global-warming-policy-foundation-campaigning-move-is-deeply-cynical

My own humble global warming web site is far too political to be considered a charity under UK rules and regulations. so much so that UK registered charities requested that we remove any reference to them from the site. We set up our own new "non-charitable arm", which is apparently just about acceptable to the powers that be.

http://water-connects-us.org/

[Anne]

Exposed: Lawson’s Climate Denial Donors’ Links to Tobacco and Oil Backed Think Tank
What a surprise.

Neil Record, a former Bank of England economist turned currency trader, and Conservative peer Lord Nigel Vinson have contributed financially to the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), which has become the most outspoken climate sceptic voice in Britain.

Both the foundation and Lord Lawson have consistently declined to reveal the sources of its funding since its launch in 2009 beyond stating that its financing comes from private individuals and charitable trusts, none of which they insist have links to energy companies.

The organisation. which has previously faced complaints that it has breached Charity Commission rules on political campaigning, this week launched a new arm - the Global Warming Policy Forum - which will not be subject to such restrictions. The new organisation has Mr Record as one of its three board members.

Both Mr Record and Lord Vinson, who warned two years ago that he might leave the Conservative Party for UKIP, have made donations to Tory coffers and have close links to the neoliberal think tank, the Institute of Economic Affairs. The IEA, which has also argued that policies against global warming have been counter-productive, has in the past been funded by oil and tobacco companies.

The identity of the two GWPF funders was revealed by DeSmog UK, an online blog dedicated to investigating climate sceptic groups. It said that it had also discovered the identity of other backers of Lord Lawson’s organisation.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/multimillionaire-backers-of-climate-change-denial-thinktank-revealed-9707267.html

http://www.desmogblog.com/2014/09/02/exposed-lawson-s-climate-denial-donors-links-tobacco-and-oil-backed-think-tank