Editor’s Note: The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was badly mistitled, and intentionally so. The Biden administration and Democrats in Congress took advantage of Americans’ desire for a response to high and rising prices for food, fuel, and other basic consumer goods. The people of the United States wanted federal leadership to take step to alleviate inflation. Instead they were lied to and got a bill that led to more inflation, along the way imposing unwanted mandates, limiting or directing peoples’ choices, in part by providing hundreds of billions in spending on President Joe Biden’s all of government approach to fighting climate change. Democrats had been unable to sell the Green New Deal scam to the public, so they repackaged it as Inflation Reduction, and brought it up for a vote. It passed without a single Republican vote.

The law resulted in billions of dollars being wasted on various green boondoggles, including companies given huge infusions of taxpayer dollars in IRA spending, only to still go bankrupt due to poor technology and lack of consumer demand. Billions more taxpayer dollars have been shipped, without accountability or transparency, to environmental startups with no track history, but with strong connections to Biden, Biden administration bureaucrats, and powerful Democratic Congress swamp creatures.

More than a year after the IRA’s passage, when confronted with the fact that the IRA wasn’t doing anything to curb inflation, Biden finally stated out loud at a fundraiser that the IRA, “has nothing to do with inflation; it has to do with … $368 billion, the single-largest investment in climate change anywhere in the world — no one has ever, ever spent that.” The IRA spending itself was, in fact, inflationary, meaning the law had just the opposite of its stated effect. That’s what Republicans and other critics of the law said at the time of its passage, but the mainstream media chose to ignore this fact.

A new study by The Heartland Institute’s Tim Benson, “The High Costs of Climate Scams: Assessing the Green Giveaways in the Inflation Reduction Act,” discusses the Biden administration’s gross understatement of the IRA’s costs. Benson then details the various estimates of its true costs that are billions of dollars higher than the Biden administrations initial estimates. After breaking down the different types of tax credits, subsidies, “loans,” and direct spending, both directed and discretionary, contained in IRA, Benson notes the range of estimates, go from lowball estimate of $570 billion to as high as $1.7 trillion. Indeed, the Congressional Budget Office updated its own estimate and concluded, “the IRA would increase budget deficits by $825 billion from 2025 to 2035, far above the original $270 billion estimate from 2022 to 2031.”

President Donald Trump and his appointees are well aware of the IRA scam, its detrimental interference in consumer choice, its skewing of capital investment, and its undermining of sound energy policy. Trump directed his agencies to look for unspent IRA funds, to block new spending, and claw back what they could. With that charge in hand, Lee Zeldin, Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency director, has already identified more than $20 billion dollars held in a private bank to be shipped to Biden/Democrat crony Non-governmental organizations and has directed the bank not to disperse the fund and is working on getting the money returned to the government. But administrative action is not enough. The law was approved, narrowly, by Congress. As a result some of the green spending can only be blocked or clawed back if Congress acts to rescind it.

With this in mind, a coalition of groups, led by our allies, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, sent a letter to the Republican Congress requesting that they stand by their earlier stance on the IRA and get back as much of the money as legally possible. The letter signed by 53 leaders of research institutes and state-based think tanks across the country, including James Taylor, president of The Heartland Institute and Cameron Sholty, executive director of Heartland Impact,

urge[s] all legislators, regardless of party, to make it a priority to get rid of the IRA’s Green New Deal provisions. Many conservative policymakers have made undoing the Green New Deal a priority. This is impossible without undoing the IRA “green” subsidies, which are the heart of the Green New Deal.

The letter is worth reading in its entirety and is presented below as a guest post.

Dear Members of Congress:

In 2022, President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats pushed through one of the most extreme pieces of legislation in recent memory: the so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Not a single Republican in either the House or Senate supported this bill.

The IRA was a reconciliation bill that helped the political left advance its Green New Deal. Now, because Republicans have control of both chambers of Congress, they can now use the reconciliation process and other means to dismantle the “green” subsidies contained in the IRA.

The undersigned organizations strongly urge all legislators, regardless of party, to make it a priority to get rid of the IRA’s Green New Deal provisions. Many conservative policymakers have made undoing the Green New Deal a priority. This is impossible without undoing the IRA “green” subsidies, which are the heart of the Green New Deal.

The spotlight will be on Republicans and more specifically on whether they can come through for the American people by getting rid of these IRA subsidies. If the subsidies are not repealed in reconciliation, this will be a devastating result. It will be characterized as a major failure and an ominous sign for the 119th Congress, as well as a failure to advance President Donald Trump’s Unleashing American Energy agenda. Those characterizations would be fair.

This is a critical moment that will require Republicans and other legislators to overcome far left efforts to maintain the IRA and the Biden administration’s harmful anti-energy legacy. There have been recent reports of some Republicans wavering in their opposition to the IRA subsides. IRA boosters cynically predicted Republicans would change their tune on the IRA once money started flowing into their districts. It appears that may be happening. That is unacceptable and ignores the harm subsidies will cause to Americans, including those living in all congressional districts.

The IRA is filled with numerous subsidies that were designed to shift our country away from reliable electricity generation (coal and natural gas) to unreliable electricity sources (e.g. wind and solar). This comes at a time of concern about the reliability of the nation’s electricity grid, in large part because of misguided corporate welfare policies that undermine reliable baseload generation.

There are also IRA subsidies that work in conjunction with other policies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency’s de facto electric vehicle mandate, to kill off gas-powered vehicles – undermining the freedom of Americans to choose their cars.

These examples capture just some of the problems with the IRA “green” subsidies. In general, the subsidies will drive up prices, diminish grid reliability, compromise mobility, and disproportionately impact the poor. Not to mention, the subsidies are expected to cost over $1 trillion, and this may be a low-ball estimate.

There is another excuse for maintaining IRA subsidies that was predicted after the law’s passage. Some big businesses claim they made decisions relying on those subsidies. Any business that bet on the IRA subsidies continuing, especially given the wide opposition to the IRA, is a poorly led business. Congress needs to put the interests of the American people over the interests of wealthy special interests who are trying to keep their handouts flowing at the expense of taxpayers.

All IRA “green” subsidies should be in the sights of policymakers. They work together as a central plan to achieve a radical and harmful shift in how our country produces and uses electricity, among other things. Given that they work together to achieve this Green New Deal, they should be eliminated together to restore freedom and ensure our country can reliably and affordably meet its energy needs.

Our organizations believe that this is a pivotal moment for our country. Will we go down the path of the Green New Deal, as pushed by Biden and the far left, or will Republicans and common- sense legislators get our country back on course to meeting our energy needs now and in the future? This is what is at stake.

Therefore, our organizations again urge you to eliminate the IRA’s “green” subsidies. We are available to work with you to ensure that when Congress passes reconciliation legislation this year, these harmful subsidies are repealed. If there is such an outcome, then this would be a major victory for conservatives, and more importantly, for the nation.

Sincerely,

Daren Bakst
Director, Center for Energy and
Environment
Competitive Enterprise Institute

James L. Martin
Founder/Chairman
60 Plus Association

Paul Teller
Executive Vice President
Advancing American Freedom

John Droz
Founder and Physicist
Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions

Amy O. Cooke
President, Board Chairman
Always On Energy Research

Saulius “Saul” Anuzis
President
American Association of Senior Citizens

Phil Kerpen
President
American Commitment

Thomas Pyle
President
American Energy Alliance

Hon. Jason Isaac
CEO
American Energy Institute

Myron Ebell
Chairman
American Lands Council

Margaret Byfield
Executive Director
American Stewards of Liberty

Richard Manning
President
Americans for Limited Government

Faith Burns
Energy Policy Fellow
Americans for Prosperity

Rea S. Hederman Jr.
Vice President of Policy
The Buckeye Institute

David T. Stevenson
Director, Center for Energy & Environment
Caesar Rodney Institute

Ryan Ellis
President
Center for a Free Economy

Daniel J. Mitchell
President
Center for Freedom and Prosperity

Jeffrey Mazzella
President
Center for Individual Freedom

John Hinderaker
President
Center of the American Experiment

Craig Rucker
President
Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow
(CFACT)

E. Calvin Beisner, Ph.D.
President
Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of
Creation

Kristen A. Ullman
President
Eagle Forum

Craig Richardson
President
Energy & Environment Legal Institute
(E&E Legal)

Malon Wilkus
President
The Foundation Supporting Climate
Science

George Landrith
President
Frontiers of Freedom

Mark Krebs
Principal
Gas Analytics & Advocacy Services LLC
(GAAS)

Larry Hart
President
Hartco Strategies

Cameron Sholty
Executive Director
Heartland Impact

James Taylor
President
The Heartland Institute

Ryan Walker
Executive Vice President
Heritage Action for America

Mario H. Lopez
President
Hispanic Leadership Fund

Gabriella Hoffman
Director, Center for Energy & Conservation
Independent Women’s Voice

Tom Harris, B. Eng., M. Eng. (Mech.)
Executive Director
International Climate Science Coalition
(ICSC)

Annette Olson
Chief Executive Officer
The John K. MacIver Institute for Public
Policy, Inc.

Jon Sanders
Director of the Center for Food, Power, and
Life
John Locke Foundation

Seton Motley
President
Less Government

Charles Moran
President
Log Cabin Republicans

Jason Hayes
Director of Energy and Environmental
Policy
Mackinac Center for Public Policy

Paul Craney
Executive Director
Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance

Brandon Arnold
Executive Vice President
National Taxpayers Union

Daniel C. Turner
Founder and Executive Director
Power the Future

Tim Barton
President
ProFamily Legislative Network by
Wallbuilders

Donna Jackson
Director of Membership Development
Project 21 Black Leadership Network

Paul Gessing
President
Rio Grande Foundation

James E. Enstrom, PhD, MPH
President
Scientific Integrity Institute

David Williams
President
Taxpayers Protection Alliance

Jenny Beth Martin
Honorary Chairman
Tea Party Patriots Action

Greg Sindelar
Chief Executive Officer
Texas Public Policy Foundation

Derrick Max
President and CEO
Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy

Frank Lasee
President
Truth in Energy and Climate

Todd Myers
Vice President for Research
Washington Policy Center

Carol Platt Liebau
President
Yankee Institute

Benjamin Zycher
Senior Fellow
American Enterprise Institute (affiliation for
identification purposes only)

A few days ago my attention was drawn to an article headed “The UK’s clean power mission: Delivering the prize”. Like so many of the pieces purporting to show the benefits (sic) and wisdom (sic) of Net Zero, it comes to a conclusion that I find to be scarcely credible:

The UK government can both achieve its Clean Power 2030 Mission and bring down electricity bills for households. Detailed modelling shows the government target of 95% clean power by 2030 is attainable, and will protect the UK from gas price volatility. If that is paired with the policy reforms in E3G’s Electricity Bills Charter, billpayers could enjoy savings of over £200 a year by 2030.

I confess I hadn’t previously heard of Third Generation Environmentalism (which is what E3G stands for). However, a quick look at the “about” section of its website left me in no doubt about its purpose:

Our immediate priorities are clear. To build the climate politics and diplomacy needed to shape an ambitious new round of climate targets in 2025, to massively accelerate the energy transition to a clean economy, and to get financing where it matters for climate action through the transformation of the global financial architecture.

Having established that the organisation is one that would inevitably produce a hopelessly optimistic report about the current UK government’s even more hopelessly optimistic energy targets I then did what I always do in these cases – I looked at the section of the website which tells me about their funders. They have been in existence for twenty years, and have at least 150 staff (including two co-CEOs, eight Associate Directors, numerous other directors, a Chief of Staff, and thirteen Programme Leads), so they must be well-funded. And while the section of their website listing their funders doesn’t make us privy to the sums received from each of them, it’s a list of funders that we sceptics – who do what we do for nothing – could only dream of.

Sixty eight funders are listed, and so many of the familiar names are there, that it reads a bit like the inter-married Royal families of nineteenth century Europe. Let’s take a look at them (as they appear on the E3G website, in alphabetical order):

abrdn Financial Fairness Trust

According to its website its objectives are the laudable ones of “Tackling financial problems, improving living standards”. They make it clear that this includes in respect of climate change, and we learn that in 2024 they granted £419,730 (over three years) to E3G for the following purpose:

Research and policy work to ensure the transition to net zero enhances the financial well-being of low-to-middle income households – advocating for policies and investment in housing and the power system to help end fuel poverty, increase access to affordable energy, and reduce emissions.

I think the words “advocating for policies” say it all – the aim of organisations like E3G is to advocate for policies they already believe in, rather than to debate the wisdom of the policies. (Remember their first stated priority – “To build the climate politics and diplomacy needed to shape an ambitious new round of climate targets in 2025”). This substantial grant from abrdn Financial Fairness Trust isn’t for the purpose of asking whether the transition to net zero is wise, or of asking whether it will make people worse off. Rather, the need for the policy is taken as a given, and instead E3G is tasked with advocating for three mutually inconsistent policy aims: “… to help end fuel poverty, increase access to affordable energy, and reduce emissions”. Naturally E3G is happy to take the money and use it to write reports that say that these mutually inconsistent objectives are both consistent and achievable within the absurd timescales proposed by the current government.

adelphi

adelphi (yes, the name does start with a lower-case “a”) took me a little while to track down, but it turns out they are a German organisation whose website describes them as “Europe’s leading independent think-and-do tank for climate, environment and development”. Moreover:

Our 330 bright minds think systemically and work globally in six interconnected fields of action.

We are visionaries, designers, strategists and agenda-setters, and work with governments, international organisations, municipalities, NGOs and private companies.

Our mission: To enable transformative change and create a sustainable future for generations to come.

330 of them, eh? You can read about the individuals here. They must be well-funded too. Their website discloses 37 pages of international partners, including E3G. Despite a pretty impressive website telling us what they do, what they think and who they work with, I can’t find links to accounts or details of funding.

Agence Française de Développement (AFD)

Perhaps I should be wary about calling them the AFD – they’re not Alternative für Deutschland, after all. Rather they:

…support… and accelerate… the transition to a fairer and more sustainable world. Focusing on climate, biodiversity, peace, education, urban development, health and governance, our teams carry out more than 4,200 projects in France’s overseas departments and territories and another 150 countries.

In 2023 they spent (they prefer the word “invested”) almost 12 billion euros towards achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, and they are fairly candid about where the money for this came from:

Approximately 85% of these resources were obtained through loans from banks and pension funds, while the remaining 15% came from public subsidies provided by the French government, the European Union, and other backers.

They are basically a subsidiary of the French government. 85% of the funding they provide to third parties is in the form of loans (some of which are “soft” loans). I could not find reference to funding they may have supplied to E3G.

Ashden

They are a charity, and they describe themselves thus: “Climate Solutions in Action Accelerating the most exciting climate innovators”. As a charity, they rely on and encourage individual donations (“To prevent climate catastrophe, we need to get to work. Donate today and help us build a low-carbon future”), and if you do send them some money they say you will “join a community of generous supporters backing innovation that cuts emissions while boosting incomes and wellbeing, reducing inequality, and regenerating nature. Together, we can go faster to reach a zero-carbon world”.

According to their Report & Accounts:

The aims of Ashden are to contribute to the protection of the environment, the advancement of education and relief of poverty for the public benefit in developing countries, UK and elsewhere, by promoting the use of local sustainable and renewable energy sources. Ashden will do this through: • Raising awareness of the significant social, economic and environmental benefits that renewable energy and energy efficiency can deliver. These include the significant social and economic benefits of increasing energy access to the poor in the developing world; increasing jobs and reducing fuel poverty in the UK and the environmental benefits of reducing carbon emissions. • Spreading the knowledge and expertise of the Ashden Award winners to encourage learning and replication. • Encouraging policy makers, NGOs and other funders, to incorporate sustainable energy into their agendas. • Generating publicity, making financial awards and giving business support to outstanding enterprises and programmes which are environmentally and socially beneficial.

There it is again – the lobbying: encourage “sustainable energy” into the agendas of policy makers, NGOs and other funders.

They doubled their income in 2023, and expanded their campaign supporting UK schools to be zero carbon by 2030 – made possible by another funder, Green Future Investments Ltd (GFI). They committed a 3 year £10 million “investment” for this. GFI are slightly coy about their funding, but they do say they are part of a £20million fund. They have also “selected Zero Carbon Capital as a partner who share a vision of saving the planet by investing in positive climate action”. But now we’re going down a very big rabbit hole. Back to Ashden. They have made grants of between £10,000 and £25,000 and (another rabbit hole) they have been “running awards in partnership with established funders: LinkedIn, UK Government, Impax Asset Management, Linbury Trust, JAC Trust, Alan and Babette Charitable Fund and Garfield Weston Foundation. Other awards built new partnerships: with Integrate to Zero and Lund Trust.” The UK government chipping in taxpayers’ money there. We’ll come across them again later. Later on in the Report & Accounts we obtain more details of Ashden’s funders:

In 2023, the Trustees were delighted to have support from The Aurora Trust, B4Box, Barrow Cadbury Trust, Calouste Gulbekian Foundation, City Bridge Trust, Climate Crisis Foundation, Climate Emergency Collaboration Group (a sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors), the Department for Energy Strategy and Net Zero (formerly the Department for Business, Energy and Industry Strategy), Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, The Flora Fund, Green Futures Investment Limited, JAC Trust, The John Ellerman Foundation, Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, Kasuma Trust, The Linbury Trust, Lund Trust, The Mark Leonard Trust, MCS Charitable Trust, NextEnergy Foundation, OVO Foundation, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, The Sustainable Development Foundation, The Tedworth Charitable Trust, the UN Institute of Training and Research and The Waterloo Foundation.

The Aurora Trust and the Linbury Trust appear to have been among the largest donors, though of course the biggest donor of all was GFI (above). They were also “supported by the BBC Radio 4 Appeal for the 2023 Humanitarian Energy award”.

Without seeking to deprecate the work of charity employees, it’s worth noting that working for charities doesn’t always involve great personal financial sacrifice. In 2023 five members of staff received more than £60,000 in salary plus taxable benefits, excluding pension contributions). One of those received £80,001-£90,000 and another received £90,0001 to £100,000.

Auswärtiges Amt

This is the German Foreign Office. According to E3G’s website, they are an E3G partner (and presumably funder) but it is virtually impossible to ascertain how much money they receive from this source.

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

This probably needs no introduction. According to its website, the Gates’ transferred $20 billion of stock to the Foundation, and Warren Buffett has also donated a significant part of his foundation, with the result that since 2000 it has disbursed $53.8 billion. The website says it doesn’t fund “[p]olitical campaigns and legislative lobbying efforts”, which I’m pleased to see. I don’t know how that fits in with them being described as a funder of or partner to E3G.

Breakthrough Energy

According to its website:

At Breakthrough Energy, we are committed to supporting new technologies that change the way we live, eat, work, travel, and make things so we can avoid the most devastating impacts of climate change. We believe that funding cutting-edge research; investing in new clean technologies as they evolve from idea to commercial adoption; crafting smart, tailored, and scalable energy policies; and forging deep partnerships among policymakers, innovators, and industry leaders will lead to positive solutions that can bring clean energy to all.

Its board and investors include some familiar names, such as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg and Richard Branson. There is certainly emphasis on lobbying for what they want. Its:

U.S. Policy and Advocacy (USPA) team develops, advocates, and lobbies for smart policies that public- and private-sector leaders can implement to get to zero by 2050…In addition to our work with lawmakers, the USPA team works closely with diverse climate-action partners, private-sector allies…Together we are working to ensure policymakers are prioritizing investments in the next generation of clean-energy technologies that will create good-paying jobs, strengthen American leadership abroad, and help us achieve net-zero emissions in this generation.

I cannot find out explicit details of their funding, though they have plenty of wealthy supporters. Nor can I discover how much they have given to E3G.

Bristol City Council

Yes, Bristol City Council really does feature on the funders and partners page of the E3G website. It’s certainly one of the more climate-obsessed of the UK Councils (and that’s saying something), with a 2025 “carbon neutral” target. That’s a target that it’s going to miss, according to the BBC:

A city council is set to miss its 2025 carbon neutral target because it is still burning too much gas.

Bristol City Council, which declared a “climate emergency” four years ago, is forecast to emit almost 1,700 tonnes of carbon in 2028.

A cabinet report says it is because many buildings on the council’s estate are still burning large amounts of gas.

Councillors have now signed off on plans to renew the authority’s gas supply contract for another four years….

…This includes the council spending an extra premium of £546,000 on “green gas”, which is allegedly better for the climate than normal natural gas.

Writing on the mayor’s blog, Labour Councillor Kye Dudd, cabinet member for climate, said the council’s direct emissions of greenhouse gases had halved over the past eight years.

But he added that the programme to get to carbon neutral was now in the “toughest phase.”

“We’re now into the phase of the programme that we always knew would be the toughest to deliver and have taken the steps necessary, such as the formation of Bristol City Leap, to have the tools available to meet our target of being a carbon neutral council by the end of 2025,” he said.

According to another BBC report (and this is where this sort of thing gets interesting):

Ameresco is an American firm hired by the council in a £424m deal known as Bristol City Leap in 2022 to orchestrate the council’s transition away from fossil fuels.

There’s a lot of money being spent on all this stuff. I’m far from convinced that it’s being spent wisely.

bulb

Another lower case company, but this time the E3G website should be updated. The outfit in question is Bulb Energy, which was acquired by Octopus Energy in 2022. This followed on from it getting into financial difficluties in September 2021, ironically because it claimed its problems were caused by rising gas prices (the irony being that it claimed to provide electricity and gas from renewable or off-set sources). If it was giving money to E3G, perhaps that wasn’t its wisest move. Perhaps OFGEM should have monitored its activities a bit more closely on our behalf too. When it got into financial difficulties, the UK government set aside £1.7 billion to cover the company’s trading costs and the cost of the administration.

Center for Global Development

This is another well-meaning outfit that seeks to influence policy-makers. According to its website:

Impact can take many forms—from shaping the academic consensus to turning proposals into policy….We have also helped to change global policies and practices…

The only reference I can find on its website to E3G is this:

Join the Center for Global Development and E3G for a comprehensive discussion on the IMF’s role in the climate issues confronting its emerging market and developing member countries.

Some stakeholders have advocated for the IMF to “stay in its lane” – but what exactly does this mean? How should IMF surveillance, lending, and technical assistance contribute to assisting developing country authorities in progressing on climate-related fronts?

Panelists will delve into the multifaceted role of the IMF concerning climate-related matters. Questions surrounding the IMF’s adherence to its role and responsibilities, especially in navigating the macroeconomic and financial impacts of climate change and the green transition, will be explored.

Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)

Founded in 1962, it pre-dates all thought of a “climate crisis”. It has over 250 employees and annual revenues and expenses in excess of $40 million. It has caught up with the climate change money-go-round since 1962 and says “CSIS research focuses on strategies to address global climate change trends and manage its increasingly disruptive impacts.” It has co-written with E3G a briefing titled “A Roadmap for World Bank Evolution”.

Chatham House

It describes itself as “a world-leading policy institute with a mission to help governments and societies build a sustainably secure, prosperous and just world.” It is registered as a charity. As regards its funding, it says simply that it benefits from a wide range of philanthropic, research-related and membership support. Founded in 1920, it now claims to have six research priorities. Perhaps inevitably, realising sustainability talks about “Determining the risks and setting out the pathways to sustainable transitions in energy, land, forests and food, and how we can adapt the global economy to a low carbon world.”

The whole climate change aspect appears in some of the other priority areas too – for instance, the three papers that appear under the heading “Reinvigorating Multilateralism” all talk about climate and climate change and the heading “The UK’s role in the world” begins with a paper discussing an agenda for UK-China climate co-operation. And so it goes on. E3G features on the Chatham House website with a co-authored paper titled “Climate risk management for international organisations”.

Children’s Investment Fund Foundation

This will be another familiar name to those who take an interest in this sort of thing. It’s difficult to argue against an “independent philanthropic organisation…seeking to transform the lives of children and adolescents.” The problem, however, is that they seem to see their work through the lens of climate change. They earnestly tell us:

We are committed to reducing our carbon footprint in line with best practice guidelines and regulation. As part of our grant-making activities, we provide philanthropic support to the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI) which provides authoritative guidance to companies and other organisations on how to address their climate impact. We similarly provide philanthropic support to the Integrity Council for Voluntary Carbon Markets (ICVCM) which provides authoritative guidance on the quality of carbon credits. As an organisation, we commit to:

1. Independently measure our emissions

2. Take action to reduce our carbon footprint

3. Purchase carbon credits as a contribution to a global net zero goal (in purchasing these credits, we do not make any “carbon neutral” claim or similar that might imply a net reduction in our carbon footprint).

They are an enormously rich organisation and they have massive multi-year grant commitments (this year to the tune of £1.709 billion). I find it strange that an organisation aimed at transforming the lives of children and adolescents has chosen to make grants of $808.6 million in respect of climate change, compared to $435.5 million for child health and development; $349.3 million for sexual & reporductive health & rights; $98.3 million for girl capital; just $18.4 million for child protection; and $8.6 million for “cross-cutting”. I don’t know what cross-cutting is, but I know (because they tell me) that it includes $1 million for tackling online disinformation and another $1 million on “storytelling for social impact” (which is obviously very different to online disinformation).

climate:imperative

This is an organisation I hadn’t previously heard of. It seems to have around 50 senior (“team”) employees. One of those is its president, Sonia Aggarwal, whose short biography on the website says:

…Prior to her work at Climate Imperative, Sonia served as Special Assistant to the President for Climate Policy, Innovation, and Deployment in the Biden administration. While there, she helped develop the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, as well as the United States’ climate targets, including the commitment to cut economy-wide greenhouse gases by 50-52 percent below 2005 levels in 2030…

Of course, there is nothing wrong with that, but it is an illustration of the way in which climate-concerned organisations have access at the very highest levels to promote the policies they seek to impose on the res of us.

According to its website “Climate Imperative Foundation provides funding, technical support, and expertise to inform the most important climate policy decisions in major-emitting countries around the world.” It appears that shaping policy is important to them:

Policy decisions that will be made over the next five years will determine if we win or lose on climate. By partnering with experienced organizations, Climate Imperative aims to ensure these critical decisions drive emissions reductions and secure a safe climate future.

Personally I am uneasy as to the number of organisations busy lobbying and seeking to influence policy behind the scenes. Shouldn’t government policy be the result of a manifesto voted on by electors at regular elections?

It’s clear that they dispense grants to a large number of organisations, one of whom is presumably E3G. They provide six examples on their website, and one of the beneficiaries is the European Climate Foundation. As we will see below, they in turn help to fund E3G. It really is a massive money-go-round.

Climate-KIC

According to its website, Climate-KIC is “Europe’s leading climate innovation agency and community”. Further:

Together with our partners, we generate, implement and integrate climate solutions by mobilising finance, testing business models, and opening pathways for institutional change and behavioural change.

It has forged handy links with the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT), which is a body of the European Union. And when I say handy links, I mean handy links:

Over 15 years, we received EUR 720 million in funding and strategic guidance from EIT. In 2025, our original partnership with the EIT reached the end of its cycle and we move into a new chapter in our history.

Climate KIC relaunched as a not-for-profit foundation and signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with EIT, solidifying our continued collaboration to boost climate innovation in Europe and beyond.

This evolution of Climate KIC’s structure and relationship with EIT strengthens our unique position and work around the world as we advise and collaborate with intergovernmental organisations, UN agencies, EU institutions, national and regional governments, cities, corporate companies, startups, civil society organisations, research powerhouses and leading universities.

I do not know how much money, if any, they have passed to E3G, but I did find this on their website:

Climate KIC is teaming up with The Club of Rome, in partnership with ETC/SystemIQ, We Mean Business and E3G, for a high-level roundtable about developing a climate emergency toolkit for cities.

ClimateWorks Foundation

Looking at the website of this fabulously wealthy Foundation, one really does disappear down the rabbit hole. They have too many funders to mention, but I urge you to look at them here. Many familiar names will be identified, and indeed some of them feature below as funders of E3G. So well-funded are they, that they have made more than 2,800 grants to more than 850 grantees, to the tune of more than $2 billion since 2008. In 2024 alone they paid out $244.5 million.

Environment and Climate Change Canada

This is a Canadian government body. From its website I learn that “Canada co-leads the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA) alongside the UK, with the goal of accelerating the transition from coal to clean energy.” And this is where we find the link (or, possibly, one of several links) to E3G:

Canada and the PPCA have established partnerships with 15 influential organizations from civil society (Bloomberg Philanthropies, Carbon Tracker, E3G, the Pembina Institute, and the Rocky Mountain Institute) and the financial sector (such as BloombergNEF, Ceres, Climate Investment Funds, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development). Through these partnerships, the PPCA is working to increase the networks and resources available to support its members. [My emphasis].

European Climate Initiative (EUKI)

This was set up by the German government in 2017. It disburses German taxpayers’ money as follows:

We fund selected projects that promote cross-border climate action in Europe. Funding of between 120,000 and 1 Million euros will be awarded per project, following a Europe-wide call for project ideas that we put out every year.

It appears they are currently supporting 232 “climate projects”. Take a look at the relevant page of the website. Each one seems to receive a substantial 6-figure sum (I haven’t yet spotted one so badly done to as to receive only the minimum 120,000 euros mentioned above). One quick example – there are so many others – Implementation of the EU Reforms on Retail Investing for the Green Transition received precisely €613,873.85.

The UK Government

I appreciate that this appears to be out of alphabetical order. However, I am lumping together three of the UK government’s departments who all, apparently, fund or otherwise partner with E3G. Ladies and gentleman, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer next mentions a black hole in the nation’s finances, feel free to ask why the Department for International Development, the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy and the Foreign & Commonwealth Office are involved with (and presumably funding) E3G (and many others – see below).

International Energy Charter

The International Energy Charter is a declaration of political intention aiming at strengthening energy cooperation between the signatory states and which does not bear any legally binding obligation or financial commitment.

Naturally, the UK is a signatory. Its website is here. I cannot immediately ascertain its relevance to E3G, but I include it for the sake of completeness.

Esmée Fairbairn Foundation

This has been in existence for more than 60 years. In that time it has provided grants in excess of £1 billion, including £48.8 million in 2024. They do a lot of good, but they are right up there with the climate concerned. Presumably E3G has received funding from them (many climate organisations seem to do so) but I haven’t been able to establish that this is definitely the case.

Efficient Buildings Europe (EuroACE)

We learn from the European Commission website that “EuroACE works together with the EU institutions to help Europe move towards a more efficient and sustainable use of energy in buildings.” In itself, of course, that is perfectly laudable, though once more we are left wondering how much of the EU’s money is being diverted to the blob. According to its own website:

The mission of Efficient Buildings Europe is to work together with the EU institutions to help the EU to move towards a more efficient use of energy in buildings, thereby creating an efficient, decarbonised, and flexible building stock that actively contributes to the achievement of Europe’s commitments on climate change, energy security, and economic growth.

Probably the genuflection towards decarbonisation and climate change is genuine, but I suspect it also helps to loosen the EU’s purse strings towards this think tank. Their website asks why you would join them. Among the answers is one that we are seeing with increasing regularity:

Get access to EU policymakers, both at political and expert levels, within the European Commission, Parliament and the Council.

Once more, from the point of view of democracy, I am left with an uncomfortable feeling about this sort of thing. Besides that, what’s the link to E3G? A small one, in this case, I think. I found only this reference on their website:

Europe’s struggling bid to rein back energy wastage in the building sector could be boosted by a renovations directive implemented under a new Directorate-General for Resource Efficiency, says the sustainable energy think tank E3G.

I’m guessing (admittedly without evidence) that some EU money found its way to E3G via Efficient Buildings Europe to help fund the writing of that report.

European Union

The issue of European Union for the likes of E3G is a massive topic, probably deserving of an article in its own right. We know that huge amounts of EU money is diverted towards the “green” blob. E3G’s website includes a simple EU flag among its list of partners and funders. Without sight of more detail, I assume that simply means that EU funding finds its way to E3G. Next to it is another EU flag with the letters EUD. So far as I can see, this stands for European Union of the Deaf, or it may be Europa-Union Deutschland. In the absence of clarity, I am moving rapidly on.

European Climate Foundation (ECF)

Anyone familiar with the world of the “green” blob will be well used to seeing the name European Climate Foundation. Their fingerprints are everywhere. Their website (https://europeanclimate.org/) makes it clear from the outset what they are about – “”Empowering people across society to create a net-zero world”. Despite all the evidence we are seeing, based on barely scratching the surface (by looking at the funders of E3G), to the effect that the “green” blob has access to masses of cash and privileged access to policy-makers at national and EU levels, ECF would have you believe that they are the financial equivalent of David trying to fight the mighty Goliath of fossil fuel companies. Having tried to plead (relative) poverty they then go on to thank some of their funders, and in this case I will list them. Some of the names should by now be very familiar – Rockefeller Brothers Fund; McCall MacBain; Bloomberg Philanthropies; William & Flora Hewlett Foundation; Children’s Investment Fund Foundation; IKEA Foundation; National Postcode Loterij; Growald Family Fund; KR Foundation; climate:imperative; Stiftung Mercator; Grantham Foundation; Porticus; Hightide Foundation; Laudes Foundation; AKO Foundation; Climateworks Foundation; Ballmer Group; Sequoia Climate Foundation; Robert Bosch Stiftung; Arcadia; Montpelier & Hampshire Foundations; Oak Foundation; and Quadrature Climate Foundation.

Having received money from all of the above (some of which are massively wealthy and disburse huge sums of money every year), ECF then sets about disbursing funds itself:

Since 2008, we have provided strategic and financial support to hundreds of partner organisations working at the national, European and global levels to tackle the climate crisis.

They then say:

We are proud to work with over 700 partners in Europe and beyond. Below you will find a selection of our current partner organisations.

There follows a list that looks a bit like the list of funders of E3G, but this time E3G is listed as a recipient of funds (which makes sense, and which squares that particular circle). There are lots of other familiar names among the list, including our old friends CarbonBrief, Climate Action Network Europe, ClientEarth, WWF and Climate Analytics. Next time you see a report or study from any of these organisations, gleefully pushed by the BBC or the Guardian as being an “independent” report or study, remind yourself who funds them, why, and ask yourself just how independent and reliable their work is.

Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety

This is another arm of the German government. I shall therefore say no more about it, save to notice that, just like the UK government, several departments are keen to fund the likes of E3G to do their bidding (a bidding which isn’t necessarily in the best interests of their electorates).

Frederick Mulder Foundation

Just like so many of the foundations set up by philanthropists who wish to use some of their business fortunes (in this case from Frederick Mulder’s business in European printmaking) to do good, there is much here to applaud. Inevitably, however, the first thing it focuses on is “the threat of climate change” (sic). You can find a long list of recipients of the foundation’s climate-related funds here. They include a lot of familiar names (the Climate Coalition, Greenpeace, Coal Action Network, European Climate Foundation, etc, etc) but for current purposes, I note that E3G (UK) has received £116,500 to date, while E3G (Berlin) has received £20,000.

Friedrich Naumann Stiftung

This is the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom. It seeks to offer political education at home and abroad. I can’t find any reference to E3G, but sections of its website are devoted to climate and energy, and there you can find things such as: “The challenges of climate change are omnipresent and affect all areas of life and the entire world.” In the scheme of things, this looks like a small player in the world of climate finance, so I will move on.

GEFA

There is a GEFA bank and a GEFA manufacturing company. It’s probably the latter, since its website says things like “We aim to achieve CO2 neutrality at our Dortmund site by 2030. Our goal is the continuous improvement of operational environmental protection and the avoidance of environmental pollution” and “Heating is one of the main causes of global CO2 emissions. This is why we switched our heating system to efficient and environmentally friendly as well as CO2-neutral green gas at the end of 2020.” However, as I can find no obvious reference to E3G, I will move rapidly on.

GIZ

This is short for the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH, which is a German development agency. It appears to have over 25,000 employees worldwide, and to do annual business in excess of four billion euros, with around 1,700 ongoing projects. It’s website is another rabbit warren, but by way of example, I find them involved in the Energising Development programme, which was commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) in a multi-donor partnership with the Netherlands Directorate-General for International Cooperation (DGIS), the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)and funded by lots of our old favourites, such as the IKEA Foundation and (of course) the UK taxpayer in the form of the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. It’s also funded by USAID (or, at least, it was), so I wonder how that’s working out. They seem inordinately proud of the CO2 emissions they claim to have saved through their work. I can’t find any reference to E3G, so again I move on.

Good Energies Foundation

According to its website “Good Energies Foundation is a Swiss-based philanthropic organisation funding initiatives that work to reverse the impact of climate change in two key areas: access to clean energy and protection of tropical forests.” They say they have offices in 12 countries, have been in existence for 30 years, and have partners in over 65 countries. They don’t make unsolicited grants, so presumably E3G is a partner.

Growald Family Fund

The above fund is so named on the E3G website, but a visit to the fund’s website reveals that it is now called the Growald Climate Fund, and its website commences by telling us that “Climate change is one of the most critical issues facing humanity today” We need have no doubts, then, about its focus. Two of its Growald family board members have the middle name Rockefeller, so I guess we can work out where some of the money has come from. It has a couple of dozen senior employees, and a list of past and present grantees can be found here. They include the likes of Climate Voice and Carbon Tracker Initiative, but I can’t spot E3G. Having said that, the featured list purports to show only some of those who have received or are received funding, so that doesn’t rule out E3G as having been a beneficiary.

Green Finance Institute

Formed in 2019, it claims to be “an independent advisor to governments. We test, demonstrate, and scale the financial solutions needed to accelerate the transition to a net-zero and nature positive economy.”

Yet again, I am sceptical as to such claims to independence. Another section of their website shows that they receive funding from the UK government (naturally), the City of London, Quadrature Climate Foundation, Laudes Foundation, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, MCS Charitable Foundation, Amalgamated Bank, the Climate Change Collaboration, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, LTPP Foundation, and the European Union (equally naturally, as the EU is a co-founder of the Green Finance Institute). 48 employees are shown with individual biographies on their website. I can’t find reference to E3G, but presumably they do work with them.

Heinrich Böll Stiftung

The Heinrich Böll Foundationdescribes itself as “part of the Green political movement that has developed worldwide as a response to the traditional politics of socialism, liberalism, and conservatism. Our main tenets are ecology and sustainability, democracy and human rights, self-determination and justice…” and they maintain close ties to the German Green Party. They are part of an international network with more than 100 partner projects in approximately 60 countries. It launched a Green Academy in 1999. A search of its website produces 11 articles co-written by the Foundation and by E3G. I have not been able to ascertain the source(s) of its funding.

William & Flora Hewlett Foundation

This is an organisation that merits an article in its own right, so omnipresent is it when it comes to funding for organisations pushing the climate crisis narrative. Its website opens with the stark words “Moving from commitment to action on climate – Our updated Global Climate strategy remains committed to ensuring a sustainable and equitable transition to a low-carbon economy.”

Examples of its largesse include a $3.5 million grant to the Climate Works Foundation “for support of U.S. Foreign economic policy for global green insustrial policy“; numerous grants to the European Climate Foundation ($1,930,000 “for Global Strategic Climate Communications and climate finance disclosure; $875,000 for “Climate Voices and accelerating climate action through evidence-based strategic communications”; $500,000 for “Tara’s Climate Finance Program”; and $250,000 for “China-European climate action”; $8,650,000 for “European climate mitigation strategy”; $500,000 for “the International Climate Politics Hub”; $1,000,000 for “Global Strategic Climate Communications”; and a staggering $32,998,000 for “European climate change mitigation” ); $500,000 to Climate Central “for scaling climate communications by developing a Climate News Engine”; $1,000,000 to Climate Policy Initiative for “the Climate Finance Program” and another $1,000,000 for “global climate finance and policy infrastructure”; $350,478 to the African Climate Foundation for “scoping and institutional building for China-Africa climate engagement”; $800,000 to Tufts University for “the Climate Policy Lab to sponsor scholars and interns from China and the Global South to engage in climate policy work”; and thousands more. I haven’t yet found any grants to E3G, but I suppose there probably are some, and the problem is simply that the database of grants is so huge. However, you get the picture.

ICF

Founded in 1969 as Inner City Fund to finance minority-owned businesses in Washington D.C it has grown substantially, and has clearly done much valuable philanthropic work. In 2014 it reached $1 billion in revenue, and just seven years later its revenue had increased by more than 50% to $1.55 billion. In that same year it also launched the ICF Climate Center to offer research and insights for a sustainable, low-emissions future, and it claims to have been carbon neutral since 2006. It was founded as a venture capital firm, and is today listed on NASDAQ, so unusally for this list, it isn’t a charity or a philanthropic foundation. I haven’t established the link to E3G either, but I suppose there must be one.

International Institute for Environment and Development

It describes itself as “an independent research organisation that delivers positive change on a global scale” and a huge section of its website is devoted to climate change. They say:

We work alongside over 350 partners in more than 60 countries to generate evidence and build capacity in order to drive change in policy and practice.

There it is again – that desire to influence policy, rather than simply to take action in the field.

E3G is one of those 350 partners, and a quick search of the website reveals 13 references to events hosted by E3G, co-hosted by them and by E3G, organised, facilitated, or supported by E3G.

Konrad Adenauer Stiftung

The Knorad Adenauer Foundation is a broadly political foundation, describing itself as a national and international thinktank, which is financed primarily from public funds (“like other political foundations”, it says, so maybe that’s how things work in Germany). Its website doesn’t seem overly concerned about climate change, but insert the search term “climate” and 317 results are returned. Insert E3G, and three results are produced – basically discussions of the US Inflation Reduction Act. In the scheme of things, it’s probably safe to say that this Foundation is peripheral to the activities of E3G.

KR Foundation

Unlike the last organisation, this Foundation wears its climate heart on its sleeve: “Supporting a rapid phase-out of fossil fuels”. More than that:

We find ourselves in a climate crisis caused by human-made greenhouse gas emissions. It is one of the greatest and most urgent threats humanity and our planet have ever faced. We are currently not on track to mitigate this crisis.

It doesn’t accept unsolicited grant applications, but it does disburse grants. In 2024 it made 102 grants to a value of 166 million Danish krone (the number of grants made and their value seems to be increasing every year). As for the basis on which grants are made:

KR Foundation engages in non-profit activities with positive impacts on our climate and environment, and support projects where neither governments nor market actors seem to have incentives to act.

Their annual reports are written in Danish, so I will move on.

Laudes Foundation

Launched in 2020, Laudes Foundation supports brave action to inspire and challenge industry and business transition to advance a green, fair and inclusive economy. We tackle climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and social inequality.

What is the connection to E3G? Well, the Laudes Foundation and the Green Finance Institute have forged a funding partnership focused on accelerating the market for financing a net-zero carbon built environment. The funding and strategic support from Laudes will focus on the work of the Green Finance Institute’s flagship Coalition for the Energy Efficiency of Buildings (CEEB). In turn, CEEB was established by the Green Finance Institute, with support from E3G, as its flagship coalition in December 2019.

LIFE

This is yet another EU organisation, being the EU’s funding instrument for the environment and climate action. It invites applications for funding from public or private legal entities registered in the EU or an overseas country or territory linked to it; third countries associated to the LIFE programme; and legal entities created under Union law or any international organisation. I haven’t been able to establish just how much money is available to be disbursed.

London Sustainable Development Commission

This is a creature of the London Mayor:

The London Sustainable Development Commission was established in 2002 to advise the Mayor of London on making London a ‘sustainable world city’.

Its mission includes advising “the Mayor to help ensure London reaches the 2030 net zero carbon target in a just and sustainable way”. Its objectives include tackling the causes and impacts of climate change – good luck with that! (page 3 here.

I’m not sure what the connection to E3G is, but it’s all part of a theme.

Ministerie van Economische Zaken en Klimaat

This is basically the Ministry of Economic Affairs of the government of the Netherlands. I’m not surprised to see it being claimed as a partner or supporter by E3G – it probably is, though I haven’t been able to establish the link. As with the governments of most developed countries, it’s concerned about climate change and “carbon” (of course, they mean CO2 and other greenhouse gases). A quick glance at its website shows links to articles on things like the second High-Level Roundtable of the International Hydrogen Trade Forum and the Hydrogen Council hosted by Minister Jetten in The Netherlands; The Netherlands, France, the Czech Republic and Ireland call for a European policy package on sustainable carbon in the chemical industry; and five northern European countries ([including the Netherlands] conclude international arrangements on transport and storage of carbon across borders.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark

As with France, Germany, the UK and the Netherlands, so with Denmark, so it seems. A look at the Ministry’s website shows it to be much more concerned these days with Ukraine and the problems of Russia and President Trump, but last year the climate was apparently higher on its list of priorities. Less than a year ago it was proudly telling us:

On the occasion of Bill Gates visiting Denmark today, the Minister for Development Cooperation and Global Climate Policy, Dan Jørgensen and Bill Gates signed an agreement setting out the direction for a stronger and expanded partnership between Denmark and the Gates Foundation advance solutions in areas such as global health, climate adaptation and gender equality.

Searching the website for references to E3G, I found one result, which linked to “Denmark’s support to UN Environment Programme Cool Coalition”. E3G is listed as a stakeholder in the programme.

MISTRA

This is the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research. With offices in Africa, Asia, Latin America, USA, Oxford, York and Tallinn, it focuses on many strategic areas. Inevitably one of those areas is climate. A number of projects are ongoing in this area, but the one that caught my eye, simply because it seems to be the most surreal, is one headed “Strategic vision for Ukraine’s green transition: paving the path through collaboration with Sweden”. One might have thought that Ukraine had other pressing issues just now, but they are airily brushed aside here:

…By integrating green strategies now, Ukraine will continue to attract international support and investments, create jobs, and reduce its dependency on fossil fuels, thereby enhancing national security…

…In line with this vision, significant progress has been made with the adoption of the National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) and other essential legislation, establishing a general framework for the country’s climate policy. Currently, Ukraine is developing a comprehensive long-term low-emission development strategy. The GTO plays a critical role in supporting the government with the effective implementation of the National Energy and Climate Plan, the Climate Law, and other strategic documents linked to green transition.

A search of its website for E3G produces 45 references. Here’s just one:

The 2023 Production Gap Report: “Phasing down or phasing up? Top fossil fuel producers plan even more extraction despite climate promises” is produced by Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), Climate Analytics, E3G, International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). It assesses governments’ planned and projected production of coal, oil, and gas against global levels consistent with the Paris Agreement’s temperature goal. [My emphasis].

There is much more in similar vein.

Oak Foundation

This is yet another foundation whose name will be familiar to those who investigate the funding arrangements of climate lobby groups. It was founded in 1983, has its main office in Geneva, national programmes located in Brazil, India, Denmark and Zimbabwe, and a presence in the UK and the USA. It does much good work, but it has a significant focus on climate change (or “environment”) as its website puts it – “…Today, the place we call home is under threat. We face a climate emergency…”. In 2024 alone, the Foundation made 57 grants totalling $63.8 million (so far as I can see that is under the environment head alone, but it isn’t totally, clear, and I might be wrong). They celebrate stories such as the closure of the UK’s last coal-fired power plant. A search of the website hasn’t revealed any references to E3G, but I would be surprised if they haven’t either received a grant from, or done some work in conjunction with, the Oak Foundation.

Open Society Foundations

As their website says:

The Open Society Foundations, founded by George Soros, are the world’s largest private funder of independent groups working for rights, equity, and justice.

Their work breaks down under four heads, one of which (“Future Worlds”) talks about the “climate emergency” (sic). We learn that they have disbursed $23 billion to date, of which $1.745 billion was disbursed in 2023. Every year, they make thousands of grants. I cannot find an explicit reference to E3G, but as with the Oak Foundation, I’m confident that E3G has either received a grant from, or worked with, the Open Society Foundations.

Powering Past Coal Alliance

Its website tells us that it is “a coalition of national and subnational governments, businesses and organisations working to advance the transition from unabated coal power generation to clean [sic] energy”.

Its members include numerous national governments, including (inevitably) the UK (joined in 2017 – indeed, together with the Canadian government, set it up at COP23), subnational governments, including (inevitably) the Scottish and Welsh governments (both joined in 2018) and organisations. From a UK point of view, it’s interesting to note that these include NatWest, Lloyds Bank, Legal & General, SSE, Scottish Power (who are, of course, Spanish), National Grid, National Grid ESO, Drax, Marks & Spencer, Unliver, Virgin, abrdn, the Church of England Pensions Board, Central Finance Board of the Methodist Chuch, Church Commissioners of England, AXA Investment Managers, Aviva and BT.

Their partners include many of the usual suspects (Bloomberg Philanthropies, Carbon Tacker Initiative, Climate Investments Funds) and E3G.

Proteus Fund

Its website (https://www.proteusfund.org/about/) tells us:

Proteus Fund partners with foundations, individual donors, activists, and other allies to work strategically towards racial, gender, queer, and disability justice and an inclusive, fully-representative democracy. We curate an ecosystem of mutually reinforcing, aligned donor collaboratives and fiscally sponsored projects that deploy a creative array of strategies and tactics to further this vision.

It partners with funders who share its beliefs, and 37 such organisations are listed on its website. Some are new to us, but many of them we have already seen above.

Its 2023 accounts show total assets in excess of $75 million. Unlike many of the organisations we have seen above, climate change doesn’t seem to be high on its list of priorities, but it must be in there, otherwise it wouldn’t feature on the E3G website.

The Rockefeller Foundation

It was founded in 1913 by John D Rockefeller. “More than a century later, we come to work each day with the same ambitious mindset: we can solve today’s big problems like climate change, not just settle for small improvements.”

More than 1,000 grants appear on its website. That’s far too many to drill down, but among the first that appear are things like:

$1 million awarded to Center for Climate and Energy Solutions in support of the Energy Transition Accelerator initiative to advance a just clean energy transition in developing and emerging economies.

$600,000 awarded to ICVCM Limited in support of the Energy Transition Accelerator initiative to advance a just clean energy transition in developing and emerging economies.

$300,000 awarded to Climate Vulnerable Forum LBG in support of providing technical assistance that incorporates heath impacts into the climate resource mobilization plans of climate vulnerable nations.

$354,316 awarded to Pan American Health Organization in support of raising awareness of climate change’s impact on health inequity in the lead up to, and at, COP30.

And much, much more. You get the picture. I haven’t located a grant to E3G, but there must be a connection somewhere.

RUSI

This is the Royal United Services Institute, and its website tells us that it “is the world’s oldest and the UK’s leading defence and security think tank. [Founded in 1831 by the Duke of Wellington, apparently] Our mission is to inform, influence and enhance public debate to help build a safer and more stable world.” That’s fine, but what’s it got to do with E3G? Inevitably, I suppose, they say this:

Climate change is both an existential threat to humanity and a threat multiplier. With expertise across a range of themes and geographies, we assess the implications of climate change through geopolitical, defence and security lenses.

Our research produces leading commentary on how climate change intersects with ‘traditional’ security issues at the local, regional, institutional and international levels. Ongoing research includes horizon scanning of new trends in organised environmental crime; commentary on the security of nuclear weapons’ storage in a warming world; and the implications of a renewed interest in space travel. We lead several international Track 1 and 2 dialogues on topics including energy security, climate mitigation and governance of global commons.

Our unparalleled access and cross-cutting expertise make RUSI the home of commentary on climate change, defence and security.

Click on the relevant page of the website, and you will find plenty of climate-related projects. Search for E3G and you will find three references: first, “The Impact of Climate Change on Security: Is the UK in Need of a Nationwide Review?”, which includes a nod to comments by Nick Mabey, Chief Executive of E3G. Next is “RUSI report: Security response to climate change ‘slow and inadequate’”. This piece gives a leading role to Nick Mabey, who we learn was also a senior advisor in the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit and was previously Head of Sustainable Development in the FCO’s Environment Policy department. He’s clearly well-connected. His thoughts are quoted with approval and at length:

In the next decades, climate change will drive as significant a change in the strategic security environment as the end of the Cold War. If uncontrolled, climate change will have security implications of similar magnitude to the World Wars, but which will last for centuries.

Over the next decades, the determinant of whether climate change drives serious conflicts lies in how political systems respond to the tensions it creates. Too often, analysis of climate change impacts assumes that all governments will act to maximise the common good in response to change…

In general, climate change could drive a more collaborative approach in inter-state relations or it could exacerbate tensions between and within countries, leading to a ‘politics of insecurity’ as countries focus on protecting themselves against the impact. The pattern of co-operation which arises will depend on how effectively climate change is incorporated into mainstream foreign policy, and is perceived as changing the balance of national interests in major countries across a wide range of security and geo-political issues…

Achieving security in a climate-stressed world will require a more pro-active and intensive approach to tackling instability in strategically important regions with high climate vulnerability and weak governance…

The first signs of this response are emerging, but the necessary changes will need to happen much faster than in the past if they are to match the remorseless ecological timetable of a changing climate driven by a dynamic global economy.

RUSI is duly alarmed. The report carries on thus:

This new RUSI report is released just days after Sir Nicholas Stern warned that the economic effects of climate change are likely to be far worse than his initial 2006 estimate, and against the backdrop of recent food riots on three continents, warnings from the WHO on the health and disease implications of climate change, and new information about looming water shortages from glaciers diminishing much more rapidly than predicted.

The final reference is to a report written by Nick Mabey, titled “Delivering Climate Security: International Security Responses to a Climate Changed World”. However, its content is accessible only to RUSI members, so I can’t enlighten you as to its contents.

SED Fund

SED stands for Sustainability, Equity and Diversity. Its website tells us that it “was set up in 2018 to deliver an ecosystem of actions mapped to nine of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals by raising ambitions through philanthropic support.” It seems to be based in the Netherlands. So far as I can see, its website fails to supply details of its funders (though I have found a reference on the MacArthur Foundation website to it receiving a $1 million grant in 2021 for three years in connection with “climate solutions”). It does tell us that it has supported 107 organisations in 15 countries with regard to 286 projects since 2018. By the way MacArthur Foundation funding for climate projects can be found here. It seems to have “invested” over $590 million via 412 grants to 192 organisations, but I will delve into that no further, otherwise I will never escape from the rabbit hole. Strangely, I can’t find any reference to E3G on SED’s website. Then again, compared to many such organisations, its website is a little sparse, and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they have supplied grants to, or worked with, 3EG.

Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI)

According to its website this is an international non-profit research institute that tackles environment and sustainable development challenges. As we might expect, its website has an extensive section devoted to climate, which lists various initiatives and projects. It is a member of REN21 but this piece is long enough already, so I’ll leave you to click on the link above and go down that rabbit hole yourself, should you be so inclined. A search of SEI’s website produces 45 separate references to E3G, mostly jointly-produced reports.

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)

It was founded in 1966 as a result of a decision made by the Swedish Parliament and it still receives most of its funding from the Swedish government, though it also seeks financial support from other organizations in order to carry out its research. It offers full transparency regarding other funding sources, the most recent listed to date being for 2023. From this we learn that the good old British Government has been shelling out again on our behalf – 4,643,174 Swedish Krone via the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office. USAID supplied less than half that amount – I imagine it will be supplying nothing at all for the next four years. The EU and governments of various EU (and other) countries also supplied copious funds. IT seems to take a similar view to RUSI, and references on its website to climate and associated risks are too many to mention here. Another search of its website threw up four references to E3G, who seem to work with SIPRI, MISTRA (see above) and others in various projects with E3G.

The Sunrise Project

Its website opens with a picture of sunrise over a windfarm, with the following words superimposed:

The climate crisis threatens the future of life on earth. To help solve it, an energy revolution is moving the world beyond fossil fuels. How, and how fast that revolution happens will determine the future of humanity…

It seems pretty clear what they’re all about. But for the avoidance of doubt, this is what they say they’re about:

The Sunrise Project is a global network of independent organisations that share a common mission and common values. We believe in the power of social movements to change the world. We’re passionate about building networks who can drive the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy to reduce greenhouse pollution and create a healthy and prosperous future for everyone.

They are based in Australia, though their most recent (2023) annual report tells us that they have over 150 staff spanning 19 countries. At the same time they received funding from (some familiar names here, others are new): ACME Foundation; Ballmer Group; Bloomberg Philanthropies; Boundless Earth; ClimateWorks Foundation; Climate Imperative Foundation; Conscience Bay Research; Graeme Wood Foundation; Heising-Simons Foundation; High Tide Foundation; KR Foundation; Laudes Foundation; McKinnon Family Foundation; Oak Foundation; Oranges & Sardines Foundation; Sequoia Climate Foundation; The Global Methane Hub; Wallace Global Fund; and Zegar Family Foundation.

Combined revenue for the year was AU$121.9 million, and they provided 366 grants to 263 organisations. The average grant size was a chunky AU$177,000, the smallest was AU$2,000 and the largest was AU$2.1 million. It’s a funny old world when organisations receive huge amounts of money from various foundations then pass on lots of it to others. Why not cut out the middle man?

Their website doesn’t have a search facility, so I haven’t been able to search for E3G, but I suppose they’re connected somehow.

Tara Climate Foundation

Based in Asia, its website tells us that:

Much of Asia is responding to the mitigation challenges of climate change, but not at the scale and speed required. At Tara, we provide grants to a diverse group of partners to accelerate Asia’s energy transformation. We are committed to ensuring a sustainable future for our communities and future generations.

Their vision is “a just and thriving society in Asia powered by renewable energy” and to this end they have been providing grants since 2014. Their 2023 report tells us that in the year reported on (it being the most recent report available) they made grants totalling $51 million to 259 diverse organisations across 13 geographies, with an average grant size of $145,000. That represented a 71% increase on the year before.

The source of their funding is less clear to me, and search of their website didn’t produce a reference to E3G, though again their must be a link somewhere.

Trust for London

Founded in 1891, “We give out around £10m each year to groups fighting for a fairer London.” They don’t seem to be particularly obsessed with climate change. The only reference I could find on their website to E3G (though it was obviously enough for the E3G website to list them as a “partner”) is a 2020 article titled “The spark for a retrofitting revolution”. This was written by

Ed Matthew, Associate Director at E3G, and it bigs up E3G (six separate references to them in the article) while referring to a campaign by E3G and Trust for London to put capital investment into building energy efficiency.

Umwelt Bundesamt

This is the German Federal Environment Agency, and they have around 1,800 employees. Curiously, perhaps, a search of its website produces 22 references to briefing papers which, so far as I can tell, were prepared by E3G.

UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction

They need no explanation. The link to E3G isn’t obvious from their website, though E3G regard them as partners, so presumably they have their contacts there. It must be useful to be plugged in to government and supra-national organisations, as E3G apparently are. It all helps when it comes to influencing policy, I assume.

Heidelberg University

Once more I find little to say. Like all universities, Heidelberg’s website demonstrates something bordering on obsession with climate change – a quick search reveals hundreds of linked articles. Again, though, I can’t find the link to E3G, but as always, there must be one – E3G’s website says Heidelberg University is a partner.

Wellspring Philanthropic Fund

This is an organisation dedicated to social justice, which has been on the go since 2001. Its website is surprisingly simple, and enables one to find out very little about it. Climate change doesn’t seem to feature, other than perhaps as an aspect of its dedication to social justice. I can’t find a search facility, and I can’t find details of the grants it makes, so this paragraph is regrettably uninformative, but I include reference to Wellspring for the sake of completeness.

Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies

Established in 2007, this is the official think tank of the European People’s Party, named after its founder, a former Belgian Prime Minister. A search of its website for the word “climate” produces 179 results, and they’re worth a read, as they’re a mixed bag (for instance, one is titled “Climate Change Cannot be the Only Driver of Europe’s Energy Policy”. It certainly doesn’t seem to be entirely in the climate crisis camp. Nevertheless, a search of its website for E3G produces three results – all mini-biographies of individuals employed by E3G, and links to publications written by them.

World Resources Institute

According to its website (https://www.wri.org/):

WRI is a trusted partner for change. Using research-based approaches, we work globally and in focus countries to meet people’s essential needs; to protect and restore nature; and to stabilize the climate and build more resilient communities. We aim to fundamentally transform the way the world produces food, uses energy and designs its cities to create a better future for all. We work across several topics affecting people, nature and the climate.”

And its focus on climate is clear and unrelenting:

The planet is already experiencing unprecedented fires, droughts, floods and other extreme weather. People living in poverty —those who had little role in creating the climate crisis — are least able to respond, but most likely to bear the brunt of its effects. At the same time, the world continues to destroy natural ecosystems and consume fossil fuels at unsustainable rates, further fueling climate change.

Research shows that the world needs to cut its emissions in half by 2030 and reach net-zero by mid-century to prevent the worst effects of climate change. Yet despite this urgency and the massive economic and health benefits of taking climate action, most countries, businesses, states and cities have yet to make the economic and societal shifts required to secure a better future.  

The usual cut and paste message that appears, in one form or another, on so many foundation websites, in other words. They have almost 1,900 staff and offices in at least eight countries, so money doesn’t seem to be a problem. Its 2023 Annual Report confirms as much, with details of more than $365 million revenues, most of which were received in the form of grants, though more than $13 million came in the form of federal grants (there was a fiver year $25 million grant from USAID, which I’m guessing won’t be renewed). Other familiar names are there – $5.5 million was received from Oak Foundation and $3.5 million was received from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Core donors included the Dutch, Swedish and Danish governments. Needless to say, the UK government was also a major donor, meaning they handed over more than $750,000. Actually, I suspect they gave more than $2.25 million, since three separate UK government departments are separately listed. Other major donors include more old favourites – The William and Flora Hewett Foundation and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation. The total list of donors runs into hundreds, if not thousands.

A search of the website for E3G produces 15 results – things like “WRI and E3G Press Call Ahead of Bonn Climate Negotiations”.

Wuppertal Institute

It’s no surprise to see this listed as an E3G partner, given that its website (https://wupperinst.org/en/the-institute) says:

Our vision is a sustainable world for everyone. We define this as a just transformation towards a future in which global warming is reversed to a tolerable level and Earth’s resources are managed in such a way that everyone can enjoy a good life within the planetary boundaries.

Together with our stakeholders, we shape transformation processes. To this end, we develop science-based solutions for ecological, social, political and economic challenges: from practical measures for urban communities and companies to fresh impetus for international climate negotiations….

A search of its website for E3G failed because its search function requires a minimum of four characters.

WWF Turkey

Why only WWF Turkey, and not WWG global? Who knows? IT’s fitting, I suppose, that its website opens with a reference to Earth Hour 2025, and a prominent “support us” button. The climate change section of its website is suitably apocalyptic. I conclude this summary of E3G’s partners with WWF Turkey’s call to arms (in capital letters, of course): “CLIMATE CRISIS IS IN OUR LIVES! WE EXPERIENCE ITS EFFECTS MORE INTENSIVELY EVERY YEAR. THE SOLUTION IS IN OUR HANDS AND WE ARE THE LAST GENERATION THAT CAN STOP THIS CRISIS”.

Conclusion

There are billions, probably tens of billions, and possibly hundreds of billions of pounds/dollars/euros in circulation every year funding climate change hysteria and tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands or even millions of jobs globally. The problem is that (although they would of course dispute this) the vast majority of those jobs are in any real sense, non-productive and add little if anything of value. There is massive replication. Study and survey after study and survey saying the same thing. Endless lobbying for the same policies that they all advocate. Massive group-think in play. A bizarre level of mutual funding – charities, foundations and pressure groups receiving funding from other charities, foundations and pressure groups and passing more funding on to still others.

We’re always being told that “Big Oil” is throwing huge amounts of money at “mis/disinformation”, but I suspect such sums pale into insignificance compared to the sums available to the Green Blob. From the point of view of the Blob, the best part is that Councils, governments and supra-national bodies such as the EU and the UN give them money so that they can lobby Councils, governments and supra-national bodies to implement policies that they all want anyway (while the wishes of the voters scarcely get a look-in).

You don’t have to be Elon Musk with his DOGE plans to recognise that there is something not right in all this. US journalist Bari Weiss isn’t a Trump fan – her politics seem to be pretty independent and don’t allow for simplistic labelling. Wikipedia says this:

According to The Washington Post, Weiss “portrays herself as a liberal uncomfortable with the excesses of left-wing culture” and has sought to “position herself as a reasonable liberal concerned that far-left critiques stifled free speech”. Vanity Fair called Weiss “a provocateur”.The Jewish Telegraph Agency said that her writing “doesn’t lend itself easily to labels”. Weiss has been described as conservative by Haaretz, The Times of Israel, The Daily Dot, and Business Insider. In an interview with Joe Rogan, she called herself a “left-leaning centrist”.The Times of Israel reported that her public fight with The New York Times made her a hero among some conservatives.

She has recently tweeted this:

The Department of Justice is investigating the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a $27 billion program that was part of Joe Biden’s $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act. Created in the spring of 2023, and managed by the Environmental Protection Agency, the fund was supposed to be a “first-of-its-kind” program to address the climate crisis while revitalizing communities that it considered “historically left behind.” But it appears little of the $27 billion revitalized anything—except the coffers of a range of environmental nonprofits associated with former Obama and Biden administration officials. “The Biden administration used so-called ‘climate equity’ to justify handouts of billions of dollars to their far-left friends,” @leezeldin, the Trump administration’s new EPA administrator, told @TheFP. “It is my utmost priority to get a handle on every dollar that went out the door in this scheme and once again restore oversight and accountability over these funds. This rush job operation is riddled with conflicts of interest and corruption.” A Free Press investigation reveals that of the $27 billion, $20 billion was rushed out the door to eight nonprofit groups after Biden lost the election—but before President Donald Trump took office. As one former EPA official put it on a secretly recorded video, it was akin to “tossing gold bars off the Titanic.” The eight groups were allocated sums ranging from $400 million to $6.9 billion. Several of them were formed in August of 2023, just one month after the grant applications went live in July of 2023, when it became clear that large nine- and 10-figure grants would be up for grabs. The boards and staff of these eight groups include Democratic donors, people with connections to the Obama and Biden administrations, and prominent Democrats like Stacey Abrams. “These are some of the biggest grants to individual organizations in American history.”

In short, while the beneficiaries of copious funding from governments and others (who then use the money to lobby governments and others) might claim that the arrangement represents a virtuous circle, it is rather a vicious spiral. My fear is that however well-intentioned those who are involved in working to “save the planet” might be, the scope for corruption at worst, and significant waste of public funds at best, is enormous. It also creates a nexus of inter-connected and inter-dependent outfits with a common interest, who can be guaranteed to lobby furiously, using the media skills they have learned and contacts they have acquired, to defend their interests (and finances). The public interest might usefully benefit if this large but dark area had a very bright light shone on it.

Richard Ellenbogen and Roger Caiazza

This is an article primarily by Richard Ellenbogen that estimates projected annual operating costs and emission reductions for New York commercial facilities when the new building codes are implemented.  It is also an example of how peer review should be done.

Heat Pump Hype

I am a long-time critic of the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority’s (NYDSERDA) biased promotion of all green energy technologies.  Their description of cold climate heat pumps is a good example: “Today’s cold-climate heat pumps are a smarter, more efficient option to keep your home comfortable all year long. These all-in-one heating and air conditioning systems are environmentally friendly, extremely efficient, and affordable to operate.”  In another example, they breathlessly exclaim that heat pumps outsell gas furnaces for the second straight year.  This claim uses national figures and could be solely the result of new building sales that are much stronger in southern states where heat pumps are a cost-effective choice.  Ellenbogen addresses the affordability claims below.

Ellenbogen Heat Pump Experience

Ellenbogen installed geothermal heat pumps when his house was completed in 2004.  He has 21 years of experience with them and has maintained a database of the performance and costs.  His monitoring system includes temperature sensors on the inputs and the outputs of the wells and water flow.  Because he uses a geothermal system, he can rely on it even during the coldest periods when air source heat pumps cannot extract enough energy from the air to keep the house warm.  Furthermore, his system uses deeper wells than are currently allowed by law that were legal when the system was developed.  They are also open loop which greatly increases their efficiency but that is also no longer allowed. In his configuration, his heat pumps can pull 7 tons of heat transfer per well where current geothermal wells are limited to about 2.5 tons per well.  As a result, his system can achieve a Coefficient of Performance (COP) of about 5.5 whereas current Geo-thermal systems can achieve a COP of about 3.5 with the restrictions on well depth and having to be closed loop.  During long periods of cold temperatures that force the heat pumps to run for extended periods, the well temperatures can drop and the efficiency of the system decreases so it will use more energy.

One of the things I admire as a techno-weenie is Ellenbogen’s quantitative nature.  He built his house “as a science project to satisfy his intellectual curiosity” and it has yielded an enormous amount of data. When the Indian Point nuclear station was operating, he ran a calculation and found his geo-thermal system was about 7% more carbon free than his 95% efficient modulating gas boilers that were originally installed as a backup in case of a power failure.  After New York politicians shut down Indian Point the carbon emissions of local electricity increased and the GHG emissions advantage vanished.  Given his concerns about GHG emissions he decided to figure out a cost and energy comparison.  He turned the heat pumps off this winter and used the duplicate gas system to compare with multiple years of data with the heat pumps operating.

The results are notable.  His gas bill went up less than the electric bill went down and this is for an electric system with an efficiency 57% higher than what can be built now during a colder winter.  The electric bill was about $8600 lower than it would have been with the heat pumps operating.  The gas bill only went up by $6057 for a net savings of $2543 using the natural gas heating and the current winter has been 120 degree days colder than last year.  That figure has been adjusted for the higher electricity prices this year.   Note that the heating system is well designed with 14,500 square feet of high mass radiant floors that use 100-degree water in the system and 18 separate zones which makes it even more efficient.  The large scale of the system removes measurement aberrations that might occur with a smaller system.

Table 1 shows the delivery of one therm (heat energy equal to 100,000 British thermal units) relationship between the of electric heating costs at different COP values.  Even a highly efficient ground source heat pump with a COP of 3.5 is 16% more expensive than a 95% efficient gas system in the Downstate New York area which covers 60% of the state’s population.  Also note that air source heat pumps on a very cold day can reach COP’s of 1 – 1.5 and easily go below 2.  As a result they can be two to three times as expensive to operate.

Commercial Facility Projection

New York State legislators passed a prohibition on the installation of fossil fuel equipment and building systems starting in 2026 for small buildings and 2029 for larger ones. The prohibition starts in 2026 for new buildings up to 7 stories tall, except for commercial and industrial buildings larger than 100,000 square feet. There are exemptions for certain types of buildings including emergency backup power systems, manufacturing facilities, commercial food establishments, laboratories, hospitals and medical facilities, critical infrastructure (e.g., water treatment plants), agricultural buildings, crematoriums.

Ellenbogen applied the numbers derived from his house experiment to his business and extrapolated them to the 55,000 square foot factory which would fall under the less than 100,000 square foot rule for new construction after 2026.  Admittedly, there is no law currently in place that would require a developer who wanted to replicate Ellenbogen’s manufacturing facility because of the exemptions.  Eventually, however, the net-zero mandates will require all electric construction of all new facilities and for the replacement of existing equipment before the end of useful life.  Therefore, it is a relevant example of Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act). costs.

Ellenbogen’s home has a backup gas boiler heating system and his manufacturing plant has a combined heat and power system.  In 2002 he installed the first microturbine-based Combined Heat and Power (CHP) system in the Con Ed service area.  This approach generates electricity by burning natural gas.  Waste heat is recovered “to heat the building in the winter, or to be sent to absorption chillers to cool the building in the summer.”  This approach allows him to recover 70 to 75 percent of the energy content of the fuel and augments a solar array on the roof.

By doing a thermal analysis of his home’s gas usage he was able to determine what would be needed to heat the factory.  The end result is that removing gas from his manufacturing facility would raise energy bills to about $147,000, more than doubling them,  and raise his carbon footprint by about 15%.  The key takeaway is that using the most efficient electric heating/cooling system available, it still means that this gas ban policy will cost businesses in NY state enormously while raising carbon emissions.  When and if the Downstate New York electric system reaches zero GHG emissions the carbon emissions will be reduced.

Environmental Impacts

Ellenbogen calculated that because the Downstate electric system is CO2 rate is 950 pounds per MWh according to 2022 EPA data, that the CO2 emissions from using the CHP system are actually less than if heat pumps were used.  He also pointed out he has replaced three compressors in his home’s ground source system over the past 21 years and each time the failure resulted in a full loss of refrigerant.  He said that it is not preventable and that you only find out when the unit gives a fault code with no early warning.

Discussion

This post is based on three emails from Ellenbogen.  I did not include all the calculation details he provided in the originals but will provide them if requested.  The reason for the three versions is that the details provided enabled a reader to point out an issue that he corrected.  Ellenbogen noted that:

Those damned Laws of Thermodynamics are getting in the way again, but this may be a teaching moment to show what a real peer review looks like and that we have to acknowledge errors to make sure that the best information is in the public space.  It also is a clear example of how we can’t escape those Laws in our calculations.  Miscalculations introduce errors and a failure to account for the Laws of Thermodynamics entirely when setting energy policy introduces huge errors.

This raises an issue with the implementation of the Climate Act.  The agencies responsible for the implementation plans have not provided adequate documentation to enable detailed review of the plan.  Even if it is possible to make a detailed comment on an obvious issue, there hasn’t been any acknowledgement of any problem, much less evidence of a revision to the plans.  The appropriate peer review process exemplified by Ellenbogen’s analysis is not a feature of the Climate Act stakeholder process.  As a result, Ellenbogen notes “errors are apparent across the entire spectrum of NY State’s Energy plan.”

Ellenbogen summarized his peer review concerns in this regard.

While I hate to beat on academia, it has a great deal of responsibility for NY State’s energy mess.  A certain University Professor that sat on the Climate Action Council still refuses to acknowledge that all of the technologies for this transition do not exist despite a Public Service Commission conference determining that fact in 2023.   Unfortunately, people in the legislature and certain environmental groups have adopted those ideas despite there being known large deficiencies in those theories as it applies to putting them into practice.  Untested theories that can’t be put into practice in the “Real World” are dangerous for society.  State residents shouldn’t be turned into a science project and that is what is happening. 

I received the following response to my email from a retired professor that now works in industry.  I have redacted portions to keep them anonymous.  While on average, the refrigerant replacement is every 20 years as there are three heat pumps, their observations are profound and are critical to understanding a huge issue now facing the NY State.  It follows in italics.

This is the most sobering analysis of a heating system I have ever read. I constantly hear about the miracles of heat pumps, but the carbon footprint is never honestly presented. Plus the replacement of freon every 7 years is never included. Thanks for providing a clear analysis of a day in the life of a NY business and resident.

I’m still enjoying life in XXXXXXXX, and in no longer being a professor. Academia lives in a bubble, and you can’t see that until you leave. Professors need to do a real sabbatical leave in industry and be forced to solve real problems, not problems they dream up. It’s tough out here! I thought I knew something about XXXXXX  after XX  years as an academic doing research, but XX years at XXXXXXX  has shown me I have much to learn. It is stimulating, I’m glad to be here. They need to have a similar experience.

Regarding the statement above, one of the reasons that the carbon footprints of heat pumps is never honestly mentioned is that the loudest voices in the space are the people selling them and other people don’t have enough experience to question the results.  I’ve been using them for 21 years.  My house was built as a science project to satisfy my intellectual curiosity.  It has yielded an enormous amount of data, some of which has been used by the state.

One of the major issues that I have with NY State policy is that many of the people that are hired to do the energy analyses for the government actually work for the manufacturers or other interested parties.  The reports read more like advertisements paid for by the NY State taxpayers than a sound scientific document.  I dealt with that in a 2020 paper on the Lansing Gas moratorium.  The company hired to do the Tompkins County energy analysis sold heat pumps and the resulting report reflected that and had a huge error in its results.  The paper is very relevant to the building electrification discussion.

Regarding the professor’s comments, when someone is forced to deal with the consequences of their decisions as occurs in industry, it greatly changes their perspective.  There are no negative consequences for someone theorizing about policy on a University Campus and that is okay because it can move society forward.  However, if they don’t really test those ideas before pushing them into society as a gospel, there will be huge problems and that is what we are now seeing in NY State.

Conclusion

The ramifications of New York’s Climate Act on business development are becoming evident.  In 2026, certain new buildings in New York will no longer be able to install fossil fuel equipment and building systems.  Richard Ellenbogen has performed a “science project” that proves that New York’s net-zero transition electrification plans for heating will be more expensive than using natural gas.  It is also notable that the experiment was best on a geothermal heat pump system that is more efficient than legally possible today.  Adding to the already large energy costs in New York is not a good way to attract and maintain manufacturing in the state. 

This exercise also shows the importance of robust peer review.  Ellenbogen’s first draft contained an error that was identified because he showed his work.  He acknowledged the problem and corrected his analysis.  New York’s Climate Act stakeholder process does not document analyses well enough for considered review and the Hochul Administration does not acknowledge any comments that do not comport with their narrative.  As a result, the broken stakeholder process in New York will likely ignore Ellenbogen’s real-world results. 

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Ellenbogen is the President [BIO] of Allied Converters and frequently copies me on emails that address various issues associated with the New York Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act). I have published other articles by Ellenbogen including a description of his keynote address to the Business Council of New York 2023 Renewable Energy Conference Energy titled: “Energy on Demand as the Life Blood of Business and Entrepreneurship in the State -video here:  Why NY State Must Rethink Its Energy Plan and Ten Suggestions to Help Fix the Problems”. He comes to the table as an engineer who truly cares about the environment and as an early adopter of renewable technologies at both his home and business two decades ago.

Roger Caiazza blogs on New York energy and environmental issues at Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York.  This represents his opinion and not the opinion of any of his previous employers or any other company with which he has been associated.