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“Fossil Fuel Treaty” activism is funded by a small group of global foundations



A network of activists is calling for a “Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.” They want a treaty to complement the Paris Climate Agreement to accelerate a global shift from using fossil fuels.


In 2021, ahead of COP26 in Glasgow, the World Economic Forum promoted the initiative as: “A new wave of activists is calling for global action and cooperation to phase out fossil fuels.”


But is it a “new wave of activists”? To answer that, we need to find out who is hiding behind them.


As with all these conspiracies, following the money reveals the puppet masters pulling the strings. Below we attempt to unravel the network to uncover the money behind the calls for a “Fossil Fuel Treaty.” There are several foundations named which makes it fairly heavy going but if you bear with us, you’ll begin to see a pattern and a core group of global foundations emerge.


“Fossil Fuel Treaty” Alarmism


Despite bold declarations on a website that 8 nation states have supported the “fossil fuel treaty” proposal and 89 cities and local governments have endorsed it – along with an assortment of non-governmental organisations and activists – there is little to no detail of what such a treaty would entail except to “end the era of coal, oil and gas.”


“Oil, gas and coal are the root cause of the climate crisis,” the website declares without providing any evidence to back up its numerous fear-mongering mantras. It also makes a ludicrous claim that “fossil fuels are weapons of mass destruction.”


We followed the hyperlink contained in the words “endorse as an individual” on its home page hoping to see a sensible proposal that signatories read before putting their names to and endorsing it. But alas, the statement that appears next is as pitiful as the website. Below is a screenshot of the well-evidenced and thoroughly thought-out call for a “new global treaty” that has been signed by more than 620,000 airheads activists:


There are more words in the details provided to government officials but the statement is still entirely without evidence or any attempt to address the devastation and deaths, globally, that will be caused if such a treaty came into being. The “endorse as a government” has no words at all, governments must simply enter their details without being provided any information on what it is they are “signing.” Yet, as the website claims without evidence, 8 nation states have “endorsed” it.


You can see a full list of government officials worldwide at the bottom of THIS webpage who have signed in support of this blatantly flawed activism and so are, without a doubt, unfit to hold public office at any level.


Shamefully 39 Members of the UK Parliament and House of Lords have put their names to it. Embarrassingly, not only has Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP for Brighton, signed up to this nonsense, but she is also highlighted as a “treaty champion.”


To understand who or what Lucas is supporting, endorsing and promoting it’s always worthwhile taking a look to see who is funding the campaign. As a politician, Lucas would have done the same before she put her name to it and accepted the lofty title of “treaty champion.”


“Fossil Fuel Treaty” Funders


The “Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty” initiative is funded by nine private foundations: Bulb Foundation, Climate Breakthrough, Fedrick Mulder Foundation, Gower St., The New York Community Trust, Quadrature Climate Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Waverley St. Foundation and Earth/Percent. Below we give a brief description of each.


1. Bulb Foundation is a UK-based charity which, judging by the date mark on the website, was launched in 2023. It has the sole aim of “ending the climate crisis.” It was launched by renewable energy and carbon-neutral gas supplier Bulb, a company named in December 2019 as the UK’s fastest-growing private business.


Bulb was founded by Hayden Wood and Amit Gudka in 2013. In 2022, having spent more money than it was making, Bulb went into administration and was taken over by Octopus Energy. On the Bulb Foundation website, failed businessmen Wood and Gudka are shown as trustees. Other trustees include:


Sophie Pullan, vice chair of the Bulb Foundation, is a director of the Foundation for International Law for the Environment (“FILE”). She was previously the Operations Director of Global Policies for the European Climate Foundation and the Portfolio Manager for Climate Change at the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation.


Amal-Lee Amin was a Senior Advisor to the UK’s COP26 Presidency team. She is director of Climate Change at British International Investment plc (formerly CDC Group plc), the UK’s development finance institute “at the heart of the UK Government’s international financing offer to emerging economies.”


2. Climate Breakthrough, launched as the Climate Strategies Accelerator in 2015, is based in California. It is an initiative of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation in partnership with the Oak Foundation, the IKEA Foundation, the JPB Foundation, and the Good Energies Foundation.


3. Frederick Mulder Foundation is a UK-based trust funded by private art dealer Frederick Mulder Ltd. Frederick Mulder is a director of the company, the chair of the Foundation and also the Founder of The Funding Network, an organisation based in London that arranges live crowd-funding events to support social change projects, and which he has helped start in several other UK cities and in nine other countries.


4. Gower Street, formerly The Marple Charitable Trust, is a small, UK-based, family-run charitable trust that was set up by Nick and Sophie Marple in 2007. In 2018 Gower Street pivoted the majority of its funds to addressing the climate crisis and in recognition of the urgency of the situation decided to disperse all its funds by 2030.


5. The New York Community Trust (“NYCT”) a New York-based charity was formed in 1924 by 11 banks. In 1928, Rockefeller gave US$2.5 million to NYCT. In 1975, NYCT set up the Westchester Community Foundation and in 1978 it set up the Long Island Community Foundation. In 1979, NYCT created the Energy Conservation Fund which later became the Nonprofit Finance Fund.


6. Quadrature Climate Foundation (“QCF”) based in the UK was launched in 2019 by Quadrature Capital, a multibillion-pound investment fund founded by billionaires Greg Skinner and Suneil Setiya. QCF aims to fight the “climate emergency” and argues that the Paris Agreement does not implement drastic enough environmentalist policies to restrict the use of conventional energy and agricultural practices that it claims are behind the carbon emissions. QCF has received millions of pounds in grants from groups such as the European Climate Foundation, the Carbon Tracker Initiative, and the World Wide Fund for Nature (“WWF”) over the past two years, according to filings with the Charity Commission.


7. Waverley Street Foundation (“WAF”) is based in California and was launched in 2022 by Laurene Powell Jobs, the billionaire widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, to fight climate change. Waverley Street has committed to spend the entirety of its endowment – more than $3 billion as of 2022 – by 2035. Its inaugural president is California’s Secretary for Environmental Protection, Jared Blumenfeld.


8. Earth/Percent raises money from the music industry to “support” organisations “addressing the climate emergency.” It was founded by British musician Brian Eno who is also its trustee. Some of its funding goes to changing laws, regulations and economic incentives. It also funds “changing cultural norms and narratives.”


9. Rockefeller Brothers Fund is a regular contributor to both the United Nations (“UN”) and the United Nations Foundation Inc. According to Dr. Jacob Nordangård, the Rockefellers were instrumental in establishing the UN in 1946 and “They view [the UN] as their own little club or organisation.”


Wikipedia notes that the United Nations Foundation was set up by CNN founder Ted Turner in 1998. It was originally primarily set up as a grant maker but has evolved into a strategic partner to the UN. The United Nations Foundation’s major partners include ClimateWorks Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, KR Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.


Other partners include the Turner Foundation, David and Lucile Packard Foundation and Skoll Foundation. We have only named the partners that are included elsewhere in this article. However, the United Nations Foundation’s 86 partners also include, for example, Pfizer, Wellcome Trust, Amazon and Google.


Its President and Chief Executive Officer is Elizabeth Cousens, former US Ambassador to the UN Economic and Social Council, and the co-chairs of the board are Ted Turner and former Prime Minister of Norway Gro Harlem Brundtland.



Global Foundations Committed to Tackle the “Climate Crisis”


It is no coincidence that four out of the nine funders of the “Fossil Fuel Treaty” campaign are also part of a group of global foundations that have, since 2018, committed to investing billions by 2025 to “tackle the climate crisis”:


The Bulb Foundation;

Climate Breakthough’s partners: the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Oak Foundation, IKEA Foundation, JPB Foundation and Good Energies Foundation;

Quadrature Climate Foundation; and,

Rockefeller Brothers Fund.


Neither is it a coincidence that other foundations named in this article appear more than once. The Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (“CIFF”), for example, is included in this group of “climate crisis” investors and also mentioned earlier in the article as the previous employer of Sophie Pullan, the vice chair of the Bulb Foundation.


CIFF is the foundation of hedge fund manager Sir Chris Hohn. Hohn is also the single largest donor to Extinction Rebellion in the UK. Self-declared criminal organisation Extinction Rebellion is one of the activist groups which is being used to push the “Fossil Fuel Treaty” agenda forward.



When did these global foundations first get together to invest in a “climate crisis”?


In September 2018 ClimateWorks Foundation published a statement that 29 “philanthropists” had pledged $4 billion over the following five years to combat climate change. The announcement had been made at the UN Global Climate Action Summit (“GCAS”).


In 2020, Hohn’s CIFF published an update ahead of the Climate Ambition Summit on 12 December 2020: “The original group is on track to exceed the commitment, thanks to significant increases from several funders, as well as additional philanthropic donors committing new resources. It is now on a trajectory to invest at least $6 billion dollars [sic] by 2025, and likely more as all philanthropists are actively invited to allocate a portion of their portfolio to this important cause.”


As listed below, CIFF’s article went on to name the global foundations funding the war on societies under the banner of a “climate crisis.” ClimateWorks’ list of its 27 funding partners looks similar to the list below but also includes notables such as Bezos Earth Fund, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Gates Ventures and Open Philanthropies; but doesn’t include “several funders who prefer to remain anonymous.”


1. AKO Foundation

2. Barr Foundation

3. Bloomberg Philanthropies

4. The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation

5. The Bulb Foundation

6. Bullitt Foundation

7. Sir Christopher Hohn and The Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF)

8. The Educational Foundation of America

9. The Generation Foundation

10. Pirojsha Godrej Foundation

11. Good Energies Foundation

12. The Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment

13. The Grove Foundation

14. Growald Family Fund

15. The George Gund Foundation

16. Heising-Simons Foundation

17. William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

18. High Tide Foundation

19. IKEA Foundation

20. Ivey Foundation

21. Joyce Foundation

22. JPB Foundation

23. KR Foundation

24. John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

25. McKinney Family Foundation

26. McKnight Foundation

27. Oak Foundation

28. The David and Lucile Packard Foundation

29. Pisces Foundation

30. Quadrature Climate Foundation

31. Robertson Foundation

32. Rockefeller Brothers Fund

33. Sea Change Foundation

34. Skoll Foundation

35. Turner Foundation

36. Yellow Chair Foundation


Although we haven’t followed the money trail further, we are familiar with the activities of several of those named and logic would dictate that the foundations above are all fronts for wealthy self-appointed elites who stand to make a fortune if they can shape the global economy in a way that suits their investments. Let’s, at the very least, help these “climate crisis” investors make a loss on their US$6 billion investment by spreading the truth.

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