It is the Black Fog the Daily Mail needs to worry about, not the Green Blob

Catherine Mitchell, IGov Team, 27th October, 2014

About Catherine: http://geography.exeter.ac.uk/staff/index.php?web_id=Catherine_Mitchell

As someone who travels a lot, I have spent quite a bit of time thinking about what I like and don’t like about Britain. And at the top of the list of likes is British humour.

The Daily Mail picture of Parliament being taken over by the Green Blob, as argued by Owen Paterson, seems to me to be quintessentially British – it is a great, memorable, funny rip-off. There are those who argue that Owen Paterson was sacked precisely so he can say these things, despite the best efforts of the Committee on Climate Change to illuminate how irresponsible (and wrong) he is.

Keeping track of what is funding what, whether overtly or covertly, is an enormous challenge, and not undertaken in any meaningful way in Britain. It would be great if this were the case and there are some institutions which try to keep track of certain aspects of it ie Spinwatch or those which try to explain some of its impacts, ie Climatetracker. And possibly either or both of them are getting some of their funding from the so-called green blob!

One thing we can be certain of is that it is not the green blob which is somehow taking over parliament. The ‘black fog’ which supports fossil fuels and the conventional energy system is far bigger, and has a far greater impact across the globe, and in Britain.

The IEA tries to keep track of direct public subsidies to different energy sectors, with the global cost of fossil-fuel subsidies expanded to $544 billion in 2012 compared to $101 billion for renewables,  but this figure does not take account of R&D or lobbying / institutional donations. Recent IEA and IMF reports which do track subsidy, R&D and investment across all energy sectors, but not lobbying,  places support for fossil fuels under certain methodologies in the trillions, towering over renewables.  While investment in renewable electricity is rising (now about 50% of new electricity capacity, leading to lower and lower unit costs of renewable electricity) the costs of maintaining oil and gas flows far outweighs this.

None of these international organisations keeps comprehensive track of private ‘lobbying’ or institutional donations. Britain should keep much better track of the total ‘black fog’ of support for fossil fuels, and the wider conventional energy industry. This is not only public subsidies and investment but also what companies are giving to what companies, institutions and MPs, including secondments etc.   Blog Amended 29th October 2014

Comment by email to Catherine Mitchell from Ben Pile 29/10/14 on ‘It is the Black Fog the Daily Mail Needs to Worry About Not the Green Blob’ and now posted Ben Pile http://www.climate-resistance.org/2014/10/the-green-blob-in-academe.html

Dear Professor Mitchell,

As one of the reporters on the Mail on Sunday story you refer to in your recent blog post, I was interested in your comments that the ‘Black Fog’ should concern the Daily Mail {sic} more than the ‘Green Blob’. Being a freelance researcher on energy and climate matters, a number of your other comments also concerned me.

You express the view that the article represented ‘reactionary, evidence-free journalism which provides a small part of a whole picture, thereby giving the wrong view’.

In fact a substantial amount of research was undertaken for the article, and some was produced beforehand. The bulk of the evidence for the claims made in the article exist in the published reports of the organisations referred to – a requirement of US (though sadly not UK) law. I have provided some links below this email.

The reports published by the US, UK and Brussels-based organisations referred to all emphasise their roles in campaigning for planned coal-fired generating capacity in the UK to be cancelled, and their success in bringing about national and EU legislation. We show that The Hewlett Foundation alone made grants of $0.5 billion to ClimateWorks, which is the major donor in turn of the European Climate Foundation (ECF), who make further grants from a €25 million budget to organisations to lobby for policy change. We found further substantial grants are made directly between ClimateWorks and ECF’s funders and their beneficiaries.

You go on to claim that a greater problem than the effect of ‘green blob’ funding over policy-making is the black fog, which is ‘taking over parliament’. The only evidence you offer in support of this claim is the ‘direct public subsidies to different energy sectors’, revealed in reports by the International Energy Agency (IEA), IMF and OECD. I believe that you may have misunderstood the research you cite.

The summary of the report you linked to makes the claim that “The global cost of fossil-fuel subsidies expanded to $544 billion in 2012 despite efforts at reform. Financial support to renewable sources of energy totalled $101 billion.” However, what is not explained is how these figures are produced.

The IEA explain their methodology: “It compares  average end-user prices paid by consumers with reference prices that correspond to the full cost of supply.”  The OECD explain the problem  with this approach. As the price paid by the consumer after duty and so on is generally greater than the reference price, the IEA do not consider that Britain subsidises the fossil fuel sector. And so on the IEA’s analysis, no country in Europe or North America subsidises its fossil sector, either. We can, on the terms of your own argument, then, determine that the size of the ‘black fog’ is zero, and that its influence in Westminster and in Brussels is zero.

The OECD’s analysis, which is drawn from the same data, does claim that Britain subsidises the fossil fuel sectors. But it admits that ‘The scope of what is considered “support” is here deliberately broad, and is broader than some conceptions of “subsidy”’. Taking the case of Britain, for example, the OECD looked at the tax benefits enjoyed by gas companies, and found the sector to be subsidised in 2011 to the amount of £3.631 billion. However, this includes £3.51 billion of ‘subsidy’ in the form of a reduced rate of VAT on domestic energy. If this is a subsidy at all, it is a consumer subsidy, not a producer subsidy. The remainder – £121 million is dwarfed by the amount the sector pays to the Treasury.

Returning to the IEA’s analysis, further investigation shows, too, that it includes in the largest part subsidies to poor consumers not to producers.

Neither analyses suggest, as you claim that ‘direct public subsidies’ are paid to ‘fossil energy sectors’ at all, much less in Britain. In fact, a PWC survey of the oil and gas sector found that it contributed more than £30bn to the Treasury. No subsidies are paid to the fossil sectors. And what the OECD claims is a ‘subsidy’ in the form of reduced rates of VAT on fuel and power in the UK is in fact a consumer benefit that is equally applied to green energy – it just happens that less of it is produced, so it draws less subsidy. In this respect, the OECD’s analysis is extremely misleading. My own research shows that, even taking the OECD’s analysis at face value, when we compare the ‘subsidies’ given to green and brown sectors on a unit-for-unit basis, the renewable sector enjoys thirteen times the subsidy that the fossil fuel sector received.

You are right to say that claims about the ‘green blob’ influencing policy should be seen in the context of the efforts of ‘black fog’ to do the same. However, you are wrong to suggest that our investigation did not attempt to do this.

In fact, I spoke to a number of green organisations’ press officers about the new EU 2030 targets and the effect of industry lobbying on both sides of the debate on the Friday before publication. The Greenpeace European Office, for example, were adamant that there was such resistance to the new targets, but were unable to identify it in the terms of the article, or quantify such intervention, beyond reference to the Magritte Group, which, the spokeswoman admitted, did not seem to have intervened in the discussion about 2030 targets. A spokesman for Climate Action Network Europe told me that “the business voice has been very divided, with some being more or less on the same page as NGOs… Big multinational companies, not just renewable energy companies”. We did not look into commercial support for green policies, though we had the opportunity to point out that substantial commercial interests exist in them, and are involved with ECF beneficiaries, and have working relationships with them and politicians.

Had the organisations we spoke to – and we spoke to quite a few – been able to offer us evidence that the ‘black fog’ had intervened in the way that the ‘green blob’ has intervened, this detail would have been in the article. However, and as the article pointed out, there is only one organisation which could be described in that way. But it is very poorly funded and it refuses donations from people with interests in the energy sector.

It does not seem unreasonable, therefore, to suggest that the black fog may be nothing more than a figment of the green blob’s imagination, and that if any such lobbying effort exists, its effect is negligible. After all, the ‘green blob’, as they themselves claim, were successful in closing down the planned Kingsnorth coal-fired power station replacement, and in securing a promise of ‘no new coal without CCS’ from the previous and coalition governments.

I am surprised that it needs to be pointed out to a professor of energy policy that the OECD, EIA and IMF reports on subsidies have no place in a discussion about energy policy lobbying, and are themselves misleading measures of the energy market. If the lobbying funded by American billionaires simply went to arguing for more cash for the renewable energy sector, it might be harder to criticise them. But the consequences of yet more and further-reaching policies such as the Climate Change Act and the new 2030 targets will be felt more by people outside of the energy sector than within it. Even with the EU’s targets, it seems unlikely to me that the fossil sector’s bottom line will be affected – the EU’s 2030 targets and CCA will not close down the world market for fossil fuels.

You are entitled to your own research interests and political preferences, of course. But it looks like you have dismissed an article out of hand, on a university blog, without the substance to back it up, merely on the basis of prejudices. If the point of academic expertise is to cheerlead preferred policies, and to shout ‘boo’ at Big Oil and the wrong kind of newspapers, we can surely add them to the list of organisations recruited into the Green Blob. It seems to me that you have done precisely what you accuse the Mail on Sunday of doing – namely, ‘reactionary, evidence-free journalism which provides a small part of a whole picture, thereby giving the wrong view.’

If I have misunderstood your blog post, however, I would be grateful for your explanation. Otherwise, I hope that you will be correcting your blog post.

Best wishes,

Ben Pile.

————–

ECF grantees:- http://europeanclimate.org/home/how-we-work/our-grantees/

ECF Annual Report 2013:- http://europeanclimate.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/ECF-2013-annual-report-web.pdf

ClimateWorks donors:- https://web.archive.org/web/20131127175640/http://www.climateworks.org/about/funders/

Hewlett Foundation grant database:- http://www.hewlett.org/grants/search

Hewlett Foundation statement of support for ClimateWorks:- “That is why the Hewlett Foundation decided to make a five-year, $100 million a year commitment, beginning in 2008, to ClimateWorks. ClimateWorks Foundation is a clearinghouse for this work, coordinating and supporting an international network of regional climate foundations in each of the world’s top carbon-dioxide-emitting regions-the United States, the European Union, China, India, and Latin America, as well as one to monitor the preservation of forests.  The ClimateWorks Foundation is governed and led by a board of preeminent civic, business and scientific leaders from around the world and committed to supporting and sharing the best approaches to combating climate change from every corner of the world.” — http://www.hewlett.org/philanthropys-role-fighting-climate-change

Packard Foundation grant database:- http://www.packard.org/grants/grants-database

Includes the following grants to ClimateWorks:-

2014 – $66,100,000 – http://www.packard.org/grants/grants-database/climateworks-foundation-8/

2013 – $250,000 – http://www.packard.org/grants/grants-database/climateworks-foundation-7/
2013 – $66,100,000 – http://www.packard.org/grants/grants-database/climateworks-foundation-6/
2012 – $66,100,000 – http://www.packard.org/grants/grants-database/climateworks-foundation-5/
2011 – $66,100,000 – http://www.packard.org/grants/grants-database/climateworks-foundation-4/
2010 – $46,757,793 – http://www.packard.org/grants/grants-database/climateworks-foundation-3/
2009 – $40,400,000 – http://www.packard.org/grants/grants-database/climateworks-foundation-2/
2008 – $33,400,000 – http://www.packard.org/grants/grants-database/climateworks-foundation/

McKnight Foundation grant database:- http://www.mcknight.org/grant-programs/grantees

Includes the following grants to ClimateWorks:-

http://www.mcknight.org/grant-programs/grantees?query=ClimateWorks&year=&program_area=
Year Approved: 2008 – Grant Amount: $16,000,000
Year Approved: 2010 – Grant Amount: $26,000,000
Year Approved: 2013 – Grant Amount: $1,000,000

Oak Foundation grant database:- http://www.oakfnd.org/grants

Includes the following grants to ECF;-

2009 – $1,700,000 – http://www.oakfnd.org/node/2909
2011 – $2,938,505 – http://www.oakfnd.org/node/4136
2012 – $6,825,710 – http://www.oakfnd.org/node/4490
2013 – $468,270 – http://www.oakfnd.org/node/5163
2013 – 4,771,798 – http://www.oakfnd.org/node/5162

And the following donations to ClimateWorks:-

2008 – $600,000 – http://www.oakfnd.org/node/3363
2010 – $2,000,000 – http://www.oakfnd.org/node/3367
2011 – $3,750,000 – http://www.oakfnd.org/node/4190
2012 – $2,400,000 – http://www.oakfnd.org/node/4488

ClimateWorks 2011 Annual Report:- http://www.climateworks.org/imo/media/doc/ClimateWorks%20Foundation_2011%20Annual%20Report.pdf

ClimateWorks 2010 Annual Report:- http://www.climateworks.org/imo/media/doc/ClimateWorks%202010%20annual%20report.pdf

ClimateWorks 2009 Annual Report:- http://www.climateworks.org/imo/media/doc/CWFAnnualReport2009.pdf

In which the following grants to are listed:

In 2009, CW gave $64,858,769 to regional climate foundations, which
included $10,100,000 to ECF
In 2011, CW gave $83,446,516 to regional climate foundations, which
included $13,632,557 to ECF

in 2010:

European Climate Foundation – To support E.U. programs – $13,775,200

European Climate Foundation – To help track, assess, and compare
countries’ climate mitigation – $963,000
European Climate Foundation – To support the Deutsche Umwelthilfe
“Soot-Free for the Climate” European diesel filter campaign – $715,000
European Climate Foundation – To support carbon capture and storage
(CCS) strategy and grants management – $1,000,000
TOTAL: $16,453,200

ClimateWorks 2012 900 form:- http://pdfs.citizenaudit.org/2013_11_EO/26-2303250_990_201212.pdf — in which CW declares that it made $25,367,175 in grants to

European organisations.

ECF grant to CAN Europe:-  E345,453 in 2013 – http://www.climnet.org/about-us/60-about-us/caneeuropesfunding

ECF grant to FOE Europe:- E339,967 in 2013 – http://www.foeeurope.org/sites/default/files/foee_funding_breakdown_2013.pdf
Grants to WWF Europe:- E531,280 in 2013 from “foundations” – http://www.foeeurope.org/sites/default/files/foee_funding_breakdown_2013.pdf

Grants to Green Alliance from “foundations”:- http://apps.charitycommission.gov.uk/Accounts/Ends95/0001045395_AC_20130331_E_C.pdf

Example statement of ClimateWorks’ support of lobbying policy ends:- “ECF support helped ensure that the European Commission committed to strong, binding targets and minimized loopholes in its updated climate policies.  ECF also helped defeat a half-dozen proposed coal power plants and supported adoption of some of the world’s strongest fuel-efficiency standards.” — http://www.climateworks.org/network/regions/region/?id=adac1221-b7c3-e0dc-3f30-67b27b29feec##regional-climate-foundation

Ben Pile http://www.climate-resistance.org/2014/10/the-green-blob-in-academe.html

Posted by: rhoggett

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