The Guardian reported that after the IPCC released its February 2007 report, the American Enterprise Institute offered British, American and other scientists $10,000, plus travel expenses to publish articles critical of the assessment. The institute, which had received more than $US 1.6 million from Exxon and whose vice-chairman of trustees was former head of Exxon Lee Raymond, sent letters that The Guardian said "attack the UN's panel as 'resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work' and ask for essays that 'thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs'." More than 20 AEI employees worked as consultants to the George W. Bush administration.[41] Despite her initial conviction that with "the overwhelming science out there, the deniers' days were numbered," Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer said that when she learned of the AEI's offer, "I realized there was a movement behind this that just wasn't giving up."[10]
The Royal Society conducted a survey that found ExxonMobil had given US$ 2.9 million to American groups that "misinformed the public about climate change," 39 of which "misrepresented the science of climate change by outright denial of the evidence".[6][42] In 2006, the Royal Society issued a demand that ExxonMobil withdraw funding for climate change denial. The letter, which was leaked to the media, drew criticism, notably from Timothy Ball and others who argued the society attempted to "politicize the private funding of science and to censor scientific debate."[43]
ExxonMobil denied the accusations that it has been trying to mislead the public about global warming. A spokesman, Gantt Walton, said that ExxonMobil's funding of research does not mean that it acts to influence the research, and that ExxonMobil supports taking action to curb the output of greenhouse gasses. Gantt said, "The recycling of this type of discredited conspiracy theory diverts attention from the real challenge at hand: how to provide the energy needed to improve global living standards while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions."[44]
Between 1989 and 2002 the Global Climate Coalition, a group of mainly United States businesses, used aggressive lobbying and public relations tactics to oppose action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fight the Kyoto Protocol. The coalition was financed by large corporations and trade groups from the oil, coal and auto industries. The New York Times reported that "even as the coalition worked to sway opinion [towards skepticism], its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted."[45] In the year 2000, the rate of corporate members leaving accelerated when they became the target of a national divestiture campaign run by John Passacantando and Phil Radford with the organization Ozone Action. According to the New York Times, when Ford Motor Company was the first company to leave the coalition, it was “the latest sign of divisions within heavy industry over how to respond to global warming."[46][47] After that, between December, 1999 and early March, 2000, the GCC was deserted by Daimler-Chrysler, Texaco, the Southern Company and General Motors.[48] The organization closed in 2002, or in their own words, 'deactivated'.
Early in 2013, The Guardian revealed that two trusts, the 'DonorsTrust' and the 'Donors Capital Fund', operating out of a house in the suburbs of Washington DC, have bankrolled 102 think tanks and activist groups to the tune of $118m between 2002 and 2010. The conservative donors to these trusts are said to represent a wide range of opinion on the American right who have found common ground in opposing cuts to greenhouse gas emissions. They ensure their anonymity by funnelling the funds through the trusts, and the money flowed into "Washington thinktanks embedded in Republican party politics, obscure policy forums in Alaska and Tennessee, contrarian scientists at Harvard and lesser institutions, even to buy up DVDs of a film attacking Al Gore," the report said. The stream of cash was used to fund a conservative backlash against Barack Obama's environmental initiatives and to wreck any chance of Congress taking action on climate change. The money funded a vast network of thinktanks and activist groups working to redefine climate change from neutral scientific fact to a 'wedge issue' that benefits the hardcore right. Robert Brulle, a Drexel University sociologist who has researched other networks of ultra-right donors, said, "Donors Trust is just the tip of a very big iceberg."[19]
Later in 2013, The Guardian reported that the State Policy Network (SPN), an umbrella group of 64 US thinktanks, was involved in covert lobbying for major corporations and rightwing donors. SPN's policies are to oppose climate change regulation, as well as other causes including cutting taxes, advocating reductions in labour protection, restricting voter rights and lobbying for the tobacco industry. The report said that the SPN's funders for 2010 included AT&T and Microsoft, which each donated up to $99,000, Time Warner Cable, Verizon, the Koch brothers, the Walton family of Walmart, and Facebook.[49]
