Climate Sceptic Think-Tank’s Mystery Backer

Michael Hintze, a billionaire hedge fund owner, is purported to be a financier of Lord Lawson’s Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), a think-tank that questions climate science.

Billionaire Hintze, 913th richest man on the planet according to Forbes, was also unmasked as one of the guests at David Cameron’s ‘thank you’ dinner at his flat on Downing Street in July 2010.

It is claimed that he donated over £1.2m to the Conservative party and that the prime minister laid out an expensive spread for Hintze and others as a symbol of gratitude.

And correspondence obtained by The Guardian “appears to indicate [Hintze] is financially supporting” the GWPF.

The think-tank was asked to reveal its seed donor back in January following a freedom of information request from Brendan Montague, director of the Request Initiative.

Lawson and co. denied Montague access to this information, and after elevating the issue to an information rights tribunal, a judge deemed the GWPF as not “influential” enough to be forced to disclose the requested details.

In a blog post on the Request Initiative’s website, Montague said, “Lord Lawson must now recognise there is a public interest in him being transparent about the funding of the GWPF.

“The Charity Commission should investigate the political nature of his climate sceptic think tank, which campaigns for a change in government policy while being part funded by Tory party donors.

“How can the public take Lawson’s demand for transparency [among climate scientists] seriously when he has been so secretive about his own funding?”

The news that Hintze is financially supporting Lord Lawson’s climate sceptic think-tank and the Conservative party at the same time delivers another blow to Cameron and the now doubtful statement that this is the “greenest government ever” – as if it wasn’t proven enough by the unsustainable and not-so-green budget statement last week.

Even the remotest possibility that climate change scepticism could infiltrate governmental policy is a scary prospect, especially on top of the seemingly indifferent attitudes of late.

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