XR-funder billionaire also funds Khan’s Ulez network

Written by Hayley Dixon on November 13, 2023. Posted in Current News

One of Britain’s wealthiest men has been bankrolling the campaign for low-emission zones and has made a £46 million donation to a climate network chaired by Sadiq Khan, The Telegraph can reveal

Sir Christopher Hohn, a financier whose investments include a stake in the owner of Heathrow Airport, has donated more than £670 million to climate campaigns via his philanthropic fund in less than a decade.

He is one of a handful of billionaires ploughing money into civil society organisations that lobby local and national governments to enact net zero or clean-air policies.

Sir Christopher and Michael Bloomberg, a former New York mayor, are “strategic funders” of C40 cities, a global network of nearly 100 mayors of the world’s leading cities who are united in action to confront the ‘climate crisis’.

Khan, the London mayor and chairman of the group, which has called for people to eat less meat, give up their private cars and take only one flight every three years.

Since 2013, Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), co-founded and chaired by Sir Christopher, has given nearly $57million in grants to C40 cities, and Mr Bloomberg has donated $45 million to the organisation that he used to chair.

The London Mayor has been the C40 cities chairman since 2021, and a source at City Hall said that its more radical proposals were made before he was in post and were not targets.

CIFF is also a major funder of the Clean Air Fund and has donated more than £17 million to it. The lobby group claims on its website that it:

“drove the creation or expansion of eight Clean Air Zones (CAZ) in Bath, Brighton, Portsmouth and the London Ultra Low Emission Zone – with the potential to save millions of lives.”

Mr Khan has previously been accused of manipulating the Ulez public consultation by excluding 5,000 responses from the final consultation.

The funding details are revealed in a report on the Clean Air campaign, seen by The Telegraph, which calls for the public to be included in debates about radical policies.

Its authors, from Together and Climate Debate UK, say not enough is known about the funding behind organisations pushing through policies that have a major impact on people’s lives. Their report alleges that “undue proximity between billionaires and the centre of political power” excludes the public from conversations.

It suggests that “seemingly localist civil society organisations”, including the UK100 coalition of local councils, which has “lobbied for anti-car and air pollution policies”, are funded by billionaires and there “are no grassroots air pollution campaigns of consequence”.

It alleges “grants from fewer than 10 philanthropic foundations account for well in excess of a billion dollars of climate grant making per year”. This dwarfs funds available to grassroots campaigns and research and the amounts spent by political parties on campaigning.

The Telegraph has previously revealed that Sir Christopher, personally and through his philanthropic organisation, was a major funder of Extinction Rebellion. His hedge fund, TCI Fund Management, owns shares in Airbus and Ferrovial, which partially owns Heathrow Airport.

It can now be revealed that CIFF, his philanthropic arm, has funded a number of projects that have involved City Hall, including the Breathe London air monitoring project, which places sensors around the capital.

Shirley Rodrigues, Mr Khan’s deputy for environment and energy, joined City Hall from CIFF, where she had held a number of roles, including ‘acting executive director for climate change’.

The Telegraph has previously revealed that Ms Rodrigues has been accused of attempting to “silence” scientists who were critical of the impact of the Ulez, a charge she denied.

An earlier report by the campaign groups accused Mr Khan of misleading the public when he claimed pollution was responsible for the deaths of 4,000 Londoners a year to justify imposing the Ulez scheme.

Mr Khan did not respond to questions about billionaires’ funding, but City Hall officials insisted that all eligible Ulez consultation responses had been taken into account.

Since 2013, CIFF has donated $827 million to climate related causes and Mr Bloomberg’s Bloomberg Philanthropies has given $502 million. The foundations work internationally.

There is a “money-go-round” where donations are passed from one organisation to another, and the funding of campaign groups is often unclear, says Ben Pile, a report author.

“Policies such as the Ulez should be driven by the public, not by billionaires whose interests have not been properly explored,” said Mr Pile.

A similar organisation to the global C40 cities network exists for local councils. The UK100 Cities Network requires authorities that join it to pledge to go further and faster than the Government on Net Zero.

It is active in more than 100 councils.

An earlier version of its website stated it has received financial support from CIFF and the European Climate Foundation, which has in turn received money from Sir Christopher’s fund.

The report’s authors said:

“The public must be at the centre of political decision-making across all policy domains.

Though air pollution policies may seem to have been driven by grassroots campaigns and scientific evidence, we have investigated these organisations and found that they are in fact almost exclusively supported by a small number of philanthropic foundations that are active in climate change lobbying, which have made air quality a proxy issue for the same agenda.

The public has simply not been consulted, much less been free to participate in discussion about or vote on important questions.”

‘Independent philanthropic organisation’

C40 Cities did not respond to questions about whether the cities it represents had been consulted on membership, but a spokesman said the organisation was:

“driven by a steering committee of mayors from across the globe which provides strategic oversight to ensure C40’s mission and mandate are directly driven by and responsive to the needs of C40 cities”.

UK100 Cities said it was:

“an independently run membership network and a not-for-profit private company limited by guarantee, without share capital.

We are funded by various grant-giving organisations that support our mission to empower ambitious cross-party local leaders to tackle the climate emergency”.

A CIFF spokesman said it was “an independent philanthropic organisation” and registered charity, adding:

“Climate change and air pollution pose two of the greatest threats to the future of today’s children and young people.

We are committed to transparency in our grant-making and regularly provide public information about our work and grants through our website, annual report and social media.”

A spokesman for the Clean Air Fund said that it was a registered charity and reported its accounts to the regulator, adding:

“Air pollution costs millions of lives every year. The Clean Air Fund partners with governments, funders, businesses and local communities to tackle it.

Everyone deserves to breathe clean air.”

Sir Christopher was approached for comment.

See more here telegraph.co.uk

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