British Gas’s parent company, Centrica, has given tens of thousands of dollars to a US thinktank that denies climate change and is backed by Donald Trump’s energy secretary.
Direct Energy, a US energy company wholly owned by Centrica, donated $20,000 to the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) in 2010, according to tax filings.
The Austin-based thinktank has rubbished climate change science, argued the Paris climate deal would “wreak havoc” in the US economy and said the idea of keeping fossil fuels in the ground was a “ridiculous construct”.
Rick Perry, who was picked by Trump for energy secretary on Wednesday, wrote a book in 2010 that praised the thinktank for opposing “environmental policy based on the hysteria of global warming”. The TPPF also has relationships with other top Republicans, including former presidential candidate Ted Cruz.
Centrica told the Guardian it did not share the thinktank’s views on climate change, but confirmed it was still donating via its subsidiary and had no plans to stop.
Greenpeace, which first spotted the Centrica link to the TPPF, urged the company to “rethink who they give money to” and rule out donating to “climate sceptic outfits”.
Hannah Martin, energy campaigner at the group, said: “Centrica claims to be ‘a world leader for action on climate change’ but has been donating thousands of dollars to a climate sceptic thinktank with links to Trump’s new energy secretary, Rick Perry, and Ted Cruz.
“Perhaps it’s just a case of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing, but this can only undermine Centrica’s credibility on tackling climate change.”
In total, $4.7m was donated by 129 individuals, corporations and foundations to the TPPF in 2010, tax documents inadvertently published online show. The Koch brothers, who have bankrolled opposition to climate change action across the US, were among the biggest donors, and the list includes oil companies ExxonMobil and Chevron.
In addition to Perry, the TPPF has links to Trump’s team through Doug Domenech, head of the president-elect’s interior department transition team, who has called carbon dioxide a “trace greenhouse gas”.
Domenech is director of the thinktank’s Fuelling Freedom project, for which he has penned numerous articles attacking action on climate change. “Under the Clean Power Plan more people will suffer – and for no benefit to our climate,” he wrote of Barack Obama’s flagship energy plan to move away from fossil fuels.
Writing about a recent conference of climate change sceptics in Washington, organised by the TPPF, he said: “Is climate change real? Yes, it has happened in the past and will happen in the future. Is man making an impact on the climate? Perhaps but in very small ways. But the overarching consensus remains the climate change we are experiencing is by no means catastrophic.”
Centrica said its donations to the thinktank were entirely unrelated to its stance on the environment.
“We have a very clear position on climate change and we believe in the need to take material action to reduce the effect of fossil fuels on climate change,” a spokesman said. “We do not make contributions to any organisation to advocate specifically for a position on the environment and the Texas Public Policy Foundation is no exception.”
Centrica acquired the Houston-headquartered Direct Energy in 2000 for £406m. The company is the biggest residential energy supplier in North America, serving nearly 5m households and businesses.
Centrica said it donated to the TPPF because it shared some of its views on a “well-structured” retail electricity market. It is not clear exactly how much the company has donated in total to the thinktank but the Guardian understands the most recent donation was of the same order of magnitude as the $20,000 given in 2010.
On Thursday, Centrica upgraded its annual profit forecast, partly due to a stronger-than-expected performance by its north American businesses. Earnings per share are up 6.5% to 16.5p, and the company’s adjusted operating cash flow is to be £2.4bn to £2.6bn, up from more than £2bn previously.
