A leading candidate in Hawaii’s gubernatorial race has revealed new details of the unrelenting campaign by the Rockefeller-funded Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) to influence state and local governments around the country to file climate lawsuits against energy producers. On a podcast released earlier this week, the former mayor of Honolulu and current Democratic candidate for governor detailed how his office was solicited by CCI and encouraged to join their climate litigation campaign.

Then-Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell filed a public nuisance lawsuit against several oil and natural gas companies in 2020, along with the County of Honolulu; the County of Maui filed a similar but separate lawsuit shortly after.

The podcast City Climate Corner recently highlighted the Hawaii lawsuits and interviewed “some of the key people involved to learn how it happened, why they did it, and what they expect to gain from it.” That list of people involved includes former Mayor Caldwell, Maui City Council member Kelly Takaya King, and Alyssa Johl, legal director for CCI.

Speaking to the origins of the lawsuit, Caldwell admitted that he and other Hawaii officials were recruited by Rockefeller-funded CCI to file the lawsuit:

“[CCI’s Alyssa Johl] showed up on Oahu. We got her before the governor of the state of Hawaii and we are in his cabinet room with a whole bunch of people, and my goal – we’re on board to file a lawsuit, but we wanted the state of Hawaii to do it, we wanted all the counties to do it, and Maui stepped up.”

The state of Hawaii clearly chose not to file, perhaps after considering the outcomes of similar suits filed in New York and San Francisco. But King asserts this hasn’t stopped the momentum in Hawaii, nor her interest in getting other municipalities to join the fringe trend:

“Now as vice president of the Hawaii State Association counties, I’m trying to work on the other two counties in our state to also join the lawsuit because this issue is statewide.”

Caldwell went on to express his hope that CCI will further influence the decisions of the next Hawaii governor – a position that he himself is running for:

“Alyssa, she was a catalyst to get things going on a statewide level here on Oahu, and I hope she comes back and has another crack at it when there’s a new governor.”

Creator and Supporter

CCI is trying to play both sides in the Honolulu and Maui cases. Last year, the group filed an amicus brief in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in support of the municipalities CCI itself recruited.

The friend of the court brief was also signed by the Rockefeller-funded Union of Concerned Scientists and researchers Robert Brulle, Benjamin Franta, Stephan Lewandowsky, Naomi Oreskes, and Geoffrey Supran. Franta, Oreskes, and Supran have all received funding from the Rockefeller Family Fund or CCI. The brief dedicates effectively zero attention to either the Hawaii municipalities in question or legal arguments in support of the municipalities. Instead, it reads like a summary of the Rockefeller-funded and debunked “Exxon Knew” Inside Climate News reporting series.

CCI takes an active role in recruiting plaintiffs and, at least in some cases, actively drafting or developing the lawsuit. So, on one hand, CCI is “the catalyst” for climate litigation in Hawaii, and on the other, it is an independent third party offering additional facts for the court’s consideration.

Additional Support from Another Rockefeller-Funded Group

CCI hasn’t been the only Rockefeller-supported group that’s been aiding Hawaii in its climate litigation push. In a recent blog, the Union of Concerned Scientists highlighted their own involvement in bringing about Honolulu’s lawsuit:

“[Climate litigation cases] require a good deal of technical support and public education. In May 2019, for example, UCS co-sponsored a public forum on the climate liability of fossil fuel companies with the University of Hawaii School of Law and the Center for Climate Integrity. UCS also briefed Honolulu city, county, and state officials to promote understanding of climate attribution science and the legal liability of fossil fuel companies.” (emphasis added)

UCS has received funding from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, co-hosted the infamous 2012 La Jolla conference where the playbook for the climate litigation was mapped out, met with Democratic attorneys general to pitch them on the litigation, and commissioned Richard Heede’s “Carbon Majors” report which attempts to link a certain amount of emissions to specific energy companies.

Different States, Same Tactics

Other states and municipalities – including State of Minnesota, the City of Annapolis, the City of Hoboken, and Anne Arundel County – have also fallen for CCI’s pitch.

In 2020, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced that his office was filing a civil consumer protection lawsuit, and later, Michael Noble, the Executive Director of environmental activist group Fresh Energy, revealed the origin of the suit:

“[Center for Climate Integrity] brought this concept to Fresh Energy in the fall of 2018, and Fresh Energy helped put this idea in front of Attorney General Keith Ellison shortly after he was sworn in.”

Later, CCI and Fresh Energy filed an amicus brief in support of Ellison’s climate lawsuit. In the brief, neither group mentions their role in formulating the suit in the first place.

Back in 2019, the Rockefeller Family Fund’s Lee Wasserman helped Fresh Energy’s Michael Noble recruit a Minnesota Law professor to write a memo providing the legal justification for the climate lawsuit. After receiving feedback from CCI’s legal director Alyssa Johl, Noble passed the memo along to Attorney General Ellison.

The same year that CCI was courting the Minnesota District Attorney’s office, open records requests revealed that CCI and local activist group Chesapeake Climate Action Network communicated extensively with Annapolis and Anne Arundel County, Maryland officials to encourage the municipalities to file climate lawsuits.

Those records show that an employee from CCAN worked with Johl to organize a meeting in November 2020 between CCAN, CCI, Annapolis, and Anne Arundel County. An employee from CCAN stated that “there is a good chance that Annapolis will file a suit as long as it does not cost too much in time and money” – a concern that CCI was focused on addressing.

Also in 2020, the City of Hoboken, New Jersey filed a climate lawsuit that is being bankrolled on a contingency fee arrangement by the Institute on Governance and Sustainable Development (IGSD), the former parent organization of CCI. In 2017, IGSD received a $1 million grant from the Rockefeller Family Foundation earmarked for IGSD’s Climate Education & Litigation Project, the precursor to CCI. Since launching CCI, IGSD’s annual grant revenue has more than doubled to nearly $10 million.

Conclusion

Former Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s revelations clearly build on the Rockefeller Foundations’ history of using front groups to dangle the prospect of large settlements to recruit elected state and municipal officials’ participation in supposedly “risk-free” lawsuits. Elected officials have falsely touted these suits as grassroots movements despite the fact that CCI receives millions of dollars from wealthy foundations and foreign agents.