For a movement obsessed with transparency, the activists and lawyers behind climate lawsuits have been remarkably opaque about who’s paying their bills. [emphasis, links added]
That’s changing.
As The Free Press reported this week, twenty-six state attorneys general (AGs) are asking the Justice Department (DOJ) to investigate whether the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) and Energy Foundation China (EFC) have been acting as unregistered foreign agents, using climate litigation and advocacy to weaken U.S. energy production in ways that conveniently align with Beijing’s geopolitical interests.
EID has long exposed climate lawfare for its carefully financed, legally coordinated public pressure campaign built around activist litigation, friendly elected officials, and dark-money nonprofits.
Members of Congress have launched investigations and held hearings on these findings. Now, state AGs are asking whether it crosses a legal line:
“We write to respectfully request that the Justice Department investigate Energy Foundation China (“EF-China”) and Center for Climate Integrity (“CCI”) for potential violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (“FARA”) While both entities are registered as U.S.-based 501(c)(3) charitable organizations focused on climate activism, there is substantial evidence that both have acted within the United States as unregistered agents of foreign principals.”
On Wednesday, Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen publicly confirmed the letter in a formal press release, announcing that he is leading the state AG coalition:
“There are organizations, especially those linked to China, attempting to undermine our energy sector,” Knudsen said. “China is our greatest adversary, and I’m asking the Department of Justice to investigate these organizations to ensure our energy is protected from foreign influence.”
Nothing to See Here…Just Climate Lawfare and China
Lo and behold, one of the main entities cited in the letter is the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) — a familiar name to anyone tracking climate lawfare.
The group has received extensive financial support from British billionaire Chris Hohn through the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF).
Then there’s Energy Foundation China (EFC), a group that openly acknowledges ties to Chinese government bodies and employs former CCP officials at the top.
EFC has pushed more than $150 million into U.S. climate groups – many of them deeply involved in lawsuits and policy campaigns aimed at the fossil fuel industry. EFC, according to the letter, is intricately linked to CIFF.
According to the AGs’ letter from 2021 to 2023, CCI spent over $10 million backing climate litigation and congressional investigations targeting American energy companies.
This is the same group that markets itself as “empowering communities” while coordinating with plaintiffs’ firms and government officials to pressure producers through the courts.
The AGs argue that these activities may trigger FARA obligations, which require disclosure when entities influence U.S. policy on behalf of foreign principals.
In other words, these groups may be intentionally misleading Americans about the potential extent of foreign – and specifically Chinese – influence driving these campaigns.
California Plastic Lawfare Also Tied to Pro-CCP Foreign Billionaire
Interestingly, this is all reminiscent of California’s plastic-recycling lawsuits, one of which is funded by the vocally pro-China and CCP-linked Australian billionaire Andrew Forrest.
In California, Forrest, through his Minderoo Foundation, funds the law firm Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy that’s representing NGOs in a plastic-recycling lawsuit against ExxonMobil, filed alongside CA AG Rob Bonta’s nearly identical case in September 2024.
As the AGs’ letter points out, CCI laid the groundwork for both California cases:
“CCI, in conjunction with one of its funders, the Rockefeller Family Fund, developed a report on plastics pollution that appears to have been designed to support groups litigating against energy companies in the United States. Shortly after the report was released, the California Attorney General announced a lawsuit against Exxon for plastics pollution, and cites the report ‘over nine times, parrots its exact language, and makes nearly identical arguments.’ ”
Cotchett was forced by the DOJ to register under FARA and disclose their foreign backing only months after the two cases were filed.
Earlier this year, Forrest’s firm Fortescue Metals secured an RMB 14.2bn ($2 billion) syndicated offshore loan from China, quadrupling its initial target. Arranged by Bank of China and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the deal was the largest loan ever of its kind for a non-Chinese company.
Once again, a foreign-linked billionaire with deep commercial ties to Beijing is underwriting litigation aimed at reshaping domestic energy and manufacturing policy, this time through plastic recycling lawfare in California.
And once again, foreign backing only became visible after regulators intervened.
Capitol Hill Already Warned Us
Earlier this year, a U.S. Senate Judiciary subcommittee dug into climate lawfare, examining how foreign funding and nonprofit networks are used to wage energy policy battles that voters never approved.
When ‘follow the science’ turns into ‘don’t investigate obvious links to China,’ something is amiss.
House investigators have also previously raised parallel concerns, warning that China has every incentive to undermine U.S. oil and gas.
These warnings have also extended beyond Congress. Federal tax authorities have also begun scrutinizing elements of the climate litigation ecosystem and the dark money networks tied to the lawsuits, and whether their purported charitable purpose aligns with their other political activities.
When the same networks show up again and again – be it via foreign-linked funding, coordinated litigation, activist trial lawyers, or policy outcomes that just happen to benefit Beijing, it stops looking accidental.
Yet the same activists who demand subpoenas, prosecutions, and investigations of American energy producers are now warning about overreach and free speech.
Accountability, it seems, is a one-way street—until it threatens the networks pulling the strings.
Bottom Line
Climate lawfare is increasingly a transparency issue, a national security issue, and, as the new AG letter points out, a legal one. Because when “follow the science” turns into “don’t investigate obvious links to China,” something is amiss.
Read more at EID Climate
