Environmental groups play key role in Biden admin foreign policy, emails show

FIRST ON FOX: Major environmental organizations are quietly playing a key role in the Biden administration’s foreign policy efforts, according to emails reviewed by Fox News Digital.

The emails underscore the influence that left-wing environmentalists have on the Biden administration through the office of Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry.

On several occasions since President Biden took office nearly 20 months ago, green groups have acted as an ostensible intermediary for the administration in key international climate negotiations, according to emails obtained in an information request by the watchdog group Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT) and shared with Fox News Digital.

JOHN KERRY’S OFFICE ADVISED LEFT BEING ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS WHILE DEVELOPING POLICIES, EMAILS SHOW

The emails show correspondence between the environmental groups and Jesse Young, a senior adviser in Kerry’s office. They offer a rare peak into Kerry’s office, which has been largely tight-lipped about its internal operations.

“The State Department’s leadership in combating the global climate crisis is supported by diplomats, negotiators and subject matter experts with diverse backgrounds and decades of knowledge and experience from the public sector, academia, NGOs and the private sector,” says a State Department statement. a spokesperson told Fox News Digital.

The President’s Special Climate Envoy John Kerry attends the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, on November 12, 2021.
(Reuters/Yves Herman)

On March 8, 2021, Young emailed Alden Meyer—a senior associate at the environmental group E3G and climate policy consultant at Performance Partners—and other green group leaders, giving them information about Kerry’s trip and asking for their views on a leadership change at The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). At the time, former Australian government official Mathias Cormann had emerged as a favorite for the OECD secretary-general position.

Meyer responded, saying the groups were “weighing in on the Cormann front” and relaying a message from green groups. He also copied a number of other environmental leaders, adding that he would brief Young on it in more detail during “tomorrow’s kitchen cabinet briefing,” an apparent reference to an off-the-books group that meets to advise administration officials.

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“Our analysis is that unless the United States can be persuaded not to go after Cormann, he will get the job,” the release said. “It’s coming down to it, and this is about drawing a line in the sand and saying that anyone with a history of blocking climate action should be disqualified from senior international appointments.”

Young solicits input from environmental NGOs on OECD leadership change.
(Protect the public trust)

In response to Meyer’s email, Jake Schmidt — the senior strategic director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC) international climate program — said the U.S. needed to quickly “use its influence in the OECD” to support another candidate.

“The Aussie guy is terrible and shouldn’t be put in charge of such an important role,” Schmidt wrote. “Making climate an ‘essential element’ of foreign policy means that climate change must be at the top of all decisions.”

OECD member nations ultimately appointed Cormann to the post a week later. However, Cormann chose James Rubin—a former foreign policy adviser to Biden, State Department official, Kerry presidential campaign adviser and lobbyist who ended his lobbying registrations to join the Biden administration, according to The New York Times—to serve as the top deputy.

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“As a climate change think tank, E3G regularly seeks to educate and inform a wide range of stakeholders about our research into the impacts of and solutions to climate change, which represents the most significant threat to the health, prosperity and well-being of everyone on the planet,” Meyer told Fox News Digital in an email.

Schmidt responds to Young and Meyer’s correspondence and weighs Cormann’s bid for OECD chief.
(Protect the public trust)

In a separate email exchange on March 30, 2021, Young emailed Christy Goldfuss, senior vice president for energy and environmental policy at the Center for American Progress (CAP), referring to a phone call they had just participated in on the “climate finance promotion”. .” He mentioned that Goldfuss organized the call.

JOHN KERRY’S CLIMATE OFFICE RIP WITH RIBBON TO FAR LEFT GREEN GROUPS

Young then said he would be interested in another call with John Podesta — CAP’s founder, who was recently named White House clean energy czar — to “sync up” on climate finance issues.

In another exchange between Goldfuss and Young on April 26, 2021, Goldfuss invited a State Department official to participate in a “high-level discussion with the European Union on climate finance.” The official’s name was removed from the email.

“The first hour of the dialogue will be about electrification and electric cars. The other two are dedicated to climate finance,” Goldfuss wrote to Young. “The last hour is the high-level dialogue. If you think it will be interesting, you can share it [redacted] official email address with me.”

Goldfuss emails Young and invites a State Department official to “high-level” talks with European leaders.
(Protect the public trust)

“Facilitating discussions between international thought leaders is an important part of the role of any think tank that seeks to improve the lives of all Americans. We have national security and climate experts at CAP,” a CAP spokesperson told Fox News Digital. “It is natural for CAP to convene meetings that include thought leaders from inside and outside the U.S. government to engage in important dialogues when appropriate.”

Finally, on March 11, 2022, Anthony Swift, NRDC’s director of its Canada project, sent an email to Young and other State Department and White House officials offering to mediate discussions about climate and “carbon accounting practices in the forests” with Canada. Swift said he would like to brief the Biden administration on his team’s discussions with the Canadian government’s environment and natural resources ministers.

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“Both ministers have expressed an interest in addressing these issues, but have emphasized a desire to do so bilaterally with the United States,” he wrote. “We would appreciate an opportunity to brief you on both Canada’s current forest carbon accounting practices and opportunities to advance Canada’s climate ambition by harmonizing US-Canadian forest carbon accounting practices.”

The only other email from the thread included in the information request was a follow-up from Swift, who said Young had informed him that he had included an incorrect email address for one of the officials that was copied.

President Joe Biden greets Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in California on June 8.
(Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)

PPT director Michael Chamberlain said the email records obtained by his group showed a troubling pattern in which the Biden administration consulted outside groups on key foreign policy decisions, thereby avoiding oversight requirements.

“The outsourcing of foreign policy to activist organizations that these documents indicate can occur raises serious legal, ethical and constitutional concerns,” Chamberlain told Fox News Digital.

“The American public expects that the foreign policy activities that affect their lives, livelihoods, and security will be conducted by the federal government that represents them, not by large special interest groups outside the transparency and oversight requirements that govern federal agencies,” he added.

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NRDC did not respond to multiple requests for comment.