Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The Climate Institute, a previously well funded climate NGO promoting support for the Paris Agreement and other climate causes, has announced it will close due to lack of money, after a failed call for philanthropic donations to keep their doors open.
Climate Institute to shut due to lack of philanthropic support
Australia’s original climate change-focused think-tank and lobby group will shut after it failed to replace the multi-million-dollar bequest it relied on.
The Climate Institute, known for its research and leading role in public debate since being set up in 2005, will close in June.
It comes 18 months after the institute called for public donations to offset the lapsing of the foundational support set up by Rupert Murdoch’s niece, Eve Kantor, and her husband, farmer Mark Wootton.
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“We are disappointed that some in government prefer to treat what should be a risk-management issue as a proxy for political and ideological battles,” he said.
“They are increasingly isolated as the costs of inaction mount and the opportunities and benefits of action become ever clearer.”
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The Press Release from the Climate Institute;
Chair of Board announces closure of The Climate Institute
Mar 08, 2017 – 5:14pm
The Board of The Climate Institute (TCI) has announced that the TCI will cease to operate on June 30 2017. The Board announced that the decisions comes as a result of being unable to establish the viable level of funding that would enable The Climate Institute to continue in a meaningful, sustainable form.
TCI has conducted ground-breaking research; built influential strategic partnerships among business, investor, welfare, union and other community groups; achieved domestic and diplomatic public policy outcomes; helped shape change to the regulatory landscape and driven the evolution of financial sector climate risk management, particularly among superannuation and institutional funds, domestically and internationally (see attached list of achievements on following page).
Through its Climate of the Nation series, TCI has also conducted what is now the longest trend survey of the attitudes of Australians to climate change and its solutions.
“With the expiry of its original founding bequest, and despite ongoing support from a range of philanthropic and business entities, the Board has been unable to secure sufficient funding to continue the level and quality of work that is representative of TCI’s strong reputation,” said Board Chair Mark Wootton, who was among the original founding Directors and has been Chair since 2007.
“The Climate Institute has been a provider of pioneering research and a leading advocate for credible, practical climate policy throughout a tumultuous period in Australian public, investor and business decision-making.
“TCI is often described as a trusted broker and critical friend, and we are proud of the way it has built understanding and consensus among a wide variety of stakeholders on such a complex, challenging and important issue. “We are disappointed that some in Government prefer to treat what should be a risk management issue as a proxy for political and ideological battles. They are increasingly isolated as the costs of inaction mount and the opportunities and benefits of action become ever clearer,” he said.
When established in 2005 for an intended five-year life, TCI was the only non-government organisation focussed solely on climate change. TCI has now been joined by many other organisations with a significant focus on climate change. Regulators and investors are beginning to seriously integrate climate risk and opportunity management. The historic Paris agreement provides a framework for international accountability and action. There has also been a stunning recent surge in affordability and scale of clean energy alternatives.
“While challenges still abound, the landscape is much stronger than it was twelve years ago when TCI was first established. The Board is proud of the achievements of The Climate Institute, and its staff, in making an enduring contribution towards its 2050 vision of a resilient Australia prospering in a zero-carbon global economy, participating fully and fairly in international climate change solutions.”
TCI will see a core body of projects to fruition by June 30, and the Board will work with other organisations to ensure key aspects of its work continue through 2017 and beyond. A Transition Sub-Committee has been established to oversee this work.
The Board has also reluctantly accepted the resignation of John Connor who has been Chief Executive Officer of The Climate Institute since February 2007. From April, Mr Connor will be working with Baker McKenzie, heading up the Fijian Government’s COP 23 Secretariat which has been established for the purpose of Fiji’s Presidency of the 23rd Convention of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. John has been a dedicated and highly skilled CEO at TCI and has been pivotal to our achievements.
Olivia Kember, Head of Policy will assume the role of Acting CEO.
The Board will make final determinations on the future of The Climate Institute and its work before June 30.
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The Climate Institute appear to have found it impossible to survive on less than a million dollars per year. Receipts in 2014 dropped to $727,000, down from over three million dollars in previous years.
In my opinion they could probably have done more to trim expenses.
For example, The Climate Institute website appears to be a bespoke effort powered by Lateral Systems. I am not disrespecting the quality of their web pages, but the Lateral Systems product seems quite expensive, though no doubt comparable to similar bespoke offerings.
By comparison, WUWT runs on WordPress.com – a content management system which allows people to create a new website for free.
If I have correctly understood the Lateral Systems product page, the Climate Institute likely paid 10s of thousands of dollars every year for their website. This is a substantial and in my opinion unnecessary standing cost, for an organisation which relies on donations to survive.
Perhaps if the Climate Institute hadn’t started existence with a large though limited term annual multi-million dollar grant, they might have learned how to conserve scarce resources.
The CI ‘built influential strategic partnerships among business, investor, welfare, union and other community groups’ … not one of which was interested in giving us money. And we certainly ain’t gonna do this world-saving work for nuthin’. So, see ya later, we’re off to the next UN gig.
Just as I expected. The Climate Inastitute’s 2016 accounts
http://www.climateinstitute.org.au/verve/_resources/TCI_Annual_Review_2015-16-FINAL_WEB.pdf
show:
Revenue $1,181,388
Other income $10,950
Employee benefits expense ($949,551)
Depreciation and amortisation expense ($18,202)
Other expenses ($486,925)
In other words, they spend virtually all of their income on their own salaries.
They ended 2016 (that’s 30 June 2016) with $1,549,816 in the bank and total liabilities of $189,554. By folding now, it would appear that they can give what is left of their cash – a paltry $million or so – to themselves, rather than use it as intended.
Have I misinterpreted anything ……
Nope. You got it just about right. Good sleuthing.
Curious as to what the FTE head count is on which they spent approx. $2,000,000 Oz in direct labor and benefits.
This was my immediate thought. It is close to sc@ming to pay for what are non jobs.
Personally, I consider that any body that is designated as a charity (has governmental charitable status and the tax breaks that come with that designated status) ought not to be permitted by law, to pay any of its staff more than $100,000 pa, with the vast majority of employed staff at no more than the country’s average wage.
I would make an exception for hospitals and the like, but nothing more. If these bodies want to pay their staff more then they should not be deemed a charity.
Great Idea!
How noble of them,
I was always confused by Australia. They only have 23 million people on a land mass the size of the USA. Their per capita CO2 emissions must have been so low as to not even be able to measure but they were one of the most vocal countries on the CO2 issue.
Not only that they have ginormous wildfires that must have contributed a million times more CO2 than their population.
Like I said, ???
You think that’s confusing Archie how about this: the Australian federal and state governments are hell-bent on eliminating coal as a fuel for electricity generation locally while encouraging and benefitting through taxes and royalties its mining and export, Australia being by far the world’s top coal exporter at 36% of total world coal exports (2015).
No, mobs like TCI loved to blame Australia for having the highest per capita emissions. With a low population our total emissions were low on a world scale, so that was never mentioned. Good riddance to bad rubbish, as my grandmother would say.
It is worse than you think.
Australia is actually a net carbon sink, not an emitter.
So the rest of the world should be paying us to offset some of their emissions.
Yet, people in Australia like Tony McCleod believe the media when the media states, with scientific fact of course, that Aus is the worlds largest emitter of GHG’s!
My understanding was that Australia was a net CO2 sink.
Canada has that beat for stupid by a mile! Second coldest country on the planet leading the fight against non-existent global warming! -29C here last night! Good grief!
Selfie Boy will be kicked out at the next election: even his past supporters no longer want him. The only question is whether there’s anyone better who can replace him.
Not only that. If Australia sank below the waves tomorrow, it would make no measurable difference to the climate. Form the past many years, China’s annual GROWTH in CO2 emissions has exceeded Australia’s TOTAL annual emissions. And narcissistic politicians really think that the rest of the world is looking to follow our our good example.
Lemme know when
https://skepticalscience.com/
kicks off
It was brain-dead from the very start ! 🙂
Don’t the folks at SS get government money?
The green and the sustainable:
Who will clear up the mess behind them.
As the pyramid collapses, who will be left holding the most money? Big Al?
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Its an obsolescent organisation.
The heavy lifting is now being done through the RET, Labor/Liberal consensus and the Greens, who wag both the major party’s tails.
Once climate change due to CO2 is mainstreamed and becomes orthodox, no one wants to support such an organisation.
Unfortunately we Aussies are looking at a grim, South Australian, future.
Widespread outages and expensive electricity if its available.
The destruction of our manufacturing industry and defence industry.
Speaking to a South African acquaintance she laughed.
At home they advertise when you have electricity and load shed you.
Where her sister lives, she gets four hours a day electricity.
We are not being led by the best and the brightest at the moment.
Many migrants came to Australia to get away from such incompetence.
Its time someone spoke up.
There are a lot of eager ears.
“The Climate Institute, known for its research”…..what research??
Exactly Dave , what research? Have heard nothing but fearmongering and blatant desperate attempts to persuade the masses of impending doom if we don’t stop burning fossil fuels .
The biggest mouthpiece flimflam actually owns beachfront property , like all good shuysters .
Do as I say not as I do , just don’t let the door slam you on the arse on the way out .
….of the fools, by the fools, and for the fools. (I think that also applies to anyone who donated to them.)
… anyone who donated to them willingly, anyway. I donated a heap unwillingly!
Since the internet became popular, “research” is now actually searching Google for what you want to find, publicly agreeing with like-minded activists and PR stunts.
Oh, Fiji. As they said “Poor fella, my country.”
It will be a relief to listen to the ABC news without hearing CI nonsense. (There will still be plenty of other nonsense, of course.)
I can happily live with never hearing any more from Tim It-ain’t-gonna-rain-no-mo’ Flannery.
The Anthropocene epoch ended on November 8, 2016. We barely knew ya.
Amen!
Looks like even uncle Rupert won’t pay for his niece’s publications.
Mostly known for its attempt to perpetuate a climate fraud on the world by changing historical temperatures that it thought no one had access to. As it turned out the actual readings were still in the Australian Museum, the original logs. Which laid waste to the hypothesis of the warmists.
This is good news. Let’s hope for lots more closures of the corrupt “climate change” lobbying and propaganda organisations.
So….
When denied our valuable tax dollars, they just can’t survive. Oh the humanity!
Do I really need a sarc?
And so the great cull begins…
Well, they fold with some big notches in their bow: Wivenhoe dam burst and the Victorian desalination plant white elephant being prominent. Thanks guys, we’ll really miss you.
They’re looking for wind turbine maintenance and uninstallers in Texas. Anything recyclable in the turbine or panel? Any potential in an alternate energy junk yard? Who’s going to pay for the mess on the lands they’ve ruined.
Are there no honest men or women in Washington?
“Are there no honest men or women in Washington?”
Silly you.
Another brick falls from the wall protecting the global warming scare.
The Acid Rain scare of the 1980s is now merely a memory that only comes to mind when people are reminded of it. The global warming scare will soon be the same.
Richard
You mean they can not carry on with this most important work , where there is ‘no time to waste ‘ and its the ‘most important event ever ‘ without a large amount of cash in their pockets . Do they no care about the planet ?
“I am not disrespecting the quality of their web pages, but the Lateral Systems product seems quite expensive, though no doubt comparable to similar bespoke offerings.
By comparison, WUWT runs on WordPress.com – a content management system which allows people to create a new website for free.”
An example of the difference in behaviour when spending one’s own money compared with spending somebody else’s: private enterprise (wealth producing) v funding via taxation or public subscription (wealth consuming).
It is why ‘Government’ can never be efficient, and why ‘charities’ spend far more on themselves than their supposed beneficiaries.
Somebody has to do the work. They aren’t a volunteer organization per se. That means they have to assign a staffer or pay someone else. If someone on staff does the job, that means something else won’t get done.
My friends on the board of a charitable organization once asked me if a certain project was doable in-house. By the time I had listed all the resources required, it was obvious to them that it was much cheaper to pay someone else to do the job than to do it in-house for ‘free’.
Bingo!
Winning!
Didn’t Yale close its Climate Change Institute last march ?
Soon there will be no safe place for the snowflakes….they’ll just melt away,
Or, as a certain Dr. Viner said a few years ago, “the children won’t know what snow is.”
But they will know what a snow job is.
“Other people’s money”, seems to have run out ..
CHEERS all round
Next.. subsidies on wind and solar, and the RET 🙂