Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio's NGO discussed requests for support from Chuck Savitt, the law firm's director of strategic cli...
Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio's NGO discussed requests for support from Chuck Savitt, the law firm's director of strategic client relationships.
Hollywood actor and climate change activist Leonardo DiCaprio's nonprofit organization (NGOs) awarded grants to a dark money group that sent the funding to a law firm filing lawsuits against oil companies accused of destroying the environment via climate change deception. Dan Emmett, a major philanthropist, and Ann Carlson, a climate change professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, both collaborated with the law firm Sher Edling to file a series of lawsuits against the oil corporations for releasing inaccurate information about their environmental impact, emails obtained by Fox News showed.
DiCaprio's NGO discussed requests for support from Chuck Savitt, law firm's director
According to the emails retrieved from 2017, the duo from DiCaprio's NGO discussed requests for support from Chuck Savitt, the law firm's director of strategic client relationships. Savitt informed Emmett that support from Terry Tamminen the then-CEO of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation was already received towards taking the action. "Chuck Savitt who is heading this new organization behind the lawsuits has been seeking our support," Emmett wrote to Carlson on July 22, 2017. "Terry Tamminen in his new role with the DiCaprio Foundation has been a key supporter."
Savitt asked for Emmett's help and support saying that Sher Idling's lawsuits had been filed with the Collective Action Fund for Accountability, Resilience, and Adaptation — a fund that was partially managed by dark money group Resources Legacy Fund, Fox news reported. "Wanted to let you know that we filed the first three lawsuits supported by the Collective Action Fund on Monday," Savitt told Emmett in the emails retrieved by the outlet.
"These precedent-setting cases call on 37 of the world's leading fossil fuel companies to take responsibility for the devastating damage sea level rise — caused by their greenhouse gas emissions — is having on coastal communities," the messages further revealed. The conversation happened just two months before DiCaprio's foundation announced that is allocating an estimated $20 million in grants to various climate change groups. This included grants towards the Resources Legacy Fund for its fight against the fossil fuel use that increasingly harms the climate.
"From 2017 to 2020, Sher Edling received grants from RLF to pursue charitable activities to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for the accuracy of the information they had disseminated to consumers and the public about the role their products played in causing climate change," Resources Legacy Fund spokesman Mark Kleinman told Fox news. "RLF receives support from many funding entities, and its board of directors and staff make all decisions as to where the funding goes," he added.
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