Companies Backing Obama Also Fund Enemies Of Climate Change

Numerous corporations have been touting their support for US President Barack Obama and his environmental agenda. Companies like DuPont, Google, and PepsiCo, among others have donated to many lawmakers who refused to accept the scientific consensus of the role of humanity on climate change.

Reuters reviewed the donations made by these companies during the 2016 election cycle, and among the 30 biggest publicly traded companies that signed Obama's "American Business Action on Climate Change Pledge" DuPont and PepsiCo also donated half or more of their political spending to the campaigns of over 130 congressional lawmakers who were listed as "climate deniers." Google, AT&T, General Electric, Verizon, and Mondelez also gave more than a third of their political donations to mostly Republican candidates in the same list.

Among them are Republican Congressman Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, presidential candidate Donald Trump's energy advisor who said that the Earth was cooling, not warming, and Republican U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, who held up a snowball on the Senate floor last year as evidence global warming does not exist Obama recently slammed the Republican Party for being "the only major party that I can think of in the advanced world that effectively denies climate change," producing a schism between businesses and the political party.

However, a GE spokeswoman said in a statement that they back officials based on a wide range of issues, and that they have "consistently been outspoken about the need to address climate change and have invested over $17 billion in cleaner technology R&D over the last 11 years." The Huffington Post noted that last year, companies including Goldman Sachs, Starbucks, Johnson & Johnson, and Walmart committed to using 100 percent renewable energy in 10 years.

However, Lauren Compere, the managing director at Boston common Asset Management said that the consistency between policy and political giving is becoming increasingly important, adding that "No company should want to be perceived as espousing progressive climate policies on the one hand, while funding climate deniers on the other."