It was created back in 2018 by the Environmental Law Institute, a leftist Washington, DC-based climate activist group. It’s known as the Climate Judiciary Project, and its mission is ostensibly to provide a resource of “reliable, up-to-date information” on the growing body of climate change litigation. Its real goal is to rig the courts.

According to CJP’s website, “As the body of climate litigation grows, judges must consider complex scientific and legal questions, many of which are developing rapidly. To address these issues, the Climate Judiciary Project of the Environmental Law Institute is collaborating with leading national judicial education institutions to meet judges’ need for basic familiarity with climate science methods and concepts.” The website continues, “We are developing and disseminating a climate science and law curriculum and are conducting seminars and educational programs in collaboration with leading climate scientists and legal experts.”

Of course, in an effort to ward off the obvious taint of this being a climate agenda-driven outfit, the following dubious message is included: “The goal of our project is to provide neutral, objective information to the judiciary about the science of climate change as it is understood by the expert scientific community and relevant to current and future litigation.”

That claim is reminiscent of other leftist-based “fact-checking” organizations and media monitors like NewsGuard. Just because one claims to be a “neutral” “expert” doesn’t make one so. And when it comes to climate change, the proof is in the pudding.

CJP’s actual agenda appears to be more sinister. It is not simply to provide a judiciary resource but rather to work to bias the judiciary in favor of the climate change agenda and against the fossil fuel industry. Most worrisome is just how effective CJP has been in making inroads within the judiciary.

The CJP has connected with judges across the First, Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Circuit Courts and had some 100 judges from the Ninth Circuit attend a plenary session it hosted in the winter of 2022. The briefing from that session states, “Spurred by government actions and court decisions — and accompanied by a drumbeat of growing impacts — a rule of law of climate change is emerging. ELI’s Climate Judiciary Project is preparing the bench to understand the science and ensure justice in the new legal environment.”

The ELI has held at least 80 events targeting climate-related issues, and it is clear, based on many of the courses and seminars, that the target of this outfit is the fossil fuel industry. For example, one of the modules at a seminar states, “The only factor that can clearly explain the rising temperatures of the two centuries is the increasing level of atmospheric greenhouse gases, modulated by land cover change and increases in atmospheric aerosols (pollutants) from human activities.” Really? That sounds more like climate activist dogma than actual science. The truth is that this assertion is very debatable.

Even more troubling is CJP’s focus on climate litigation tied to financial impact. As another module states, “Economic and financial impacts and damages from climate change are already occurring, and the potential costs and losses in the future are substantial, increasing non-linearly with the amount of global warming that occurs.” Problematic terminology like “climate justice” is included in these courses with respect to the supposedly uneven impact of climate change on low-income communities.

Seeing all this, the American Enterprise Institute recently released a report on the CJP that contends it’s “corruptly influencing the courts and destroying the rule of law to promote questionable climate science.”

The AEI calls the CJP’s claim of neutrality “false,” noting that it has supported the far-left Green New Deal and favored the Biden-Harris regime’s ridiculously named Inflation Reduction Act, which Biden himself has since touted as primarily a climate boondoggle.

Furthermore, AEI says, the CJP represents an “attack on the rule of law” as the group seeks “to coax and manipulate judges before their cases are heard.” In a way, CJP is involved in an elaborate effort to poison the well. Before any cases related to the fossil fuel industry may be brought before the courts, the CJP is attempting to bias judges in its favor.

The CJP receives millions from powerful leftist climate change groups, such as the JPB Foundation and the Hewlett Foundation, for the purpose of funding lawsuits targeting the oil industry. The CJP has interacted with and trained more than 2,000 judges since its founding, but who they are has not been disclosed. This, of course, helps hide CJP’s biasing influence on the judiciary.

Ultimately, the question is this: How will the fossil fuel industry get a fair hearing in court if judges have been prejudiced against them in the name of “science”?