Among the "advisors" listed on the sleepy website of something known as the Belt and Road International Green Development Coalition (BRIGC) is a senior official at Michael Bloomberg's eponymous philanthropic organization, Bloomberg Philanthropies. The official, Antha Williams, the head of Bloomberg Philanthropies' environmental programs, serves as an adviser to the co-chairs of the organization, who include a Chinese Communist Party official responsible for the country's Ministry of Ecology and the Environment.
Read the fine print, and it quickly becomes clear that the BRIGC, established jointly by China and what it describes as "international partners," is an effort to draw global support for the CCP's Belt and Road Initiative under the banner of environmentalism.
"The main goal of BRIGC is to promote international consensus understanding, cooperation and concerted actions to achieve green development of BRI, to integrate sustainable development into the BRI," the organization's website states.
Chinese president Xi Jinping established the BRIGC in April 2019 at China’s second Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. Under the organization's founding charter, China’s State Ministry of Ecology and Environment and Ministry of Civil Affairs provide "business guidance" that the coalition must accept. Controlled by the Chinese government—the organization's charter stipulates that it is subject to the authority of the Chinese Ministry of Ecology and the Environment and the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and it must comply with all CCP laws—it is aimed at cultivating support and involvement from international groups, including Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Bezos Earth Fund, whose president, Andrew Steer, is a co-chairman.
National security experts who spoke to the Free Beacon warned that such a collaboration creates a host of national security concerns and makes American institutions more vulnerable to Chinese influence campaigns. They added that the Belt and Road Initiative and BRIGC have been carefully constructed to boost China’s strategic power rather than to reduce emissions or address global warming. "The Belt and Road Initiative is the CCP’s geopolitical theory of victory," Michael Sobolik, a senior fellow at Hudson Institute who specializes in U.S.–China relations, told the Washington Free Beacon, adding that it is a "national security threat to the United States and the fact that any U.S. entity would partner with it, let alone fund it, is really concerning."
The BRIGC's initiatives by and large promote Chinese interests. The initiatives, for example, include the development of a "green Silk Road" to make infrastructure projects more climate-friendly, the Green Innovation Conference promoting green technology development, and the Green Investment and Finance Partnership that boosts green investments in China.
Those priorities were outlined at the most recent BRIGC convening in Beijing in March 2024 where officials stressed the importance of continued collaboration between all partners. Several American nonprofits participated in the meeting.
"With continuous support from its partners, BRIGC is expected to play a unique role as an international organization in building a broader platform for dialogues and communications, and conducting more forward-looking studies with wide influence and insights to guide real practice, so as to make positive contributions to promoting BRI green cooperation and high-quality development," the BRIGC said in a readout of the meeting.
The United Nations also touts its support for the coalition, stating that the "greening" of the Belt and Road Initiative directly contributes to its environmental and climate goals. More than 20 of its agencies and funds, including the UN Environment Programme, are involved.
Bloomberg Philanthropies is less vocal about its support—the Free Beacon was unable to find a single reference to the BRIGC on the group’s website. But its participation in the BRIGC and the Belt and Road initiative is of a piece with statements that Bloomberg himself made as a short-lived presidential candidate in 2020, when he told an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations that his administration would "provide technical assistance to countries participating in China’s Belt and Road initiative to ensure that they have clean alternatives to coal-fired power."
Representatives of Bloomberg Philanthropies notably participated in a February 2024 seminar on improving "green cooperation" between China and Indonesia. The BRIGC was heavily involved in that event and was looked to as a key resource for coordinating green investments in Indonesia.
Williams—who once advocated for increased private capital to support Chinese green energy projects and applauded the work of China's Green Finance Committee, which the Asia Society lists as an arm of the Chinese government—chaired a 2019 BRIGC-sponsored event in Norway held to promote marine conservation among Belt and Road Initiative-participating countries.
Through its 501(c)(3) arm, the Bloomberg Family Foundation, the Bloomberg network has wired more than $100 million in grants to other BRIGC partner organizations—such as CDP Worldwide, ClientEarth, Environmental Defense Fund, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, World Resources Institute, and World Wildlife Fund—in the years since BRIGC was founded, according to tax filings analyzed by the Free Beacon. Those grants were largely earmarked for the purpose of combating global emissions.
Among its contributions in that timeframe, the Bloomberg Family Foundation gave $8.5 million directly to the United Nations Environment Programme.
And it gave a staggering $42.8 million to C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, a BRIGC member and nonprofit where Bloomberg and Williams both serve on the board of directors and where Bloomberg is currently listed as the group’s chairman. C40 Cities, which seeks to push far-left climate policies in cities worldwide, partnered with Bloomberg Philanthropies in 2022 to name Beijing the winner of its annual clean air prize.
The United Nations and Bloomberg Philanthropies did not respond to requests for comment.
While the United States is the largest global producer of oil and gas, which still drives every major industry from transportation and power to manufacturing and construction, Chinese companies have established a major foothold in green energy markets that seek to replace fossil fuels.
"China's geopolitical strategy, for national security reasons, is to create energy resources that the United States does not control and we can't intercept," said Michael Lucci, the chairman and CEO of State Armor, a group he founded to defend American states from Chinese influence. "Then, if they can, they want us to be dependent on energy resources that they do control and that they can intercept."
"So, the nonprofits within the United States that advocate for the United States being dependent on energy resources and technologies controlled by China are essentially useful idiots within China's geopolitical strategy that China depends on to advocate for their security interests within the United States," he continued.