https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vKR2!,w_1100,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fef2b4207-3930-4e18-9ed5-ca6d9a3bb813_2048x1448.jpeg Dan Emmett (yale.edu), Sher Edling logo (sheredling.com), Sabin Center for Climate Change Law logo (@SabinCenter/X) A California real estate developer is funding both climate lawsuits against major oil companies and the academic research used to shape how judges evaluate those cases, according to emails and tax filings reviewed by the Free Beacon. The wealthy environmental activist Dan A. Emmett has bankrolled the law firm Sher Edling, which has filed an array of lawsuits seeking damages from oil companies for everything from the rise of sea levels to heat waves. He’s also a funder of Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, home to the academics behind a chapter on climate science included in a manual that judges are supposed to use to adjudicate climate-related cases. Sher Edling asked Emmett to fund a 2017 lawsuit from three California communities seeking billions in damages from Shell, Chevron, and Exxon for the rise of sea levels, emails show. Months later, Emmett “encouraged Sher Edling to parlay his support into additional donations, pressing the firm in a 2018 email to identify him as a ‘serious supporter’ when soliciting support,” our Thomas Catenacci reports. The Sabin Center, meanwhile, lauds Emmett as a “generous supporter.” Emmett “is reflective of an emerging trend on the Left in which philanthropic donations and nonprofit organizations are used to bankroll lawsuits aimed at quantifying the damage caused by climate change and forcing the nation’s leading oil producers to pay—and, at the same time, producing climate-related academic literature and course material intended to influence the judges overseeing that litigation,” Catenacci writes. “The Free Beacon reported in December that the New Venture Fund, a left-wing dark money group, gave $2.3 million to Sher Edling, the law firm behind a bevy of lawsuits targeting oil companies, and $1.3 million to the Environmental Law Institute, which runs a project to train judges overseeing climate-related lawsuits. (Emmett has also directed at least $25,000 to the Environmental Law Institute since 2019.)” READ MORE: Meet the California Millionaire Funding Anti-Oil Lawsuits—And the Columbia Academics Working To Influence the Judges Handling The Cases