Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt revealed that the company will be severing ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) due to group's stance regarding climate change.
ALEC, a key conservative group, was accused by Schmidt of lying about the state of climate change, which led Google to back out from its financial support to the organization.
"The consensus within the company was that that was some sort of mistake and so we're trying to not do that in the future," Schmidt said in an interview with Diane Rehm of the National Public Radio.
Google's decision comes just before a summit of the United Nations that will focus on the issue of climate change. The company's action is then seen as a victory for campaigners, along with the move of the United Nations to urge organizations to challenge initiatives that will further add to the problems of climate change.
Google was previously supporting ALEC over an issue not related to climate change. However, the company decided to stop its support as Google has a strong view that political decisions should be made based on the available facts.
"Everyone understands climate change is occurring and the people who oppose it are really hurting our children and our grandchildren and making the world a much worse place. And so we should not be aligned with such people - they're just, they're just literally lying," Schmidt said.
As such, Google will not renew its membership in ALEC at the end of 2014.
ALEC is known to be in opposition of policies drafted to combat climate change. The group has questioned additional federal regulations for coal-fired power plants, challenged the usage of renewable sources of energy, and has seeded doubt over the entire body of scientific research done on climate change.
Lisa Nelson, the CEO of ALEC, has expressed her disappointment in Google's decision to terminate its membership in the group. She said that Google came to the decision due to public pressure from left-leaning people and groups that advertently confuse perspectives on free market policies with denial for climate change policies.
"ALEC believes in freedom of speech and opinion. Google is an important voice on these and many other issues, and we will miss their perspective in our discussions," Nelson added.
ALEC is underwritten partly by Duke Energy, Exxon Mobil, Koch Industries and Peabody Energy.
The United Nations is set to introduce a briefing document at the upcoming summit entitled Are you engaging responsibly in climate policy. The document calls on leaders of organizations to inspect the climate policies of trade groups and to leave those groups if they are against climate policies.
The United Nations found that 45 organizations belong to groups which have positions that are against addressing climate change issues.
