ExxonMobil climate change denial

[1] ExxonMobil funded organizations critical of the Kyoto Protocol and seeking to undermine public opinion about the scientific consensus that global warming is caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

[1] According to a 2007 analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists, the company used many of the same strategies, tactics, organizations, and personnel the tobacco industry used in its denials of the link between lung cancer and smoking.

[6] From 1989 till April 2010, ExxonMobil and its predecessor Mobil purchased regular Thursday advertorials in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal that said that the science of climate change was unsettled.

[15][16] In October 2018, based on this investigation, ExxonMobil was sued by the State of New York, which claimed the company defrauded shareholders by downplaying the risks of climate change for its businesses.

[21][22] In July 1977, a senior scientist of Exxon, James Black reported to the company's executives that there was a general scientific agreement at that time that the burning of fossil fuels was the most likely manner in which mankind was influencing global climate change.

"[38] Exxon responded to the article by saying the allegations were based on cherry-picked statements from ExxonMobil employees and noting the ongoing climate research the company engaged in during the time in question.

[40][41] The report was criticized by ExxonMobil and the Independent Petroleum Association of America, an oil and gas lobbying group, because of alleged incomplete sampling of data collected by Greenpeace, authors' involvement in the #ExxonKnew campaign, and partial financing by the Rockefeller Family Fund.

[45] According to a 2007 analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists, the company used many of the same strategies, tactics, organizations, and personnel the tobacco industry used in its denials of the link between lung cancer and smoking.

[47] A study published in Nature Climate Change in 2015 found that ExxonMobil "may have played a particularly important role as corporate benefactors" in the production and diffusion of contrarian information.

[51] ExxonMobil funded organizations critical of the Kyoto Protocol and seeking to undermine public opinion about the scientific consensus that global warming is caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

Exxon was a founding member of the board of directors of the Global Climate Coalition, composed of businesses opposed to greenhouse gas emission regulation.

[52][53][54] According to Mother Jones magazine, between 2000 and 2003 ExxonMobil channelled at least $8,678,450 to forty organizations that employed disinformation campaigns including "skeptic propaganda masquerading as journalism" to influence the opinion of the public and political leaders about global warming.

[60][61][62] The Royal Society expressed "concerns about ExxonMobil's funding of lobby groups that seek to misrepresent the scientific evidence relating to climate change.

The letter drew criticism, notably from Timothy Ball who argued the society attempted to "politicize the private funding of science and to censor scientific debate".

[66] In 2006, the Brussels-based watchdog organization Corporate Europe Observatory said "ExxonMobil invests significant amounts in letting think-tanks, seemingly respectable sources, sow doubts about the need for [European Union] governments to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Covert funding for climate sceptics is deeply hypocritical because ExxonMobil spends major sums on advertising to present itself as an environmentally responsible company.

[79] From 1989 till April 2010, ExxonMobil and its predecessor Mobil purchased regular Thursday advertorials in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal that said that the science of climate change was unsettled.

"[80] Another 2000 advertorial published in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal entitled "Unsettled Science" said "it is impossible for scientists to attribute the recent small surface temperature increase to human activity.

"[84] A survey carried out by the UK Royal Society found that in 2005 ExxonMobil distributed US$2.9 million to 39 groups that "misrepresented the science of climate change by outright denial of the evidence".

[84] The Union of Concerned Scientists produced a report titled 'Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air',[85] that criticizes ExxonMobil for "underwriting the most sophisticated and most successful disinformation campaign since the tobacco industry" and for "funnelling about $16 million between 1998 and 2005 to a network of ideological and advocacy organizations that manufacture uncertainty on the issue".

[88] The Greenpeace research project ExxonSecrets,[89][90] as well as various academics,[91][92] have linked several scientists who are climate deniers—Fred Singer, Fred Seitz and Patrick Michaels—to organizations funded by ExxonMobil and Philip Morris for the purpose of promoting global warming denial.

[8][9][10] Lee Raymond, Exxon and ExxonMobil chief executive officer from 1993 to 2006, was one of the most outspoken executives in the United States against regulation to curtail global warming,[98] In February 2001, the early days of the administration of US President George W. Bush, ExxonMobil's head lobbyist in Washington wrote to the White House urging that "Clinton/Gore carry-overs with aggressive agendas" be kept out of "any decisional activities" on the US delegation to the working committees of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and recommending their replacement by scientists critical of the prevailing scientific consensus on climate change.

[35] Even that, however, came only in the form of boilerplate language in their Securities and Exchange Commission Form 10-K citing the threat to operations and earnings posed by "laws and regulations related to environmental or energy security matters, including those addressing alternative energy sources and the risks of global climate change"[109] rather than acknowledging the risks posed by climate change itself or by the company's contribution to it.

[70] On February 13, ExxonMobil CEO Rex W. Tillerson acknowledged that the planet was warming while carbon dioxide levels were increasing, "but in the same speech gave an unalloyed defense of the oil industry and predicted that hydrocarbons would dominate the world's transportation as energy demand grows by an expected 40 percent by 2030.

[Tillerson] stated that there is no significant alternative to oil in coming decades, and that ExxonMobil would continue to make petroleum and natural gas its primary products.

[119] Later the same year, on October 14, Ted Lieu and Mark DeSaulnier wrote to the United States Attorney General (US AG) requesting an investigation into whether ExxonMobil violated any federal laws by "failing to disclose truthful information" about climate change.

[123][124] On October 29, Whitehouse, Richard Blumenthal, Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey issued a letter to Exxon questioning their donations to Donors Trust, a group which funds climate change denial.

[145][146][147] Ric Marshall, executive director at ESG Research at MSCI, said, "It shows not just that there is more seriousness apparent in the thinking among investors about climate change, it's a rebuff of the whole attitude of the Exxon board.