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From
2006 to 2016, ExxonMobil was led by Rex Tillerson, currently Secretary of State
under US President Donald Trump
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ExxonMobil knowingly
misled the public for decades about the danger climate change poses to a
warming world and the company's long-term viability, according to a
peer-reviewed study, released on Wednesday, of research and statements by the
US oil giant.
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The
fossil fuel industry is especially vulnerable to questions about climate risk
as the race to decarbonize the world economy gathers pace
|
An
analysis of nearly 200 documents spanning decades found that four-fifths of
scientific studies and internal memos acknowledged global warming is real and
caused by humans, while the same proportion of hundreds of paid editorials in
major US newspapers over the same period cast deep doubt on these widely
accepted facts.
The
study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, also cites
ExxonMobil calculations that capping global warming at under two degrees
Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) -- the goal enshrined in the landmark Paris
climate accord -- would impose sharp limits on the amount of fossil fuels that
could be burned, and thus potentially affect the firm's growth.
Both
findings are relevant to ongoing investigations by state and federal attorneys
general, along with the Securities and Exchange Commission, on whether the
company deceived investors on how it accounts for climate change risk.
Earlier
reporting by InsideClimate News, nominated last year for a Pulitzer, unearthed
the internal documents and came to much the same conclusion.
In
response, the company -- the largest oil producer in the United States, with
revenue of US$218 billion dollars (€185 billion) last year -- denied having led
a four-decade disinformation campaign.
"We
unequivocally reject allegations that ExxonMobil suppressed climate change
research," it said at the time. "We understand that climate risks are
real."
The
company slammed journalists for "cherry-picked" data in a way that
unfairly put the company in a bad light.
The
new study pushes back on that characterization.
"We
looked at the whole cherry tree," Geoffrey Supran, a researcher at Harvard
University and co-author of the study, told AFP.
- Systemic bias -
"Using
social science methods, we found a gaping, systematic discrepancy between what
Exxon said about climate change in private and academic circles, and what is
said to the public."
As
early as 1979, when climate change barely registered as an issue for the
public, Exxon was sounding internal alarms.
"The
most widely held theory is that... the increase in atmospheric CO2 is due to
fossil fuel combustion," an internal memo from that year read.
A
peer-reviewed study by Exxon scientists 17 years later concluded that "the
body of evidence... now points towards a discernable human influence on global
climate."
At
the same time, however, the company was spending tens of millions of dollars to
place editorials in The New York Times
and other influential newspapers that delivered a very different message.
"Let's
face it: The science of climate change is too uncertain to mandate a plan of
action that could plunge economies into turmoil," Exxon opined in 1997, as
the Bill Clinton administration faced overwhelming opposition in Congress to US
ratification of the Kyoto Protocol.
Natasha
Lamb, managing partner of investment management firm Arjuna Capital, said the
new analysis could bolster the lawsuits accusing ExxonMobil of deliberately
downplaying climate change risks.
"The
Harvard research shows systemic bias in sowing public doubt, while
acknowledging the risks privately," she said after reviewing the study's
main findings.
"That
is at the heart of the investigations."
Lamb's
firm filed the first shareholder proposal in 2013 asking ExxonMobil to assess
whether a 2C world would result in economically stranded assets.
Those
efforts were swatted down, but four years later a decisive 62 percent of
shareholders called on ExxonMobil, in a non-binding vote last May, to detail
how climate change will affect its future.
In
June, a taskforce spearheaded by former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg
released guidelines for disclosing corporate exposure to climate change risk,
in both in operations and investments.
Launched
at the 2015 climate summit in Paris, the transparency measures are designed to
show if businesses are aligned with the global shift toward a low-carbon
economy, and not unduly burdened with assets that could be stranded during that
transition.
The
fossil fuel industry is especially vulnerable to questions about climate risk
as the race to decarbonize the world economy gathers pace.
From 2006 to 2016, ExxonMobil was led by Rex Tillerson, currently Secretary of State under US President Donald Trump.
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