ExxonMobil climate change controversy
The ExxonMobil climate change controversy is the controversy around ExxonMobil's activities related to climate change, especially their promotion of climate change denial.
Since the 1970s, ExxonMobil engaged in research, lobbying, advertising, and grant making, some of which were conducted with the purpose of delaying widespread acceptance and action on global warming.
From the late 1970s and through the 1980s, Exxon funded internal and university collaborations, broadly in line with the developing public scientific approach. After the 1980s, the company was a leader in climate change denial, opposing regulations to curtail global warming. 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 helped to found and lead the Global Climate Coalition of businesses opposed to the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.
Early research From the late 1970s and through the 1980s, Exxon funded internal and university collaborations, broadly in line with the developing public scientific approach, and developed a reputation for expertise in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Between the 1970s and 2015, Exxon and ExxonMobil researchers and academic collaborators published dozens of research papers generally supporting the "emerging consensus that fossil fuel emissions could pose risks for society" and exploring "the extent of the risks." In response to critics ExxonMobil provided a list of over 50 article citations. In 1966, Esso scientist James Black and the National Academies of Science published a report that the rate of build-up of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main contributor to climate change, in the atmosphere corresponded with the rate of production of carbon dioxide by human consumption of fossil fuels. In July 1977, Black, then a senior scientist in Exxon's Research & Engineering division, warned company executives of the danger of atmospheric carbon dioxide increases from the burning of fossil fuels. Black reported that there was general scientific agreement at that time that the burning of fossil fuels was most likely manner in which mankind was influencing global climate change. Exxon launched a research program into climate change and climate modeling, including a $1 million, three-year research project which outfitted their largest supertanker, the Esso Atlantic, with a laboratory and sensors to measure the absorption of carbon dioxide by the oceans. In 1981, Exxon shifted its research focus to climate modelling. These climate modelling efforts were part of the broad scientific consensus on climate change. In 1982, Exxon's environmental affairs office circulated an internal report to Exxon's management which said that the consequences of climate change could be catastrophic, and that a significant reduction in fossil fuel consumption would be necessary to curtail future climate change. It also said that "there is concern among some scientific groups that once the effects are measurable, they might not be reversible." In 1989, Exxon's manager of science and strategy development, made a presentation to the board of directors reiterating the scientific consensus that a buildup of greenhouse gasses would result in significant consequences due to climate change. Based on documents released in 2016, the Center for International Environmental Law, a public interest, not-for-profit environmental law firm, said that from 1957 onward Humble Oil, one of predecessors of ExxonMobil, was aware of rising CO2 in the atmosphere and the prospect that it was likely to cause global warming. An ExxonMobil spokesperson said "To suggest that we had definitive knowledge about human-induced climate change before the world’s scientists is not a credible thesis."