The latest batch of internal documents gives even more reason to continue probing the fossil fuel industry’s disinformation machine.
“We continue to balk at taking accountability for the emissions of our products,” read notes about BP America’s climate initiatives from a board meeting in 2019.
Two years later, American Petroleum Institute CEO Mike Sommers suggested that the trade association’s support of emissions reductions efforts depended on whether they could be used to legitimize the continued production of fossil fuels. Sommers wrote in a memo to API’s Board of Directors that reducing emissions from oil and gas flaring provided “an opportunity to further secure the industry’s license to operate.”
These are just two examples from a new cache of internal industry documents that expose oil executives’ long-term strategy to prolong the era of fossil fuels.