News & Analysis
October 6, 2021
Groundbreaking reporting from InsideClimate News, the Los Angeles Times, and other outlets has shown that #ExxonKnew about the dangers posed by its fossil fuel products for decades, but engaged in a widespread campaign of deception to protect its profits.
The company now faces climate liability lawsuits from 26 states and municipalities — more than any other Big Oil company — and is under increased scrutiny after its senior federal lobbyist was caught on tape bragging about its deceptive tactics and admitting that Exxon executives do not want to testify before Congress out of fear of being “ripped to shreds.”
The American people deserve answers, and as Exxon’s CEO, Woods must testify. Here is just some of the evidence that members of the House Oversight Committee should ask him to explain:
Exxon Knew About the “Catastrophic” Impact of its Products Since the 1970s
As early as 1977, senior Exxon scientists warned executives about the scientific consensus that the burning of fossil fuels would raise global temperatures and cause drastic changes to the climate. “Present thinking holds that man has a time window of five to ten years before the need for hard decisions regarding changes in energy strategies might become critical,” Exxon scientist James F. Black wrote in 1978.
On at least two separate occasions between 1981 and 1982, Exxon scientists warned executives of the potentially “catastrophic” impacts of global warming resulting from the use of their fossil fuel products.
Exxon’s climate scientists and modelers were some of the best in the world, 40 years ago predicting today’s temperature increases and atmospheric CO2 levels with stunning accuracy.
Exxon and its subsidiaries took climate risks into account in planning and building major engineering and infrastructure projects, all while publicly denying the hazards of its products.
In 1995, Exxon developed a primer on climate science for the Global Climate Coalition that read, “The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied.” The primer went on to dismiss contrarian theories as unconvincing arguments against greenhouse gas emission-induced climate change.
Exxon Worked to Discredit Climate Science and Spread Climate Denial and Disinformation
Despite a decade of clear internal agreement with the scientific consensus on climate change, Exxon’s public position by the late 1980’s became to “emphasize the uncertainty in scientific conclusions regarding the potential enhanced greenhouse effect.” In an extensive campaign that stretched for at least 20 years and included front groups, scientists-for-hire, advertorials, and publications, Exxon led companies and industry trade associations in sowing doubt to delay action, much like the tobacco industry.
From 1998 to 2019, Exxon put at least $37 million toward funding nearly 70 organizations that pushed climate denial and sought to discredit climate science. More than $14.6 million was given after the company pledged to stop funding denialist organizations in 2008.
“Exxon was publicly promoting views that its own scientists knew were wrong,” former Exxon scientist Martin Hoffert testified under oath to Congress in 2019.
ExxonMobil Lobbyist Admitted to Company’s Climate Deception, Fear of Testifying
In June, ExxonMobil’s senior federal lobbyist, Keith McCoy, admitted on tape that the company has used “shadow groups” to undermine climate science and oppose government action, and that the company only publicly supported a carbon tax because it would never pass and was a good “talking point.”
In that same recording, McCoy said: “We don't want it to be us to have these conversations, especially in a hearing … Our CEO was invited to a hearing from a member of Congress who we know is just going to rip him to shreds when he goes there. The main thing that they’re looking at is to get ExxonMobil in front of a Congressional hearing so they can rip us apart.”
Exxon Continues to Pollute While Falsely Depicting Itself as Committed to Climate Solutions
Exxon has long promoted marketing campaigns that mislead consumers about its commitment to clean energy, such as “A Greener Energy Future. Literally,” which touted the company’s goal to have the technical ability to produce 10,000 barrels of algae biofuel per day by 2025-- an output equivalent to only 0.2% of Exxon’s current refinery production.
Exxon claims to support the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. To achieve that goal, oil and gas production must decline 4% and 3% annually between 2020 and 2030. In contrast, ExxonMobil’s plans to hold oil and gas production steady at its current level through at least 2025, and the company has no plans to reduce emissions from its products, which account for 83% of Exxon's CO2 emissions. Exxon anticipates fully replenishing reserves by 2040, even though emissions from existing oil and gas reserves alone would be enough to push warming past 1.5°C.
Exxon Borrows from Big Tobacco’s Playbook to Sow Doubt and Frame Climate Change as a “Risk” Instead of Reality
In a 2017 peer-reviewed study, Drs. Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes analyzed over 180 climate communications from ExxonMobil between 1977 to 2014 and found that more publically accessible documents expressed greater doubt about climate science and the gravity of the issue. For example, 80% of internal documents acknowledged that climate change is real and human-caused, while 81% of company advertorials expressed doubt.
In a 2021 follow-up study, Supran and Oreskes used computational linguistic analysis to demonstrate that, in Exxon’s public climate communications from 2000 onward, there was no term more highly associated with “climate change” and “global warming” than “risk(s)”. The authors concluded that the company’s framing of climate change as a risk creates doubt and uncertainty, effectively downplaying Exxon’s role in the climate crisis and contradicting the findings of its own scientists who characterized the threat of climate change as “catastrophic.”
