News & Analysis
February 1, 2024
The fossil fuel industry notoriously cast doubt on climate science for decades. Newly uncovered documents, however, confirm that the fossil fuel industry was not only informed that climate change was real and measurable in 1954 — they were the ones who funded the research to prove it.
In 1954, the automobile and petroleum industries paid climate scientist Charles Keeling via a private foundation to research carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, and that research continues to underpin our modern-day understanding of climate change. Documents, discovered by researcher Rebecca John and published in DeSmog, show that representatives from the American Petroleum Institute, Western States Petroleum Association, and BP all held influential roles at the private foundation funding Keeling’s work.
The uncovered documents show that the potential climate impacts of burning fossil fuels were communicated to the private foundation in November 1954. A research proposal sent to the fossil fuel-funded foundation warned that the “possible consequences of a changing concentration of the CO2 in the atmosphere with reference to climate … may ultimately prove of considerable significance to civilization.”
The oil industry has historically produced and advanced climate change research. Exxon’s scientific researchers predicted climate change with shocking accuracy in the 1970s, for example. However, the discovery of Keeling’s 1954 fossil fuel funders is the earliest example of the industry’s instrumental role in establishing evidence on the devastating impacts of oil and gas emissions on the climate — which they proceeded to publicly deny for decades.
“These findings are a startling confirmation that big oil has had its finger on the pulse of academic climate science for 70 years – for twice my lifetime – and a reminder that it continues to do so to this day,” climate accountability researcher and professor Geoffrey Supran told The Guardian. “They make a mockery of the oil industry’s denial of basic climate science decades later.”
This additional evidence of Big Oil’s climate deception further bolsters the evidence against fossil fuel companies in a growing number of climate accountability lawsuits that are steadily marching toward trial.
Image Credit: Keeling Papers, Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego
