ExxonMobil climate change controversy

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."

Impact of research on operational planning

ExxonMobil integrated the then-current scientific understanding into its corporate operational planning. For example, in the early 1980s, oil scarcity was a concern, and Exxon promoted unconventional and synthetic fuels based on fossil carbon sources, such as coal liquefaction, oil shale, and oil sands as a plausible solution. These methods increase carbon dioxide emissions, and internal Exxon documents from 1980 said that "if synthetic fuels are not developed, and fossil fuel needs are met by petroleum, then the atmospheric CO₂ doubling time would be delayed by about 5 years to 2065". Exxon also studied ways of avoiding CO₂ emissions if the East Natuna gas field (Natuna D-Alpha block) off Indonesia was to be developed.

Exxon routinely uses an internal shadow price on CO₂ in its business planning.

In 1992, the senior ice researcher, leading a Calgary-based research team in Exxon’s Canadian subsidiary Imperial Oil, assessed how global warming could affect Exxon’s Arctic operations, and reported that exploration and development costs in the Beaufort Sea might be lower, while higher sea levels and rougher seas could threaten the company’s coastal and offshore infrastructure. Imperial included climate change forecasts into its facility planning in the Mackenzie River Delta in the Northwest Territories.

An ExxonMobil spokesperson said that standard practice in major project planning is to consider a range of factors, and that ExxonMobil's consideration of environmental risks was not inconsistent with their public policy advocacy.

Funding of climate change denial

In the late 1980s, Exxon became a leader in climate change denial. Lee Raymond, Exxon and ExxonMobil chief executive officer from 1993 to 2006, was one of the most outspoken executives in the United States against regulation to curtail global warming, and during this period Exxon helped advance climate change denial internationally. Of the major oil corporations, ExxonMobil has been the most active in the debate surrounding climate change. ExxonMobil delayed the world's response to climate change. In 2005, as competing major oil companies diversified into alternative energy and renewable fuels, ExxonMobil re-affirmed its mission as an oil and gas company. According to a 2007 analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists, the company used many of the same strategies, tactics, organizations, and personnel the tobacco industry used in its denials of the link between lung cancer and smoking. ExxonMobil denied similarity to the tobacco industry. A study published in Nature Climate Change in 2015 found that ExxonMobil "may have played a particularly important role as corporate benefactors" in the production and diffusion of contrarian information.

Between 1990 and 2005, ExxonMobil purchased advertisements in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal that said that the science of climate change was unsettled. In 2000, responding to the 2000 US First National Assessment of Climate Change, an ExxonMobil advertisement said "The report’s language and logic appear designed to emphasize selective results to convince people that climate change will adversely impact their lives. The report is written as a political document, not an objective summary of the underlying science." Another 2000 advertisement published in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal entitled "Unsettled Science" said "it is impossible for scientists to attribute the recent small surface temperature increase to human activity."

ExxonMobil was a significant influence in preventing ratification of the Kyoto Protocol by the United States. 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 was a founding member of the board of directors of the Global Climate Coalition, composed of businesses opposed to greenhouse gas emission regulation. According to Mother Jones magazine, between 2000 and 2003 ExxonMobil channelled at least $8,678,450 to forty organizations that employed disinformation campaigns including "skeptic propaganda masquerading as journalism" to influence the opinion of the public and political leaders about global warming. ExxonMobil has funded, among other groups, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, George C. Marshall Institute, Heartland Institute, the American Legislative Exchange Council and the International Policy Network. Since the Kyoto Protocol, Exxon has given more than $20 million to organizations supporting climate change denial.

Between 1998 and 2004, ExxonMobil granted $16 million to advocacy organizations which disputed the impact of global warming. Of 2005 grantees of ExxonMobil, 54 were found to have statements regarding climate change on their websites, of which 25 were consistent with the scientific consensus on climate change, while 39 "misrepresented the science of climate change by outright denial of the evidence," according to a 2006 letter from the Royal Society to ExxonMobil. The Royal Society said ExxonMobil granted $2.9 million to US organizations which "misinformed the public about climate change through their websites." According to Drexel University environmental sociologist Robert Brulle, ExxonMobil contributed about 4% of the total funding of what Brulle identifies as the "climate change counter-movement." The Drexel research found that much of the funding that direct sourcing from companies like ExxonMobil and Koch Industries was later diverted through third-party foundations like Donors Trust and Donors Capital to avoid traceability. In 2006, the Brussels-based watchdog organization Corporate Europe Observatory said "ExxonMobil invests significant amounts in letting think-tanks, seemingly respectable sources, sow doubts about the need for [European Union] governments to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Covert funding for climate sceptics is deeply hypocritical because ExxonMobil spends major sums on advertising to present itself as an environmentally responsible company."

In January 2007, ExxonMobil vice president for public affairs Kenneth Cohen said that, as of 2006, ExxonMobil had ceased funding of the Competitive Enterprise Institute and "'five or six' similar groups". While ExxonMobil did not identify the other similar groups, a May 2007 report by Greenpeace listed five groups "at the heart of the climate change denial industry" ExxonMobil had stopped funding, as well as 41 similar groups which were still receiving ExxonMobil funds.

In May 2008, a week before their annual shareholder's meeting, ExxonMobil pledged in its annual corporate citizenship report that it would cut funding to "several public policy research groups whose position on climate change could divert attention" from the need to address climate change. In 2008, ExxonMobil funded such organizations and was named one of the most prominent promoters of climate change denial. According to Brulle in a 2012 Frontline interview, ExxonMobil had ceased funding the climate change counter-movement by 2009. According to the environmental advocacy group Greenpeace, ExxonMobil granted $1 million to climate denial groups in 2014. Scientific American ExxonMobil granted $10,000 to the Science & Environmental Policy Project founded by climate denial advocate, physicist, and environmental scientist Fred Singer and earlier funded the work of solar physicist Wei-Hock "Willie" Soon, who said that most global warming is caused by solar variation.

Reception

Paul Krugman, Michael E. Mann and Naomi Oreskes were among several scientists and journalists to comment that Exxon's decisions to protect its profits in spite of the scientific consensus led to global inaction on climate change, stalled progress in developing renewable energy, and made the effort to slow climate change more difficult. In October, 2015 Bill McKibben wrote in The Nation that Exxon "knew everything there was to know about climate change by the mid-1980s, and then spent the next few decades systematically funding climate denial and lying about the state of the science."

ExxonMobil responded to InsideClimate News, McKibben, and Oreskes saying the allegations were based on cherry-picked statements from ExxonMobil employees and noted the ongoing climate research the company engaged in during the time in question. In November, ExxonMobil denied claims made by InsideClimate News that it had curtailed carbon dioxide research in favor of climate denial. Exxon's statement said the drop in oil prices hurt oil companies in the 1980s and caused research cut backs. The statement also claimed that it was uncertain if increases in greenhouse gas emissions caused significant warming, or if immediate action on climate change was necessary.

In November 2016, a class action lawsuit was filed alleging it misled its investors and the public by failing to disclose the risks posed to its business by climate change.

Lobbying against emissions regulations

In February 2001, the early days of the administration of US President George W. Bush, ExxonMobil's head lobbyist in Washington wrote to the White House urging that "Clinton/Gore carry-overs with aggressive agendas" be kept out of "any decisional activities" on the US delegation to the working committees of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and recommending their replacement by scientists critical of the prevailing scientific consensus on climate change. The chairman of the IPCC, climate scientist Robert Watson, was replaced by Rajendra K. Pachauri, who was seen as more industry-friendly. A spokesperson for ExxonMobil said the company did not have a position on the chairmanship of the IPCC.

On June 14, 2005 ExxonMobil announced they would hire Philip Cooney, four days after Cooney resigned as chief of staff of the Council on Environmental Quality in the Bush White House, two days after the non-profit Government Accountability Project release documents which showed that Cooney had edited government scientific reports so as to downplay the certainty of the science behind the greenhouse effect. Thomas Friedman wrote in The New York Times, "Of all the people the Bush team would let edit its climate reports, we have a guy who first worked for the oil lobby denying climate change, with no science background, then went back to work for Exxon. Does it get any more intellectually corrupt than that?"

In 2006, the Royal Society expressed "concerns about ExxonMobil's funding of lobby groups that seek to misrepresent the scientific evidence relating to climate change." Between 2007 and 2015, ExxonMobil gave $1.87 million to Congressional climate change deniers and $454,000 to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ExxonMobil denied funding climate denial. ExxonMobil is a member of ALEC's "Enterprise Council", its corporate leadership board.

In 2014 ExxonMobil spent at least $8.08 million lobbying on energy and environment, to the European Commission, and made donations to European universities and organisations.

Acknowledgement of climate change

Beginning in 2004, the descendants of John D. Rockefeller, led mainly by his great-grandchildren, through letters, meetings, and shareholder resolutions, attempted to get ExxonMobil to acknowledge climate change, to abandon climate denial, and to shift towards clean energy. In 2013, responding to a shareholder resolution calling for emissions reductions, CEO Rex Tillerson asked, "What good is it to save the planet if humanity suffers?"

In 2007, ExxonMobil for the first time disclosed to stockholders the financial risks to profitability of climate change. In January, ExxonMobil vice president for public affairs Kenneth Cohen said "we know enough now—or, society knows enough now—that the risk is serious and action should be taken". On February 13, ExxonMobil CEO Rex W. Tillerson acknowledged that the planet was warming while carbon dioxide levels were increasing, "but in the same speech gave an unalloyed defense of the oil industry and predicted that hydrocarbons would dominate the world’s transportation as energy demand grows by an expected 40 percent by 2030. [Tillerson] stated that there is no significant alternative to oil in coming decades, and that ExxonMobil would continue to make petroleum and natural gas its primary products."

In April 2014, ExxonMobil released a report publicly acknowledging climate change risk for the first time. ExxonMobil predicted that a rising global population, increasing living standards and increasing energy access would result in lower greenhouse gas emissions.

ExxonMobil is dismissive of the fossil fuel divestment movement, writing on ExxonMobil's blog in October, 2014 that fossil fuel divestment was "out of step with reality" and that "to not use fossil fuels is tantamount to not using energy at all."

In December 2015, following similar earlier announcements, Exxon noted that if carbon regulations became a requirement, the best approach would be a carbon tax.

In November 2016 ExxonMobil accused the Rockefeller family, a long-time opponent having track records of research funding on climate change, of masterminding conspiracy against the company.

The President of the Rockefeller Family Fund, David Kaise, and Lee Wasserman, the Director of the Rockefeller Family Fund, responded in December issues of The New York Review of Books.

State and federal investigations

In May 2015 Sheldon Whitehouse suggested in The Washington Post that the federal prosecution of the tobacco industry might set a precedent for the oil industry. In October, Whitehouse, Richard Blumenthal, Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey issued a letter to Exxon questioning their donations to Donors Trust, a group which funds climate change denial. On October 14, 2015, Ted Lieu and Mark DeSaulnier wrote to the United States Attorney General (US AG) requesting an investigation into whether ExxonMobil violated any federal laws by "failing to disclose truthful information" about climate change. Asked about the letter by The Guardian, an Exxon spokesperson said "This is complete bullshit. We have a 30 year continuous uninterrupted history of researching climate change..."

On October 30, 2015, more than 40 leading US environmental and social justice organizations wrote to the US AG requesting a federal investigation into ExxonMobil deceiving the public about climate change. Former Vice President Al Gore and all three Democratic primary candidates for President of the United States called for a Department of Justice investigation. Marjorie Cohn, law professor at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, California, called for the revocation of ExxonMobil's articles of incorporation.

The New York Attorney General is investigating whether ExxonMobil's statements to investors were consistent with the company’s decades of extensive scientific research. The Martin Act in New York state law gives the state Attorney General broad powers to investigate financial fraud. On November 4, 2015 the New York Attorney General issued a subpoena to ExxonMobil. The New York Attorney General investigation includes possible violations of consumer protection, fraud, and securities law. ExxonMobil denied withholding climate change research. Following published reports, based on internal Exxon documents, suggesting that during the 1980s and 1990s Exxon used climate research in its business planning but simultaneously argued publicly that the science was unsettled, the California Attorney General is investigating whether ExxonMobil lied to the public or shareholders about the risk to its business from climate change, possible securities fraud, and violations of environmental laws. ExxonMobil denied wrongdoing. On March 29, 2016, the attorneys general of Massachusetts and the United States Virgin Islands (USVI) announced investigations. Seventeen attorneys general were cooperating on investigations. Exxon said the investigations were "politically motivated." As of June 2016, ExxonMobil is suing the Attorneys General of USVI (Claude Walker) and Massachusetts (Maura Healey, who had issued supoenas of their own).

Congressman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) July 2016 subpoenaed a variety of involved parties; with state Attorney Generals Maura Healey and Eric Schneiderman of New York refusing to comply, along with the Union of Concerned Scientists and 350.org of the nine environmental, scientific and philanthropic organizations. The AG and the organizations have refused to comply with the subpoenas from Smith and have refused to comply with earlier demands for documents from him, claiming that the federal subpoenas are unconstitutional, citing case law going back to the proceedings of the House Un-American Activities Committee and have cited principles of States' rights. The attorneys general of Alabama, Oklahoma and Texas, all Republicans, have previously sided with Smith and Exxon.

As of August 2016, Schneiderman leads queries by at least five attorneys generals, regarding decades-old research on climate change conducted by Exxon while it funded groups promoting doubt about climate science. In response to Lamar Smith arguing free speech, Schneiderman stated "“The First Amendment doesn’t protect you for fraud.”

Smith said he had called a mid-September 2016 hearing to “affirm the legitimacy” of his inquiry. Smith has questioned the overwhelming scientific consensus underlying climate change, and he has received more than $675,000 from the fossil fuel industry since 1998, including more than $24,000 from ExxonMobil. In early September, Smith and ExxonMobil noted that Mr. Schneiderman has received substantial campaign contributions from people and organizations with an interest in environmental matters. The witnesses called in the hearing included Ronald Rotunda (with ties to Heartland Institute) and Elizabeth Price Foley who are affiliated with conservative causes and organizations. The first witness Jonathan Turley (not affiliated with conservative groups) in his prepared comments he stated that he supported action against climate change, and testified the justification for the state subpoenas are than less clear, expressing the opinion that they violated free speech. Per testimony by Charles Tiefer, a law professor at the University of Baltimore and a former acting general counsel of the House of Representatives, this was the first time a House committee had subpoenaed a state attorney general, that the subpoenas were unenforceable against both the attorneys general and the groups, and that “the science committee cannot and should not try to enforce” them.

Other climate change activities

Beginning in 2002, ExxonMobil has invested up to US$100m over a ten-year period to establish the Global Climate and Energy Project at Stanford University, which "would focus on technologies that could provide energy without adding to a buildup of greenhouse gases". According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, "The funding of academic research activity has provided the corporation legitimacy, while it actively funds ideological and advocacy organizations to conduct a disinformation campaign."

Selected ExxonMobil climate research collaborations