SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
shell
Newly Unearthed Docs Show Big Oil Knew of Climate Dangers as Early as 1950s
"Big Oil has been running public affairs campaigns to downplay the dangers of its products just as long as Big Tobacco," said one expert.
Nov 12, 2024
Documents uncovered from several academic and news archives shed light on what one climate disinformation expert on Tuesday called "one of the earliest and most brazen efforts by the oil industry to prop up" a front group with the aim of denying climate science and delaying action that would cut into the industry's profits by protecting the planet from steadily increasing fossil fuel emissions.
The Climate Investigations Center found a warning that came in 1954 from the head of the Air Pollution Foundation, a group funded by the Western Oil and Gas Association. According to DeSmog, which reported on the findings, the lobbying group, now known as the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), poured $1.3 million into the APF in the 1950s—the equivalent of $14 million in today's dollars.
APF was set up with the public-facing intent of confronting the worsening smog crisis in Los Angeles, where the number of cars had doubled between 1940-50 and the area was rapidly industrializing.
But with funding coming from Western Oil and Gas Association members including Shell and companies that were later bought by ExxonMobil, Chervon, and other oil giants, the foundation was meant to be "protective" of the industry, as meeting minutes from 1955 showed.
At the time of APF's founding, researchers had begun warning that air pollution was caused by vehicles and refineries, and officials in Los Angeles had begun proposing new ordinances to cut down on smog.
To counter this, the foundation asked the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) to submit a proposal determining the main source of air pollution. Caltech geochemistry professor Samuel Epstein submitted a proposal in November 1954, warning that the Earth's climate could be affected by burning fossil fuels.
The "concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere" was a matter "of well recognized importance to our civilization," wrote Epstein.
After the report was submitted, APF president Lauren Hitchcock, a chemical engineer who had been recruited to lead the group, began investigating oil and gas refineries and publicly demanding pollution controls across California—actions that didn't please the industry giants who were backing APF.
As DeSmog reported, leaders of the Western Oil and Gas Association "summoned Hitchcock to the California Club where they reprimanded him, spelling out in no uncertain terms exactly what they expected in return for their hefty financial contributions."
According to the report:
Over lunch, WSPA's oilmen criticized Hitchcock for supporting pollution controls across California, for drawing "attention" to refinery pollution, and for conducting "too broad a program" of research. Instead, they told him they had formed the Air Pollution Foundation to be "protective," that Hitchcock should serve as "the research director for the oil industry" and the foundation should publish "findings which would be accepted as unbiased" where the oil industry's findings were not seen as trustworthy. This frank exchange, reported in detail by Hitchcock in a never-before-seen memo, unmasks the strategic motivations behind Big Oil's sponsorship of air pollution research.
Hitchcock resigned from APF in 1956, after many of the group's research projects were scaled back and the organization took the official stance in reports that carbon dioxide emissions were "innocuous."
"This is where Big Oil's climate disinformation began," said Aimee Dewing, a communications strategist focusing on environmental justice.
APF and the intervention from its funders "helped lay the strategic and organizational groundwork for Big Oil's decades of climate denial and delay," Geoffrey Supran, a climate disinformation expert at the University of Miami, toldThe Guardian.
"The fossil fuel industry is often seen as having followed in the footsteps of the tobacco industry's playbook for denying science and blocking regulation," added Supran. "But these documents suggest that Big Oil has been running public affairs campaigns to downplay the dangers of its products just as long as Big Tobacco, starting with air pollution in the early-to-mid-1950s."
DeSmog's report comes nearly two years after Shell and ExxonMobil were revealed to have known about the impact of fossil fuels on the climate earlier than previously reported.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'We Don't Give Up': Climate Groups Resolute as Shell Wins Appeal Against Landmark Ruling
"This setback will only help us grow stronger," said the Dutch climate group that originally brought the case. "Large polluters are powerful. But united, we as people have the power to change them."
Nov 12, 2024
Climate campaigners didn't sugarcoat their reactions to a Dutch court decision on Tuesday that overturned a landmark 2021 ruling ordering the oil behemoth Shell to cut its planet-warming emissions nearly in half by the end of this decade.
"We are shocked by today's judgment," said Donald Pols, director of Milieudefensie, the Netherlands-based environmental group that originally filed suit against Shell in 2018.
"It is a setback for us, for the climate movement, and for millions of people around the world who worry about their future," Pols said of Tuesday's ruling by the Hague Court of Appeal. "But if there's one thing to know about us, it's that we don't give up. This setback will only help us grow stronger. Large polluters are powerful. But united, we as people have the power to change them."
The original 2021 ruling, as CNBCnoted, marked "the first time in history that a company was found to have been legally obliged to align its policies with the Paris Agreement" and "sparked a wave of lawsuits against other fossil fuel companies."
Despite acknowledging that Shell has "an obligation toward citizens to reduce CO2 emissions," the appeals court on Tuesday scrapped a legal mandate compelling the company to slash its emissions by 45% by 2030 compared with 2019 levels, saying it was "unable to establish that the social standard of care entails an obligation for Shell to reduce its CO2 emissions by 45%, or some other percentage."
"It is primarily up to the government to ensure the protection of human rights," the court added.
Laurie van der Burg of Oil Change International said in response that "while we mourn today's setback, the ruling establishes a responsibility for Big Oil and Gas to act that future litigation can build on."
"The court ruled protection against climate change is a human right, and corporations have a responsibility to reduce their emissions," she added. "As far as we know, this is the first case where a court has acknowledged that new investments in oil and gas are incompatible with international climate goals."
"Today's ruling underscores the importance of world leaders now negotiating at the U.N. Climate Summit in Baku taking responsibility."
Shell, which is responsible for just over 2% of global CO2 emissions, said in a statement that it was "pleased" with the court's ruling and claimed to be "making good progress in our strategy to deliver more value with less emissions."
But research by the human rights organization Global Witness has found that Shell has consistently overstated the scale of its investments in green energy—including by characterizing fossil fuels as "renewable."
"Even as Shell claims to be reducing its oil production, it is planning to grow its gas business by more than 20% over the next few years, leading to significant additional emissions," Global Witness wrote in a complaint to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last year.
Andy Palmen, the director of Greenpeace Netherlands, said Tuesday that while campaigners working toward a just phaseout of fossil fuel emissions are "disappointed that Shell is being allowed to continue polluting," they "will not give up the fight."
"This only motivates us more to take action against major polluters," said Palmen. "It really gives hope that the court finds that Shell must respect human rights and has a duty to reduce its CO2 emissions."
"Today's ruling underscores the importance of world leaders now negotiating at the U.N. Climate Summit in Baku taking responsibility," Palmen added, referring to the COP29 gathering that kicked off on Monday in Azerbaijan's capital city. "The summit in Dubai last year marked the end of coal, oil, and gas, now governments must come up with concrete plans to move away from fossil fuels."
The Dutch appeals court's ruling came in the wake of new research showing that oil and gas production surged to an all-time high in 2023—the hottest year on record.
"The oil and gas industry is not transitioning," the environmental group Urgewald and dozens of other NGOs found. "In fact, 95% of the upstream companies on [the Global Oil and Gas Exit List] are still exploring or developing new oil and gas resources. This includes the oil and gas producers TotalEnergies, Shell, BP, Eni, Equinor, OXY, OMV, and Ecopetrol, which all claim to be targeting net zero emissions by 2050."
Nils Bartsch, head of oil and gas research at Urgewald, said Tuesday that the 2023 oil and gas production record is "deeply concerning."
"If we do not end fossil fuel expansion and move towards a managed decline of oil and gas production," said Bartsch, "the 1.5°C goal will be out of reach."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Who Should Pay for Climate Damage? Majority of the World Agrees: Big Oil
"As governments debate how to finance climate action, they can be confident that making polluters pay is not only fair, but also far more popular and effective than placing the burden on ordinary citizens."
Nov 04, 2024
A multinational survey commissioned by Greenpeace International and published Monday revealed that a majority of respondents favor making fossil fuel companies pay for being the main cause of the climate emergency.
Greenpeace International's Stop Drilling, Start Paying campaign commissioned the strategic insight agency Opinium Research to survey 8,000 adults in eight countries—Australia, Argentina, France, Morocco, Philippines, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States—ahead of this month's United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP29, in Baku, Azerbaijan.
"Asked about who should bear the most responsibility for climate change impacts, the most popular option across all eight countries in the survey was making oil and gas companies pay, with high-emitting countries and global elites ranked second and third," Greenpeace International said in a summary of the survey, adding that "60% of all surveyed countries see a link between profits of the oil and gas industry and rising energy prices."
The survey also found that two-thirds or more of respondents are angry about Big Oil CEOs getting huge bonuses even as their products exacerbate the planetary emergency; fossil fuel expansion; industry disinformation; and the "historic and ongoing role of oil and gas companies in conflict, war, and human rights violations."
Eight in 10 respondents said they were worried about climate change. However, more than twice as many people surveyed in the Global South said the climate emergency has personally affected them than respondents in the Global North.
According to Greenpeace International:
Imposing a fair climate damages tax on extraction of fossil fuels by OECD countries—proposed by the charity Stamp Out Poverty and supported by 100 NGOs, including Greenpeace International—is one example of a tax on big polluters. This could generate $900 billion by 2030... This would be key for annual climate-related loss and damage costs, estimated to be between $290-$580 billion by 2030 in low-income countries, as well as for reducing the emission of heat-trapping greenhouse gases and adapting to the impacts of the climate crisis in all countries.
"This research shows how taxing the wealthy polluters-in-chief—companies like Exxon, Chevron, Shell, Total, Equinor, and Eni—has become a mainstream solution among people, cutting across borders and income levels," said Stop Drilling, Start Paying co-chair Abdoulaye Diallo. "As governments debate how to finance climate action, they can be confident that making polluters pay is not only fair, but also far more popular and effective than placing the burden on ordinary citizens for a crisis for which they bear little or no responsibility."
The Opinium survey was published on the same day that Amnesty International called on the richer countries most responsible for the climate emergency to "fully pay for the catastrophic loss of homes and damage to livelihoods" in Africa.
"African people have contributed the least to climate change, yet from Somalia to Senegal, Chad to Madagascar, we are suffering a terrible toll of this global emergency which has driven millions of people from their homes," said Samira Daoud, Amnesty's regional director for West and Central Africa. "It's time for the countries who caused all this devastation to pay up so African people can adapt to the climate change catastrophe."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular