Researchers at Harvard University and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research have determined that Exxon Mobil knew about climate change decades ago, according to a news release published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Lead study author Geoffrey Supran, formally at Harvard but now a professor of environmental science and policy at the University of Miami, joined KNX In Depth’s Charles Feldman and Rob Archer this week.
“In almost every sense, big oil is the new big tobacco,” said Supran. He said the oil industry has “drawn very much from the tobacco industry’s playbook when it comes to promoting unreasonable doubt about the science warning about the dangers of their products, in order to delay, you know, regulation and other kids of action.”
Supran explained that Exxon Mobil in particular pointed to “uncertainties” as an excuse for inaction. However, his findings indicate the uncertainties didn’t exist.
According to the research, described as “the first ever systematic assessment of the fossil fuel industry’s climate projections,” Exxon knew that “fossil fuel burning would lead to 0.20 ± 0.04 degrees Celsius of global warming per decade.”
Findings include are in part summarized by single chart displaying every global warming projection reported by Exxon and ExxonMobil Corp scientists between 1977 and 2003. These are based on “statistical analyses of never-previously reported data buried in the company’s own documents.”
“Although it has been widely reported that Exxon has known about the threat of global warming since the 1970s, this study is the first quantitative review of the company’s early climate science,” according to the news release. Previous research focused on Exxon’s inconsistent internal and external rhetoric on climate change. This report dives into company data revealing that the company knew how much warming would occur with startling accuracy.”
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