ExxonMobil downplayed climate change despite the statements of its own experts, according to a recent study.
The US oil giant ExxonMobil downplayed climate change in public, despite the statements of the company’s own experts, a recent study reveals. A peer-reviewed study has been published In the Science publication (you switch to another service).
According to a study by Harvard University and the Potsdam Climate Research Institute, experts warned the company about the connection between climate change and fossil fuels as early as the 1970s.
– They modeled and predicted climate change with shocking accuracy only so that the company could deny climate change science for the next decades, said Geoffrey Supraone of the authors of the study.
According to Supran, the information and studies of ExxonMobil experts on climate change were consistent with other researchers.
– They knew as much as independent, academic and government researchers knew, and presumably they knew everything they needed to take action and warn people.
For years, the company has been accused of knowing about the dangers of climate change decades ago.
Several lawsuits have been brought against the company in the United States, in addition to which the activist campaign “Exxon Knew” has been targeted against it. The European Parliament and the US Congress have also consulted the company about its activities.
ExxonMobil was born in 1999 when Exxon and Mobil Oil merged.
Experts conducted dozens of peer-reviewed studies
Several of the company’s experts testified on behalf of climate change modeling before the US Congress in 2019.
– We were excellent researchers, he said at the time Martin Hoffert from the climate forecast made in 1982.
According to a recent study, the company’s climate change experts warned the company with peer-reviewed studies a total of 72 times between 1977 and 2002.
ExxonMobil’s management has referred to climate change warnings with a glove.
The forecasts are based on completely unproven modeling or rather speculation, said the company’s CEO Lee Raymond in the year 1999.
His successor, on the other hand, declared the modeling to be incompetent. Current spokesperson for ExxonMobil Todd Spitler stated that the issues raised by the most recent study “have come to the surface several times over the past few years”.
– Every time our answer is the same: those who talk about “Exxon Knew” are wrong in their conclusions, said Spitler.
Source: AFP