ExxonMobil: Oil giant predicted climate change in 1970s – scientists
According to academics, one of the world’s biggest oil firms correctly predicted how climate change would raise the global temperature as early as the 1970s.
They claim that ExxonMobil’s internal studies foresaw how using fossil fuels would warm the world, but the company outwardly rejected any connection.
The academics examined data in internal company documents.
ExxonMobil refuted the charges.
Selling fossil fuels that emit gases that scientists, governments, and the UN agree cause global warming has brought in billions for companies like ExxonMobil.
The results imply that ExxonMobil’s projections were frequently more precise than those of even top-tier NASA scientists.
Geoffrey Supran, co-author and an associate professor of environmental science and policy at the University of Miami, claims that the findings represent “smoking gun” evidence.
He claims that the scientific data in the ExxonMobil documents have never before been quantified by researchers.
ExxonMobil responded by citing a 2019 US court decision that stated, in part, that “ExxonMobil executives and personnel were uniformly devoted to meticulously fulfilling their duties most thoroughly and diligently feasible.”
According to the study, which was published in the scholarly journal Science, ExxonMobil made accurate predictions about how emissions would need to be lowered to prevent the worst effects of climate change in a future warmed by 2C or higher.
Prof. Oreskes and Prof. Supran conducted the study in response to data unearthed by journalists in 2015 that suggested ExxonMobil knew about climate change but was accused by ExxonMobil of “cherry-picking” the truth.
They used scientific data from more than 100 publications from Exxon and Exxon Mobil between 1977 and 2014 to display their forecasts of a rise in the global temperature.
The fact that the business publicly referred to the models as “speculative” or “poor science,” according to Prof. Oreskes, demonstrated that it was utilising climate research internally.
The discoveries increase the existing pressure on the business regarding what it knows about climate change. Campaigners are suing the firm in several US courts because it propagated false information to defend its economic interests in fossil fuels.
ExxonMobil will be tried for allegedly lying about climate change, according to a Massachusetts court’s ruling in May.
