Global warming | ExxonMobil contradicted its internal research

ExxonMobil researchers were using sophisticated climate models as early as the 1970s, which predicted with remarkable accuracy the temperature increase until now. This conclusion of a published study puts the American oil company in the hot seat.

“We already knew that the leaders of ExxonMobil knew that the world was warming even as they advanced that we could experience a new ice age”, explains in an interview the lead author of the study, Geoffrey Supran, who has conducted this work while at Harvard University. “Our analysis of ExxonMobil’s climate models confirms beyond doubt that the public statements of its executives contradicted their own internal research,” says the professor.

The study, published in the journal Science, shows that the ten climate models developed by ExxonMobil between 1977 and 2003 predicted an increase in global average temperature of 0.2°C per decade, which corresponds to reality. Their “performance” (skill score) averaged 75%, while public climate models from the 1980s (presented to the US Congress in 1988) had performance ranging from 28% to 81%.

In response to a request for comment from The PressExxonMobil publicist Todd Spitler cited a 2019 New York judgment absolving the firm of investor fraud — “ExxonMobil’s officers and employees were uniformly dedicated to performing their duties rigorously, thoroughly and meticulously” — and said Exxon Mobil has “a disciplined culture of analysis, planning, accounting and disclosure.”

This judgment, however, specified not to “absolve ExxonMobil of a responsibility to contribute to climate change by the production of fossil fuels”, because it was a lawsuit of “stock market fraud and not on climate change”.

Parallel with tobacco companies

“There are currently about 20 lawsuits against ExxonMobil in the United States and Vancouver is considering one,” said Keith Stewart, climate scientist at Greenpeace Canada. “Studies like this build evidence for prosecution. It is for this reason that the fossil fuel companies so vigorously attack the researchers who do this work. The tobacco companies had to pay a lot of money because they hid their internal studies showing the harmfulness of cigarettes. And the damage in the case of climate change is even greater. »

One-third of the dozen documents used by Mr. Supran came from peer-reviewed journals (peer review). Why doesn’t academia close its doors to oil industry researchers, as the medical community did to tobacco company researchers? “It took time for that to happen for tobacco,” says Mr. Supran. I believe that researchers in general are naive and assume the good faith of their colleagues. »

Supran and a co-author, historian Naomi Oreskes of Harvard University, published early evidence in 2017 that ExxonMobil internal research showed the Earth was warming largely from fossil fuels being burned by the planet. ‘human.

“A German climatologist, Stefan Ramstorf, tweeted a graph from one of the studies we were citing in 2017 that accurately predicted how the temperature would change,” Supran says. We partnered with him to study all of ExxonMobil’s climate models. » M^me Oreskes published in 2010 the book Merchants of Doubtwhich draws a parallel between the responses of companies in the files of tobacco, acid rain, climate change and the hole in the ozone layer.

Ice Age

Between the 1940s and 1970s, the Earth cooled because the factories of that time were very polluting, which led in particular to the “chemical fog” of London of 1952 and acid rain. This has led some researchers to postulate a possible new ice age. But only 14% of the studies published between 1965 and 1977 subscribed to this thesis, according to Mr. Supran, who is now continuing his research at the University of Miami. “ExxonMobil executives claimed until the turn of the millennium that the scientific community was evenly divided between warming and cooling theories. But our analysis shows that ExxonMobil’s climate models all predicted warming. »

How did these scientists feel about the public statements of their superiors? “Privately, some have said they felt betrayed,” Supran said. But very few criticized their former employer. Ed Garvey is one of the best known. This geochemist, who worked 40 years ago on a CO monitoring station₂ atmosphere installed on board an oil tanker, notably testified to the American Congress in 2019 of the obstacles to its work by its superiors.