{"id":63749,"date":"2024-05-30T10:33:46","date_gmt":"2024-05-30T17:33:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/energi.media\/?p=63749"},"modified":"2024-05-30T10:33:46","modified_gmt":"2024-05-30T17:33:46","slug":"opinion-the-oil-and-gas-industry-has-been-lying-about-global-warming-for-decades-accountability-is-long-overdue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/energi.media\/opinion\/opinion-the-oil-and-gas-industry-has-been-lying-about-global-warming-for-decades-accountability-is-long-overdue\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: The oil and gas industry has been lying about global warming for decades \u2014 accountability is long overdue"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article was published by The Conversation<\/a> on May 29, 2024.<\/em><\/p>\n

By Gordon McBean<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The science is clear: the\u00a0planet is warming at an alarming rate<\/a>\u00a0and we need to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n

For decades, effective actions have lagged behind the needs of the moment. The 2022\u00a0Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report<\/a>\u00a0suggested that at least part of the reason for this inaction has been \u201cdue to misinformation about climate science that has sowed uncertainty.\u201d<\/p>\n

The full scale of this misinformation was revealed in May 2024, when the United States House Committee on Oversight and Accountability completed its three year investigation into how U.S. oil companies sought to avoid accountability for climate change.<\/p>\n

The report \u2014 tellingly titled\u00a0Denial, Disinformation and DoubleSpeak: Big Oil\u2019s Evolving Efforts to Avoid Accountability for Climate Change<\/em><\/a>\u00a0\u2014 explores Big Oil\u2019s decades-long campaign of deception and denial finding that:<\/p>\n

\u201cDocuments demonstrate for the first time that fossil fuel companies internally do not dispute that they have understood since at least the 1960s that burning fossil fuels causes climate change and [that they] then worked for decades to undermine public understanding of this fact and to deny the underlying science\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even with\u00a0what we know about the scale of climate misinformation<\/a>, these findings make for truly shocking reading.<\/p>\n

The committee found that \u201cBig Oil\u2019s deception campaign evolved from explicit denial of the basic science underlying climate change to deception, disinformation, and doublespeak,\u201d and that the fossil fuel industry deliberately spread confusing and misleading narratives, lobbied against climate action and strategically funded under-resourced universities while silencing opposition voices.<\/p>\n

The report concluded that, as the climate science became stronger, Big Oil shifted its strategy to one of public support for action while privately avoiding it as part of an \u201celaborate campaign of deception.\u201d<\/p>\n