Individual and Community

ExxonMobil Accused of Using Big Tobacco Tactics on Global Warming

WASHINGTON, DC, January 5, 2007 (ENS) – ExxonMobil has adopted the tobacco industry’s disinformation tactics to cloud the scientific understanding of climate change and delay action on the issue, the Union of Concerned Scientists claims in a new report published Wednesday.

ExxonMobil, the world’s largest publicly traded corporation, responded Thursday by calling the Union of Concerned Scientists’ paper “deeply offensive and wrong.”

Tillerson
Rex Tillerson is chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil.
“ExxonMobil engages in public policy discussions by encouraging serious inquiry, analysis, the sharing of information and transparency,” the company said in a statement.

According to the report, between 1998 and 2005 ExxonMobil “directed nearly $16 million to a network of 43 advocacy organizations that seek to confuse the public on global warming science.”

“ExxonMobil has manufactured uncertainty about the human causes of global warming just as tobacco companies denied their product caused lung cancer,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists, a 200,000 member organization based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“A modest but effective investment has allowed the oil giant to fuel doubt about global warming to delay government action just as Big Tobacco did for over 40 years,” Myer said.

Meyer
Alden Meyer is director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists. (Photo courtesy Earth Negotiations Bulletin)
ExxonMobil acknowledged in its response that emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are linked with climate change.

“While there is more to learn on climate science,” the company said, “what is clear today is that greenhouse gas emissions are one of the factors that contribute to climate change, and that the use of fossil fuels is a major source of these emissions.”

The Union of Concerned Scientists report, “Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco’s Tactics to Manufacture Uncertainty on Climate Change,” states that the oil company, like the tobacco industry in previous decades, has “raised doubts about even the most indisputable scientific evidence.”

It says the company “funded an array of front organizations to create the appearance of a broad platform for a tight-knit group of vocal climate change contrarians who misrepresent peer-reviewed scientific findings.”

The Union of Concerned Scientists, UCS, report says the company “attempted to portray its opposition to action as a positive quest for ’sound science’ rather than business self-interest,” and “used its access to the Bush administration to block federal policies and shape government communications on global warming.”

The company responds that its financial support of public policy organizations “extends to a fairly broad array of organizations that research significant domestic and foreign policy issues and promote discussion on issues of direct relevance to the company. These groups range from the Brookings Institution to the American Enterprise Institute and from the Council on Foreign Relations to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.”

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jan2007/2007-01-05-02.asp