Documentary Evidence of oil and gas companies’ knowledge of their products’ role in causing climate change and their subsequent deception campaign

The document presents a collection of 36 internal and public documents from 1963 to 2017, detailing how the oil industry—specifically Exxon, Shell, Mobil, and the American Petroleum Institute (API)—understood the link between fossil fuels and global warming decades ago. It argues that despite internal consensus on the potential for 'catastrophic' impacts, these companies pivoted in the late 1980s to a strategy of manufacturing doubt, funding denier groups, and misleading the public and policymakers to protect their business models.

• As early as 1963, scientific consensus linked fossil fuel combustion to global warming, warning of melting ice caps, inundated coasts, and the 'annihilation' of many life forms in equatorial regions.
• Exxon scientists in the late 1970s accurately predicted global temperature increases and warned that there was a limited window of five to ten years to gather information and act before energy strategy changes became critical.
• By 1980, the API CO2 and Climate Task Force recognized a scientific consensus on the potential for large future climatic responses to CO2, predicting that a 3% annual growth rate of CO2 could halt world economic growth by 2025.
• Internal warnings in the early 1980s explicitly described the potential for 'catastrophic' impacts on a substantial fraction of the earth's population, including a possible 5-meter sea level rise that would flood much of the U.S. East Coast, Florida, and Washington, D.C.
• Despite their internal knowledge, oil companies took practical steps to protect their own infrastructure from climate impacts, such as filing patents in the 1970s for Arctic drilling equipment and oil rigs capable of withstanding rising seas and stronger storms.
• Starting around 1988, the industry pivoted to a strategy of denial, using front groups like the Information Council for the Environment (ICE) to reposition global warming as 'theory (not fact)' and emphasize scientific uncertainty.
• The Global Climate Coalition (GCC) internally acknowledged that contrarian theories did not offer convincing arguments against the conventional model of greenhouse gas emission-induced climate change, yet they removed these admissions from public primers.
• The API's 1998 Global Climate Science Communications Plan explicitly aimed to achieve 'victory' by making the recognition of scientific uncertainties part of the 'conventional wisdom' and framing Kyoto Treaty supporters as 'out of touch with reality.'
• ExxonMobil continued to fund climate deniers and obstructionist organizations long after pledging to stop, providing at least $36 million to 69 such organizations between 1999 and 2017.
• Recent corporate reports from Shell and ConocoPhillips exhibit a contradiction between public claims of supporting the Paris Agreement or renewable energy and internal business focuses on expanding fossil fuel production.

APA

Center for Climate Integrity (2019). Documentary Evidence of oil and gas companies’ knowledge of their products’ role in causing climate change and their subsequent deception campaign. https://climateintegrity.org/uploads/media/DeceptionBinder_September2019.pdf

Chicago

Center for Climate Integrity. Documentary Evidence of oil and gas companies’ knowledge of their products’ role in causing climate change and their subsequent deception campaign. 2019. https://climateintegrity.org/uploads/media/DeceptionBinder_September2019.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Center for Climate Integrity |title=Documentary Evidence of oil and gas companies’ knowledge of their products’ role in causing climate change and their subsequent deception campaign |date=September 2019 |url=https://climateintegrity.org/uploads/media/DeceptionBinder_September2019.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{centerforclimateintegrity2019documentary, author = {{Center for Climate Integrity}}, title = {{Documentary Evidence of oil and gas companies’ knowledge of their products’ role in causing climate change and their subsequent deception campaign}}, institution = {Center for Climate Integrity}, year = {2019}, month = sep, url = {https://climateintegrity.org/uploads/media/DeceptionBinder_September2019.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }