Background Information on Fossil Fuel Industry Climate Science Deception

The document details how fossil fuel companies, including Exxon and Shell, and the American Petroleum Institute (API) knew about the risks of global warming as early as the late 1970s but chose to implement campaigns of disinformation. It highlights internal documents and public contradictions, such as the API's 1998 'Global Climate Science Communications Plan' and public denials by Exxon CEO Lee Raymond, to argue for corporate accountability for climate-related harms.

• Fossil fuel companies were aware of the scientific link between burning their products and global warming decades ago. Between 1979 and 1983, an American Petroleum Institute (API) CO2 task force—which included representatives from Amoco, Exxon, Mobil, Phillips, Shell, Sohio, Sunoco, Texaco, Standard Oil, and Gulf Oil—reviewed climate science, with one backgrounder predicting "globally catastrophic effects" from CO2 emissions by 2067.
• Internal acknowledgments of climate change often contradicted the public positions of industry coalitions and executives. While a 1995 primer for the Global Climate Coalition (including BP, Chevron, Exxon, Mobil, and Shell) stated that the human impact on climate "cannot be denied," Exxon CEO Lee Raymond publicly claimed in 1996 that scientific evidence was "inconclusive" and told the World Petroleum Congress in 1997 that global warming was not occurring.
• The fossil fuel industry employed a deliberate strategy to manufacture scientific uncertainty to mislead the public. A 1998 API internal memo titled the "Global Climate Science Communications Plan," developed with ExxonMobil and Chevron, aimed to convince the media and "average citizens" of "uncertainties" in climate science to achieve "victory" for the industry.
• Industry interests funded contrarian research to cast doubt on human-caused emissions. Between 2001 and 2012, Dr. Wei-Hock Soon received more than $1.2 million from the American Petroleum Institute, ExxonMobil, the Charles Koch Foundation, and other fossil fuel interests for research that was widely discredited by scientific peers but promoted by industry-backed politicians.

APA

Union of Concerned Scientists (n.d.). Background Information on Fossil Fuel Industry Climate Science Deception. https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/attach/2016/03/backgrounder-fossil-fuel-industry-climate-science-deception.pdf

Chicago

Union of Concerned Scientists. Background Information on Fossil Fuel Industry Climate Science Deception. n.d. https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/attach/2016/03/backgrounder-fossil-fuel-industry-climate-science-deception.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Union of Concerned Scientists |title=Background Information on Fossil Fuel Industry Climate Science Deception |url=https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/attach/2016/03/backgrounder-fossil-fuel-industry-climate-science-deception.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{unionofconcernedscientistsndbackground, author = {{Union of Concerned Scientists}}, title = {{Background Information on Fossil Fuel Industry Climate Science Deception}}, institution = {Union of Concerned Scientists}, url = {https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/attach/2016/03/backgrounder-fossil-fuel-industry-climate-science-deception.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }