ExxonMobil was well aware of global warming. The research carried out by the scientists recruited by the company was “solid”, and enabled him, from 1977, to take the measure of global warming caused by human activities. This is the main lesson of a article published in Science Thursday January 12written by Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes, both historians of science at Harvard University, and Stefan Rahmstorf, climate modeling specialist at the Potsdam Research Institute for the Effects of Climate Change in Germany (PIK).
Requested by The world, the American firm denies it: “Those who say Exxon knew are wrong in their conclusions, reacted Thursday Todd Spitler, media relations adviser at ExxonMobil. Some have sought to misrepresent the facts and ExxonMobil’s position on climate science. » However, the oil and gas company has been the subject of numerous public hearings in the United States Congress and the European Parliament in recent years because of its denial of climate change.
ExxonMobil scientists had accurately predicted global warming due to the burning of fossil fuels and had ruled out the possibility of a next ice age, a theory that is regularly used in the company’s speeches to the general public. They had thus estimated that the warming would be around 0.20 degrees Celsius per decade and correctly estimated the carbon budget in the case of a warming scenario limited to 2°C.
“Model used by scientists”
In 2017, the two historians, guided in particular by journalistic investigations into the double climate discourse of the ExxonMobil group, had focused their research on the analysis of the texts produced by the scientists of the American firm. Three years later, they immersed themselves in the oil and gas company’s climate modeling projections, material rarely examined. “This situation contrasts with academic climate models, the performance of which has been widely scrutinized”report the authors in the article.
They therefore immersed themselves in the company’s 104 scientific documents, dating from 1977 to 2003, including 72 scientific publications, written or co-written by “in-house” scientists and peer-reviewed. “Exxon made a special effort to bring its scientists into the mainstream of academic research so that they could have direct access to the community’s cutting-edge knowledge, and thus have a better view of the crisis their products would cause. »analyzes Geoffrey Supran.
You have 51.41% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.