[Vision2020] Federal Lawsuit Documents Reveal Industry Ignored Its Scientists on Climate

[Ted Moffett]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/science/earth/24deny.html?_r=2&emc=eta1

Industry Ignored Its Scientists on Climate

 By ANDREW C. REVKIN<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/andrew_c_revkin/index.html?inline=nyt-per>
Published: April 23, 2009

For more than a decade the Global Climate Coalition, a group representing
industries with profits tied to fossil fuels, led an aggressive lobbying and
public relations campaign against the idea that emissions of heat-trapping
gases could lead to global
warming<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/globalwarming/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>
.

“The role of greenhouse gases in climate change is not well understood,” the
coalition said in a scientific “backgrounder” provided to lawmakers and
journalists through the early 1990s, adding that “scientists differ” on the
issue.

But a document filed<http://documents.nytimes.com/global-climate-coalition-aiam-climate-change-primer#p=1>in
a federal lawsuit demonstrates that even as the coalition worked to
sway
opinion, its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the
science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be
refuted.

“The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of
human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well
established and cannot be denied,” the experts wrote in an internal report
compiled for the coalition in 1995.

The coalition was financed by fees from large corporations and trade groups
representing the oil,
coal<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/coal/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>and
auto industries, among others. In 1997, the year an international
climate agreement that came to be known as the Kyoto Protocol was
negotiated, its budget totaled $1.68 million, according to tax records
obtained by environmental groups.

Throughout the 1990s, when the coalition conducted a multimillion-dollar
advertising campaign challenging the merits of an international agreement,
policy makers and pundits were fiercely debating whether humans could
dangerously warm the planet. Today, with general agreement on the basics of
warming, the debate has largely moved on to the question of how extensively
to respond to rising temperatures.

Environmentalists have long maintained that industry knew early on that the
scientific evidence supported a human influence on rising temperatures, but
that the evidence was ignored for the sake of companies’ fight against curbs
on greenhouse gas emissions. Some environmentalists have compared the tactic
to that once used by tobacco companies, which for decades insisted that the
science linking cigarette smoking to lung cancer was uncertain. By
questioning the science on global warming, these environmentalists say,
groups like the Global Climate Coalition were able to sow enough doubt to
blunt public concern about a consequential issue and delay government
action.

George Monbiot, a British environmental activist and writer, said that by
promoting doubt, industry had taken advantage of news media norms requiring
neutral coverage of issues, just as the tobacco industry once had.

“They didn’t have to win the argument to succeed,” Mr. Monbiot said, “only
to cause as much confusion as possible.”

William O’Keefe, at the time a leader of the Global Climate Coalition, said
in a telephone interview that the group’s leadership had not been aware of a
gap between the public campaign and the advisers’ views. Mr. O’Keefe said
the coalition’s leaders had felt that the scientific uncertainty justified a
cautious approach to addressing cuts in greenhouse gases.

The coalition disbanded in 2002, but some members, including the National
Association of Manufacturers<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/national_assn_of_manufacturers/index.html?inline=nyt-org>and
the American
Petroleum Institute<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/american_petroleum_institute/index.html?inline=nyt-org>,
continue to lobby against any law or treaty that would sharply curb
emissions. Others, like Exxon Mobil, now recognize a human contribution to
global warming and have largely dropped financial support to groups
challenging the science.

Documents drawn up by the coalition’s advisers were provided to lawyers by
the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers, a coalition
member, during the discovery process in a lawsuit that the auto industry
filed in 2007 against the State of California’s efforts to limit vehicles’
greenhouse gas emissions. The documents included drafts of a primer written
for the coalition by its technical advisory committee, as well as minutes of
the advisers’ meetings.

The documents were recently sent to The New York Times by a lawyer for
environmental groups that sided with the state. The lawyer, eager to
maintain a cordial relationship with the court, insisted on anonymity
because the litigation is continuing.

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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
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