In a series of internal reports and communications beginning in the 1970s, Exxon Mobil, the oil and gas behemoth with a current market capitalization of $466 billion, projected global warming with astonishing accuracy, three academics from Harvard and the University of Potsdam in Germany published in the journal Science on Thursday.
" Specifically, what's new here is that we put a number on – and paint a picture of – what Exxon knew and when," said study co-author Geoffrey Supran, a research associate at Harvard when he conducted this work.
"We now have perfect, watertight proof that ExxonMobil faithfully projected global warming years before it reversed course and aggressively challenged climate science and scientists. Based on our results, ExxonMobil's public denial of climate science went counter to the data of its own experts, Supran told CNBC. "This supports and gives statistical accuracy to the prior conclusions of academics, reporters, attorneys, and legislators."
Following earlier Inside Climate News and other sources revealing Exxon explicitly contradicting its own understanding of climate science, the phrase and hashtag "ExxonKnew" have become a rallying cry.
Exxon Mobil claims the "ExxonKnew" movement is a "coordinated campaign" aiming to "stigmatize" the oil company, "creating the false appearance that ExxonMobil has misrepresented its company research and investor disclosures on climate change," it adds.
All of it began with a tweet.
Supran told CNBC the popular tweet served as inspiration for the study.
Physics professor Stefan Rahmstorf of the University of Potsdam saw a global warming predictive chart from Exxon Mobil that Supran and Harvard researcher Naomi Oreskes had earlier found superimposed with real historical data.
"The overlap was astonishing," Supran said. When Rahmstorf wrote and tweeted about it, the responses attracted a lot of attention, "by the standards of climate science on Twitter anyway,” Supran told CNBC.
The three academics then teamed up to produce this research after realizing that Exxon's climate projection accuracy had not been formally investigated. The degree and accuracy with which Exxon knew about climate science astounded them.
Plotting all of the company's projections into one graph and discovering that they all line up so precisely with the actual temperature increase that has followed from their reports was shocking. That stopped me since it showed me statistically that Exxon not only contributed to improve climate science but also knew some of it. "They knew as much as independent scholarly and government scientists did, not merely dimly knowing "something" about global warming decades ago. They knew all they needed to know, at least.
Based on their studies, the researchers discovered that Exxon's 63% to 83% of their climate estimates were accurate in forecasting future global warming and climate change. Exxon projected global warming of 0.20° ± 0.04 degrees Celsius each decade, the same as scholarly and governmental forecasts released between 1970 and 2007.
Among many others, the study in Science expands on work done by investigative reporters at Inside Climate News back in 2015 and Democratic legislators at the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.
Exxon keeps insisting it is not guilty.
"This issue has surfaced several times in recent years and, in each case, our response is the same: those who discuss how 'Exxon Knew' are wrong in their conclusions," Exxon Mobil spokesman Todd Spitler told CNBC.
Spitler cited the findings of a 2019 case held before the New York State Supreme Court by Judge Barry Ostrager that did not find the oil and gas firm guilty of fraud in their climate change regulatory accounting.
"What the evidence at trial revealed is that ExxonMobil executives and employees were uniformly committed to rigorously discharging their duties in the most comprehensive and meticulous manner possible," Ostrager wrote, and Spitler passed along to CNBC. According to the testimony of these witnesses, ExxonMobil boasts a rigorous analysis, planning, accounting, and reporting culture.
Luna Ella
In a series of internal reports and communications beginning in the 1970s, Exxon Mobil, the oil and gas behemoth with a current market capitalization of $466 billion, projected global warming with astonishing accuracy, three academics from Harvard and the University of Potsdam in Germany published in the journal Science on Thursday.
" Specifically, what's new here is that we put a number on – and paint a picture of – what Exxon knew and when," said study co-author Geoffrey Supran, a research associate at Harvard when he conducted this work.
"We now have perfect, watertight proof that ExxonMobil faithfully projected global warming years before it reversed course and aggressively challenged climate science and scientists. Based on our results, ExxonMobil's public denial of climate science went counter to the data of its own experts, Supran told CNBC. "This supports and gives statistical accuracy to the prior conclusions of academics, reporters, attorneys, and legislators."
Following earlier Inside Climate News and other sources revealing Exxon explicitly contradicting its own understanding of climate science, the phrase and hashtag "ExxonKnew" have become a rallying cry.
Exxon Mobil claims the "ExxonKnew" movement is a "coordinated campaign" aiming to "stigmatize" the oil company, "creating the false appearance that ExxonMobil has misrepresented its company research and investor disclosures on climate change," it adds.
All of it began with a tweet.
Supran told CNBC the popular tweet served as inspiration for the study.
Physics professor Stefan Rahmstorf of the University of Potsdam saw a global warming predictive chart from Exxon Mobil that Supran and Harvard researcher Naomi Oreskes had earlier found superimposed with real historical data.
"The overlap was astonishing," Supran said. When Rahmstorf wrote and tweeted about it, the responses attracted a lot of attention, "by the standards of climate science on Twitter anyway,” Supran told CNBC.
The three academics then teamed up to produce this research after realizing that Exxon's climate projection accuracy had not been formally investigated. The degree and accuracy with which Exxon knew about climate science astounded them.
Plotting all of the company's projections into one graph and discovering that they all line up so precisely with the actual temperature increase that has followed from their reports was shocking. That stopped me since it showed me statistically that Exxon not only contributed to improve climate science but also knew some of it. "They knew as much as independent scholarly and government scientists did, not merely dimly knowing "something" about global warming decades ago. They knew all they needed to know, at least.
Based on their studies, the researchers discovered that Exxon's 63% to 83% of their climate estimates were accurate in forecasting future global warming and climate change. Exxon projected global warming of 0.20° ± 0.04 degrees Celsius each decade, the same as scholarly and governmental forecasts released between 1970 and 2007.
Among many others, the study in Science expands on work done by investigative reporters at Inside Climate News back in 2015 and Democratic legislators at the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.
Exxon keeps insisting it is not guilty.
"This issue has surfaced several times in recent years and, in each case, our response is the same: those who discuss how 'Exxon Knew' are wrong in their conclusions," Exxon Mobil spokesman Todd Spitler told CNBC.
Spitler cited the findings of a 2019 case held before the New York State Supreme Court by Judge Barry Ostrager that did not find the oil and gas firm guilty of fraud in their climate change regulatory accounting.
"What the evidence at trial revealed is that ExxonMobil executives and employees were uniformly committed to rigorously discharging their duties in the most comprehensive and meticulous manner possible," Ostrager wrote, and Spitler passed along to CNBC. According to the testimony of these witnesses, ExxonMobil boasts a rigorous analysis, planning, accounting, and reporting culture.