Smoke &
Fumes
This is a story about
how the world’s most powerful industry used science,
communications, and consumer psychology to shape the public
debate over climate change. And it begins earlier—decades
earlier—than anyone suspected.
Explore our documents and discover what they knew, when they
knew it, and how they collaborated to confuse the public,
promote scientific theories that contradicted their own best
information, and block action on the most important challenge
of our time.
Exxon and its allies have dismissed comparisons to Big Tobacco
as baseless. Our research in more than 14 million documents of
the Tobacco Industry Archives reveals compelling evidence that
the relationship between these two industries is neither
coincidental nor casual. Beyond a doubt, the oil companies
have benefitted from the tobacco playbook in their fight
against climate science.
But the question arises, where did the tobacco companies get
their playbook in the first place?
The oil industry used the
tobacco playbook in its fight against climate science.
But where did tobacco get that playbook ?
>>> https://www.smokeandfumes.org
<<<
The oil industry used science, communications,
and consumer psychology to shape the public debate over
climate change and block action decades earlier than anyone
suspected.
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>>> https://www.smokeandfumes.org/about
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Note of appreciation
More than a decade ago, researchers began to document—and, more
importantly, bring to light—oil industry efforts to fund the
science and propaganda of climate denial. Over the last year, a
growing body of evidence has revealed that, even as they funded
climate denial campaigns, Exxon and oil companies had a
sophisticated command of climate science by the 1980s, at the
latest. Our research and discoveries add to the tremendous work
of others including: ExxonSecrets, Merchants of Doubt, UCS
Dossiers, Climate Investigation Center, Inside Climate News, and
Los Angeles Times.
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SMOKE
] SOURCE [ https://www.smokeandfumes.org/smoke ]
Exxon and its allies have
dismissed comparisons to Big Tobacco as baseless. Our research
in more than 14 million documents of the Tobacco Industry
Archives reveals compelling evidence that the relationship
between these two industries is neither coincidental nor casual.
Beyond a doubt, the oil companies have benefitted from the
tobacco playbook in their fight against climate science.
But the question arises, where did the tobacco
companies get their playbook in the first place?
Introduction
Oil industry efforts to mislead or confuse the
public about climate science are well documented. Over the past
year, a new and growing body of evidence has come to light
demonstrating that Exxon and other oil companies carried out
these misinformation campaigns even as the industry’s own
scientists were warning them about climate risks. Amidst
mounting revelations, ongoing investigations, and a nascent tide
of climate litigation, comparisons to Big Tobacco have become
commonplace. Exxon and its allies have dismissed these
comparisons as baseless. In their award-winning book, Merchants
of Doubt, Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway document that many of
the scientists and skeptics deployed by the tobacco companies
went on to play a key role in the climate denial effort. The
Tobacco Archives make clear, however, that tobacco was the
middle of the story, not the beginning.
Our research in the more than 14 million documents
of the Tobacco Industry Archives reveals compelling evidence
that the relationship between these two industries is neither
coincidental nor casual. The ties between these industries date
back nearly a century and are surprising in their scope, their
intimacy, and their specificity. In the 1970s, the Chair of
British American Tobacco, one of the world’s largest tobacco
companies, also served on the Board of Directors of Exxon. RJ
Reynolds, another major tobacco company, actually owned and
operated an oil company, American Independent Oil, which engaged
in industry-wide projects with the other oil majors. But these
examples only scratch the surface of the deep and pervasive ties
between oil and tobacco. Beyond a doubt, the oil companies have
benefitted from the tobacco playbook in their fight against
climate science. The question arises, where did the tobacco
companies get their playbook in the first place?
Extensive
Commercial Relationship
That
the oil and tobacco industries were each acutely aware of
developments in the other should not be surprising. For
decades, the oil industry and the tobacco industry have been
deeply intertwined at a commercial level. As spelled out in a
lengthy 1967 document from American Tobacco Company, these two
industries had a robust alignment of interests. Gas stations
are the most important retail outlets for cigarettes, with gas
stations and convenience stores accounting for more than 60%
of all cigarette sales by 2002. At the same time, cigarettes
have long been the most important retail product of gas
stations after gasoline, making up 28% of merchandise sales.
Since at least the 1950s, the oil and tobacco industries have
engaged in extensive joint marketing and cross-promotion
campaigns, from joint sponsorships of baseball teams to
hyper-specific marketing strategies that targeted consumers at
the level of individual gas stations and the households
nearby. They engaged in joint sponsorships of baseball teams,
and when the Federal Trade Commission moved to ban cigarette
advertising on television in 1970, oil companies tripled their
television advertising to fill the void. As spelled out in a
lengthy 1967 document from American Tobacco Company, these two
industries had a robust alignment of interests. Long marketing
documents from the late 1990s and early 2000s indicate that
these relationships survived and adapted even as the scope and
scale of tobacco’s cancer deception became clear.
Oil
Company Testing of Cigarettes
The
commercial relationship between the oil and tobacco industries
did not end at cross-promotion. In fact, the oil industry was
well positioned to test cigarette smoke for toxins because of
its expertise in using mass spectrometry to test smog and air
pollution. An internal Philip Morris report from 1957
documents not only how the tobacco companies turned to the oil
companies for their expertise in mass spectrometry, but also
that Shell and perhaps other companies were actively testing
cigarette tars during that period. As discussed more fully
below, Shell’s testing program was part of a research project
funded by tobacco. Exxon’s Esso Research Labs carried out
similar testing until at least 1968.
Beyond
merely testing tobacco products, however, the oil industry
began developing cigarette filters of their own. Esso provided
tobacco companies with sample filter material as early as
1962, and engaged in a joint research agreement on filters
with Philip Morris in 1968. The patent for the filter was
assigned to Esso in 1971. As late as the 1990s, Exxon held
patents to cigarette filters, leading to a failed partnership
with RJ Reynolds to develop, test, and commercially deploy
them. And Exxon was not alone. Between them, Exxon, Shell, and
their subsidiaries filed patents for cigarette filters in at
least three countries.
Tobacco
Industry Research Committee Origins
In
December 1953, executives from the country’s biggest tobacco
firms came together to discuss a joint industry strategy to
confront the rising tide of science demonstrating the strong
links between tobacco and cancer. To help them develop that
strategy, the tobacco industry turned to John Hill and Richard
Darrow of the public relations firm, Hill and Knowlton. Hill
and Knowlton relied on expertise developed to support one of
its oldest and longest-standing clients, the oil industry, to
develop that strategy for tobacco. In fact, the team to
support tobacco was also responsible for Hill and Knowlton’s
largest and most important oil company clients. Darrow helped
the tobacco companies organize the Tobacco Institute and drew
inspiration, in part, from the organization of the American
Petroleum Institute. Internal Hill and Knowlton memos explain
that the firm did not see themselves primarily as representing
individual product lines or companies, but industries (and
could therefore avoid conflicts of interest by representing
companies alongside industry organizations). In fact, internal
tobacco company documents show that the tobacco industry
recognized (and envied) the degree of coordination among the
oil majors, their highly-developed political acumen, and their
robust internal public relations departments.
Kerryn
King, a Hill and Knowlton PR man, worked in-house at Texaco
and while there was following the tobacco debates and wrote to
tobacco industry colleagues requesting documents. In addition,
Allan Campbell Johnson was key to the tobacco industry’s
European denial strategy. He was introduced to John Hill in
1953 by George Freyermouth of Standard Oil, because Johnson,
like Hill, was providing counsel to the oil companies at the
time. Again and again, the Tobacco Archives reveal how Hill
and Knowlton, the Tobacco Institute and the individual tobacco
companies turned to the oil industry for advice, for models,
and, ultimately, for people to carry out their campaign of
denial and deception.
Research
Overlaps
Many of
the research institutes used by the tobacco companies are
discussed extensively in our Smoke and Fumes oil archive. The
Stanford Research Institute (SRI) worked for the tobacco
companies on psychographic analysis, carbon monoxide testing,
and to develop discrete, portable cigarette testing kits that
could be used without attracting attention. SRI was among the
institutes funded through secret industry accounts managed by
tobacco industry law firms. SRI proposals to the tobacco
industry touted its experience doing smog research for the oil
companies. And in one telling document, the head of Phillip
Morris specifically referenced SRI’s work for Shell as
evidence of its qualifications to do tobacco work.
Truesdail
Laboratories, which was doing research into atmospheric carbon
dioxide for the American Petroleum Institute (API) by the late
1950s, also offered its services to the tobacco companies. In
a letter to tobacco executives in 1954, a former executive
with Standard Oil (now ExxonMobil) provided a long list of
recommended scientists to join the tobacco industry’s
scientific advisory board. Several of these scientists were
directly employed by Standard Oil, and the great majority of
them had done work for the oil companies on issues ranging
from lead to smog to cancer research. Many of these scientists
would go on to do similar research for the tobacco companies,
often serving as the public scientific face of the industry’s
cancer denial efforts.
New
York University
As the
tobacco industry sought external scientists to support and
validate its research programs, a former Standard Oil
executive recommended a number of scientists for the tobacco
companies to consider. Nearly all of these scientists had a
history of working for or with the oil industry, and many from
the list would go to work for tobacco as well. In particular,
the Standard Oil executive recommended a number of researchers
from both Standard Oil and New York University who had worked
together on a project examining cancer issues facing the oil
industry.
In
1953, executives from several tobacco companies met with
scientists from New York University. During this meeting, Dr.
C.P. Rhoads of NYU proposed using NYU’s research labs to solve
an issue for tobacco that it had solved before for the
petroleum industry. As Dr. Rhoads explained, the NYU group of
scientists had been hired by the petroleum industry to find a
carcinogen in oil and identify it so that the industry could
neutralize it in the finished product. In that particular
case, Standard Oil of New Jersey solved the problem by
diluting the carcinogenic component of oil down to no more
than 6% of its product. Dr. Rhoads explained that this model
could be applied to tobacco as well, which was already under
attack for being carcinogenic. Specifically, another scientist
at New York University had discovered that a component of
cigarette tars caused skin cancer in mice. Dr. Rhoads proposed
that his NYU group could identify that component and the
tobacco companies could either remove it or filter it out. The
representative of the American Tobacco Company asked whether
there was any proof that the chemical that caused skin cancer
in mice would also cause lung cancer in humans, and Dr. Rhoads
explained that there was not. He was sure, however, that
identifying this chemical and removing it would be good enough
for the medical community and the public at large, and
eliminate the cancer issue for the industry.
Industry
documents reflect a serious concern with the presence of Dr.
George Wynder on the research team because Wynder had
undertaken breakthrough animal research showing strong links
between cigarette smoke and cancer. According to industry
reports of the meetings, other members of the NYU team took
care to distance themselves from Wynder and reassure the
tobacco executives their results would be beneficial to the
industry.
Early
in the relationship, tobacco industry funding to the NYU team
was directed through the Damon Runyon Memorial Fund (which, in
turn, received donations from the tobacco industry). In his
presentation to tobacco executives, Dr. Rhoads makes it clear
that this arrangement – using the Damon Runyon Memorial Fund
to avoid a direct link in the research funding – would be
beneficial both for the lab and for the industry to reduce
questions that might arise about the validity of
industry-sponsored funding.
Following
the creation of the Tobacco Industry Research Council (TIRC)
in 1954, the tobacco industry continued to fund the NYU team
through TIRC, as reflected in a series of renewal applications
submitted by Dr. Alvin Kosak in the late 1950s. Kosak’s work
for TIRC also provides the earliest direct evidence of oil
industry collaboration in the tobacco industry’s research. In
1957, scientists from Philip Morris visited the laboratories
of Shell Oil and Humble Oil (now ExxonMobil) to discuss the
oil companies’ approach to using mass spectrometers—scientific
equipment that proved vital in toxicity testing of cigarettes.
More importantly, Philip Morris and Shell Oil also discussed
the mass spectrometry analysis of cigarette tars that Shell
had undertaken as part of Dr. Kosak’s research. As discussed
above, this is one of a number of instances documenting
recurring oil company testing of cigarettes or tobacco
products during the 1950s and 1960s.
Theodor
Sterling
By the
tobacco industry’s own admission, Theodor Sterling was, for
two decades, one of the industry’s most important assets. From
the early 1960s into the 1980s, Sterling was among the most
cited scientists. Ironically, Theodor Sterling was not even a
medical doctor; he was a mathematician. He was an expert at
using statistics and epidemiology to delay, confuse, and
obfuscate the certainty around the effects of cigarettes, and
beyond that, he was an expert of study design and statistical
methodology. Before working on the tobacco issue, Sterling did
research for Ethyl Corporation, a joint venture between
General Motors and Standard Oil. There he used the same
techniques to oppose regulation of lead in gasoline.
In
1968, Sterling prepared a report that would prove central to
the tobacco industry’s attacks on the emerging scientific
consensus around cancer and tobacco. Within the small advisory
group he convened to develop that report, one of the most
vocal advisors was Robert Eckert, medical director of Esso
(now ExxonMobil). Minutes from the advisory group’s meetings
reveal how Eckert’s description of the oil industry’s success
in shaping the scientific narrative around air pollution
provided a model that the tobacco industry would seek to
emulate. Sterling’s report and recommendations, drawing
heavily on that model, led the tobacco industry to propose a
Truth in Statistics Bill in 1969 that it would attempt to
resurrect more than a dozen years later in 1981.
A Complicated Relationship
Even as the tobacco industry looked to the oil
industry for models, expertise, and people, it saw in the oil
industry a critical, better resourced, and better organized
opponent in the public debate over cancer. The tobacco industry
files are filled with documents on smog, lead, and even on
climate change. Both published reports and internal tobacco
documents demonstrate that each industry saw in the other a
convenient culprit for environmental cancers. Ironically, this
mutual finger-pointing not only gave each industry a convenient
opportunity to watch and learn from the other’s strategies, it
also increased the overall public uncertainty about the causes
of cancer and the necessary solutions to the benefit both
industries. It can be difficult to discern from the documents
whether the earliest tobacco testing being done at Shell
Laboratories was in collaboration with or in opposition to the
tobacco industry. What is clear is that even as Shell undertook
this research, the tobacco companies were pursuing funded
research with the same people at the same laboratories and
seemingly on the recommendation of the oil companies.
Tobacco industry documents reveal a pervasive
sense - bordering on paranoia - that the tobacco companies were
constantly being outmaneuvered by the oil companies. Tobacco
companies were particularly concerned about oil company
influence within the American Cancer Society, not least because
Standard Oil president Monroe Rathbone served on the ACS Board
of Directors and on its committee on smoking and cancer.
The tobacco industry was a vocal critic of the oil
and auto industries’ joint air pollution research program with
the Environmental Protection Agency, which it argued was corrupt
and industry-influenced science. At the same time, it grudgingly
recognized this strategy as an effective model of regulatory
capture.
What They Knew and When
When do we hold someone responsible for a harm?
What if the harm is climate change?
In determining responsibility for a harm, courts
are likely to ask: Did they have the capacity to foresee the
harm? And, did they have the opportunity to avoid or reduce it?
For example, by warning others.
Growing public evidence demonstrates that Exxon
and other oil companies understood climate risks by the 1980s,
yet spent millions to sow uncertainty and misinformation about
climate science.
The documents that follow—industry histories,
scientific articles, oral testimonies, patents—span more than
half a century of industry research and industry action. They
offer compelling evidence that oil executives were actively
debating climate science in the 1950s, and were explicitly
warned about climate risks a decade later. Just as importantly,
they offer glimpses into why the industry undertook this
research, and how it used the results to sow scientific
uncertainty and public skepticism.
1946
The
Smoke and Fumes Committee
From
the very beginning of the American Petroleum Institute (API)
in 1919, the oil industry recognized pollution issues, and the
regulatory and liability risks they created, as an area of
common concern and common interest. By the 1930s, API had
focused particular attention to issues of air pollution. These
issues came into sharp focus in the 1940s, as a rapidly
growing Los Angeles grappled with the debilitating impacts of
smog.
In late
1946, as public concern and media scrutiny mounted, executives
from the Western Oil and Gas Association met in Los Angeles to
consider a response. They emerged with a plan—and a Committee.
Comprised of executives from leading oil companies (including
Union Oil, Standard Oil of California (both now part of
Chevron), Esso (now ExxonMobil), and Shell), the newly-created
Smoke and Fumes Committee would fund scientific research into
smog and other air pollution issues and, significantly, use
that research to inform and shape public opinion about
environmental issues. The express goal of their collaboration
was to use science and public skepticism to prevent
environmental regulations they deemed hasty, costly, and
unnecessary.
Recognizing
that the air pollution issues in Los Angeles could foreshadow
the emergence of similar risks across the country, the Smoke
and Fumes Committee was reorganized with a national mandate in
1952 within the American Petroleum Institute. It continued to
operate, under a succession of names—but many of the same
people—for the ensuing two decades. The Jones report documents
that by 1958 at the latest, the Committee was funding research
into the role of fossil fuels in rising levels of atmospheric
carbon dioxide.
1947
Stanford
Research Institute
The
Smoke and Fumes Committee funded research at a number of
institutes, including the Armour Research Foundation, the
Franklin Institute, and Truesdail Laboratories. But the
Committee’s earliest and most sustained partnership was with
the newly-created Stanford Research Institute (SRI).
Originally part of Stanford University, SRI maintained close
ties to the oil industry from its beginning. It was
established in 1946 at the urging of a Standard Oil executive
and with the promise of oil industry contracts; oil and
refining companies were well represented on the SRI board; and
the oil industry accounted for a significant portion of SRI
contracts and revenues in its early years.
Much of
the Smoke and Fumes Committee’s air pollution research was
carried out at SRI. As experience with smog would demonstrate,
the resulting scientific reports became an important and
recurring tool in the oil industry’s campaign to cast doubt on
both the science and the scientists that disagreed with them.
And, as recounted by researcher Harold Johnston, hires and
fires at SRI could be dictated by the Smoke and Fumes
Committee and influenced by researchers’ opinions of the
science in question.
An
Emerging Science
In
1886, Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius developed an equation
for chemical reaction rates that would make his name
commonplace in fossil fuel combustion science—and oil
companies. Ten years later, in 1896, he would become the first
scientist to quantify the impact of carbon dioxide on the
temperature of the global atmosphere. His later hypothesis
that fossil fuel combustion might increase global temperature
featured in both popular and academic texts throughout the
early 20th century, including geology texts that would have
been required reading for aspiring geologists.
The
concept of climate change gained new relevance in the late
1930s, when Guy Callendar documented a decades-long increase
in global temperatures and correlated that increase with
rising fossil fuel use. Over the ensuing decade, scientific
interest in the climate question continued to grow. During
much of this period, however, it was widely assumed that the
oceans covering 70% of the planet’s surface would absorb the
excess CO2 released by human activity, and mute any impact on
the atmosphere.
In
1955, Scripps Institute scientist Hans Suess demonstrated that
naturally occurring carbon-14 in the atmosphere was being
"diluted" by depleted carbon-12 derived from fossil fuels.
Suess’ 1955 paper provided the first clear proof that, as
hypothesized by Arrhenius and theorized by Callendar, carbon
dioxide from the combustion of fossil fuels was accumulating
in the atmosphere. With this work, the era of intensive of
climate science began. During the same period, oil industry
scientists—led by Humble Oil’s (now ExxonMobil) H.R.
Brannon—were actively engaged in carbon-14 research, and
uniquely equipped to understand and shape the climate science
revolution that evolved rapidly over the next few years.
1957
Brannon:
ExxonMobil on Notice
Even as
atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations rose and climate
science expanded, during the first half of the 20th century,
many researchers assumed that most excess CO2 would be
absorbed by the ocean, minimizing impacts on atmospheric
temperature. In 1957, a landmark paper by Roger Revelle and
Hans Suess of the Scripps Institute upturned that conventional
wisdom, demonstrating that far more CO2 would remain in the
atmosphere than previously assumed, potentially accelerating
the impact of global climate change.
Two
months after the Revelle and Suess paper was published, Humble
Oil (now ExxonMobil) scientists led by H.R. Brannon submitted
their own study for publication on the same question. Building
on the team’s earlier work on radiocarbon dating, and
submitting under the company’s name, the Brannon paper
provides the earliest indisputable evidence we have yet found
of oil company knowledge of climate science and climate risk.
Significantly, the Brannon report acknowledges not only rising
levels of atmospheric CO2, but also the evident contribution
of fossil fuels to that increase. In acknowledged disagreement
with Revelle, however, the Brannon paper suggests that CO2
would be retained in the oceans much longer before returning
to the atmosphere, which would delay by decades or centuries
the impact of fossil fuel emissions.
1968
"The
Robinson Report"
In
1968, scientists with the Stanford Research Institute
reported to the American Petroleum Institute about their
research on atmospheric pollutants of interest to the
industry. Summarizing the available science, the scientists
saved their starkest warnings for carbon dioxide (CO2). They
cautioned that rising levels of CO2 would likely result in
rising global temperatures and warned that, if temperatures
increased significantly, the result could be melting ice
caps, rising sea levels, warming oceans, and serious
environmental damage on a global scale.
They
also acknowledged that fossil fuel burning provided the best
explanation for rising CO2. They further recognized that
existing science was "detailed" and seemed "to adequately
explain the present state of CO2 in the atmosphere." And
they concluded that the most important research need was
technologies and "systems in which CO2 emissions would be
brought under control."
Robinson
Report, reprise
Robinson
and Robbins’ 1968 report represents a turning point,
separating a "before" and "after."
Not
only does the report acknowledge the link between rising
atmospheric CO2, the risk of climate change, and that fossil
fuels are the most likely culprit, it affirms that the
underlying science is sound, and that the most important
research needs were in technologies to reduce CO2 emissions.
We know the Robinson report was seen by industry leaders. In
1971, Robinson delivered the major findings of the study to
industry experts gathered at the World Petroleum Congress. A
1972 industry report authored by a steering committee of
high-level executives was submitted to the Department of
Interior on air pollution issues. It relied on Robinson’s
report and publicly referred to "their careful study" by
"eminent scientists" as an authoritative source on atmospheric
pollution. Significantly, both the 1971 speech and the 1972
report placed a far greater emphasis on scientific
uncertainties than Robinson himself did, and relied on those
uncertainties to support a "wait and see" approach to climate
action.
How
could the industry explain ignoring the climate findings of
its own scientific report even as it embraced that report on
other pollution issues? In 1969, API hastily commissioned a
"Supplemental" report from Robinson that took a more
skeptical, more equivocal approach to climate science. API
relied on that Supplemental report in its subsequent
questioning of climate science, and industry and climate
skeptics continued to cite it for years afterward. We will
share that latter report soon.
The oil
industry, in its report to the Department of Interior,
acknowledged the Robinson report from 1968. In its comments on
carbon dioxide, however, the industry relied heavily on a
synthesis of the American Academy of Science’s 1965 Air
Conservation report. Among the contributors to the report were
Jerry McAfee, Vice President of the Gulf Oil Corporation (now
Chevron) and Executive Secretary of the Smoke and Fumes
Technical Advisory Committee. The four-page section on carbon
dioxide—reproduced almost entirely in Environmental
Conservation—was considerably more equivocal than Robinson’s
1968 assessment, and failed to mention Revelle’s landmark
paper from 1957 and several other leading assessments.
Seeking
Alternatives to Action
In
addition to the 1957 paper from Brannon et al suggesting that
oceans could slow CO2 rise for longer than Revelle and Suess’
findings, the oil industry continued studying carbon dioxide
and its behavior in the atmosphere. In the ensuing decades,
the industry continued to fund scientific research into other
sources of accelerating CO2 emissions, alternative theories to
explain rising global temperatures, and potential sinks that
could absorb CO2 without the need for reduced emissions—all
the while building an unparalleled understanding of climate
science and the carbon cycle. Examples include investigations
into the ratio of fossil carbon to natural carbon in woods;
the ability of marine plankton to absorb CO2; and research
into theories of climate change based on sunspots in the 1960s
that have remained a go-to argument for climate skeptics. At
the same time, ongoing and more commercially oriented
research, for example into the use of increased CO2
concentrations to spur plant growth in greenhouses, bear
striking similarities to later arguments by industry-funded
skeptics that increased greenhouse gas emissions, by spurring
plant growth, would actually benefit agriculture and the
planet.
Patents
In
addition to sponsoring research on the environmental
characteristics of carbon dioxide, the oil industry also
undertook ongoing research and development into how to manage
the waste streams of their products. From the 1940s onward,
oil companies developed and refined techniques for removing
carbon dioxide from gas streams. While many of the applicable
patents were designed to produce "pure" CO2 for commercial
purposes, or to produce purified feeds of other gases by
removing CO2, the technology to separate from CO2 from other
gases was robust, well-established, and constantly
diversifying. In the 1960s and 1970s, patent filings for CO2
removal accelerated further. The significance of these
technologies is drawn into focus in a 1980 document, revealed
by Desmog Blog, in which Exxon subsidiary Imperial Oil not
only recognizes climate change, but also acknowledges that
existing technologies could cut CO2 emissions by 50% - an
opportunity the company dismisses by noting that it would
unacceptably increase the cost of burning oil.
Patent
filings also reveal the oil companies’ technological capacity
in related areas, including the development and continual
refinement of fuel cells and other technologies to use fossil
fuels more efficiently and decrease CO2 emissions. When
Congress proposed new government funding for research into
electric vehicles in the 1960s, the oil industry actively
opposed the new funding on the grounds that the needed
research was always underway. This raises the important
question of whether and how oil companies actually worked to
develop their patents and bring them to market after the early
promise of electric cars had been quashed.
Hurricanes
As
demand for oil grew in the twentieth century, oil companies
turned to offshore sources of petroleum. By the 1940s, they
were building platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, and quickly
discovered that hurricanes posed a substantial physical and
financial threat to their operations. Almost immediately,
individual oil companies alongside the American Petroleum
Institute began extensive oceanographic and meteorological
research projects. They investigated the causes and impacts of
hurricanes, developed techniques to forecast them, and
patented new oil rigs designed to withstand them. Because oil
platforms are costly, long-term investments, the industry
sought not simply to forecast hurricanes better in the
short-term, but to understand the maximum wave heights and
wind intensities that could impact a site over 100-year time
horizons. In a story first reported in the New York Times in
1989, and cast in new light by recent disclosures, Shell Oil
raised the height of a North Sea oil platform by six feet to
improve its chances of withstanding climate-driven sea level
rise over the ensuing decades.
By the
1960s, oil companies were sponsoring research at the forefront
of atmospheric science and using high-powered electric
computers to develop complex climate models for use in storm
forecasting. Because an increase in storm frequency and
severity is one of the predicted consequences of climate
change, understanding how storms form, and being able to
predict them, is fundamental to climate science and
understanding climate change.
Weather
Modification
Beyond
studying hurricanes in their natural state, the oil industry
also sponsored research into weather modification
techniques. This research took an array of forms – from
covering large areas of the earth with asphalt to increase
rainfall, to burning fossil fuels to break up fog or smog, to
spraying carbon dust into the atmosphere or spreading oil on
the ocean surface to weaken or shift hurricanes. Interest
in intentional weather modification is as old as climate
science itself, and the oil industry was not alone in
exploring it. At the same time, the overlaps between the
industry’s research – and personnel – on weather modification,
pollution control, and climate science are striking.
Research
and patents on the use of asphalt to create massive
"temperature mountains" to spur rainfall, published by James
F. Black of Esso/Exxon’s Production Research Division
demonstrate the company’s sophisticated capacity for modeling
local and regional impacts of climate changes and its interest
in deploying weather modification techniques on a very large
scale. As revealed by Inside Climate News, Black would
later tell Exxon’s Management Committee that "emerging science
showed that carbon dioxide levels were rising, likely driven
by fossil fuel use, and such increases would boost global
temperatures, leading to widespread damage."
The
scale and diversity of the oil industry’s weather modification
dreams is reflected in a series of joint publications by
William M. Gray and industry-sponsored coauthors Myron Corrin
and CA Stokes. Gray and his co-authors focus on a variety
of potential weather modification uses for carbon dust, also
known as "carbon black" produced by the burning of petroleum
products. Even as they acknowledged economic or technical
challenges to Black’s proposals and to stratagems to melt
snowfields by coating them in carbon black, Gray and his
co-authors explored and actively promoted the use of
petroleum-based carbon black to modify weather under an array
of other circumstances, including altering rainfall patterns,
shifting winds, blowing away smog, and potentially shaping the
course of hurricanes. Myron Corrin, a respected academic,
was not only a consultant to Phillips petroleum, but an
inventor (for Phillips) of carbon black production techniques.
Well regarded for his work on hurricanes, William Gray would
in later years be a noted and vigorous climate skeptic.
Finally,
the linkages between weather modification efforts and the oil
industry’s decades long focus on reaching and exploiting the
(warming) Arctic cannot be ignored. Soon after SRI’s
Elmer Robinson published research on "Ice Fog" as an air
pollution problem in the Arctic, meteorologist Harry Wexler
drew on Robinson’s work to explain how human-made ice clouds
(produced by petroleum combustion) could be used to melt the
Arctic ocean. Indeed, petroleum products feature
repeatedly in scientific discussions on the prospects for
permanently melting the Arctic sea ice – over large areas or
across the Arctic Ocean as a whole – whether intentionally, by
spreading carbon dust from cargo planes, or inadvertently,
through the impacts of Arctic oil spills. The oil
industry’s own role in these discussions remains uncertain,
though its awareness of them is clear.
Arctic
Whether,
how, and, on what time scale, oil companies expected the
Arctic to melt remains unknown. When interest in the vast,
untapped potential of the Arctic oil province first developed
in the early 1940s, the Arctic was in the midst of a
multi-decade and much-discussed period of warming and sea ice
retreat. Arctic sea ice experienced another, and steeper
decline in the 1950s, coincident with the onset of serious
research and experimentation by both government and corporate
researchers into weather modification techniques described
above, and amidst growing scientific and corporate awareness
of potential climate change.
The oil
industry knew of the enormous potential opportunity presented
by a melting Arctic. Vast oil reserves lie trapped beneath
Arctic ice. Whether by natural melting, climate change, or
deliberate intervention, oil companies were (and still are)
eagerly looking forward to future Arctic drilling. To prepare
they started developing special platforms, which could be
deployed to the Arctic. These platforms were powerful and
designed to withstand barrages of Arctic sea ice. Some were
mobile and able to be nimbly moved from location to location
as conditions changed. Others designed with sloped bases that
would force the ice upward, and away from the base.
The
industry also developed special ships and tankers to move into
and through the icy waters. In a widely promoted 1969
expedition, Esso (now Exxon) subsidiary Humble Oil converted a
thousand foot oil tanker into a first of its kind ice-breaker
designed to crush a channel through the sea ice of the fabled
Northwest Passage and demonstrate a viable sea-route to the
emerging oil fields of the Alaskan and Canadian Arctic. The
voyage of the SS Manhattan, described in detail in Ross Coen’s
Breaking Ice for Arctic Oil, was tied to the rapid expansion
of the coastal oil resources of Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay; and Esso
envisioned a fleet of similar vessels plying Arctic waters.
Yet the simultaneous patenting of offshore Arctic technologies
by many companies suggests the industry was already looking
beyond the shoreline, to potentially massive reserves beneath
the Arctic ice.
Paleoclimates
& Sea Level Rise
As the
major oil companies looked to the oceans for new petroleum
reserves, they needed to know where to look. From the early
decades of the 20th century, the oil industry recognized the
link between shallow seas and oil deposits. The perpetual
quest for new oilfields led the industry to pioneering science
in the relationship between CO2 levels, global temperatures,
and sea level rise. Among the most important of these projects
was "American Petroleum Institute Project 51" housed at
Scripps Institute of Oceanography. Roger Revelle and Hans
Suess, who published their landmark paper on the oceans’
ability to absorb and hold carbon in 1957, were both working
for Scripps at the time. Concurrently, Project 51 ran at
Scripps from the mid-1950s through the early 1960s.
Among
the results of these studies was the explicit mapping of
periods of rising sea level onto periods of warming. This gave
the industry unique insight into one of the most significant
consequences of climate change—sea level rise driven by rising
global temperatures.
Perhaps
not surprisingly, by the 1980s—even as they continued to
publicly question climate science—oil companies were investing
millions to construct taller offshore oil rigs to protect
their costly, long-lived investments from sea level rise.
Today
More than a decade ago, researchers began to
document—and, more importantly, bring to light—oil industry
efforts to fund the science and propaganda of climate denial. A
growing body of evidence uncovered in the last year has revealed
that, even as they funded climate denial campaigns, Exxon and
other oil companies had a sophisticated command of climate
science by the 1980s, at the latest. More importantly, that
evidence suggests that oil companies used climate science to
inform and shape their own business decisions even as they
promoted scientific uncertainty and climate skepticism among
consumers, regulators and the broader public. This emerging
evidence has spurred growing calls for investigations and
accountability by the public, legislators, and authorities at
every level of government.
In the United States alone, four state Attorneys
General have already launched investigations, with more expected
to follow. At the federal level, requests for investigation into
Exxon’s activities have been referred to the Securities and
Exchange Commission and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In
the Philippines, the national Commission on Human Rights has
taken up a petition by organizations and Typhoon Haiyan
survivors demanding accountability from the oil companies that
violated their human rights.
If oil companies misrepresented or concealed
material facts about their products from the consumers,
investors, and the public in the name of profit, they committed
fraud. If the oil industry had notice of the risks of its
products to the global environment and to this and future
generations around the world, they had a duty to warn
consumers—and the public—of those risks. If the oil industry not
only failed to do so, but also actively worked to conceal the
risks for decades, they must be held accountable.
: FURTHER INFORMATION AT CIEL
:
: DOCUMENTS :
>>> https://www.smokeandfumes.org/documents
https://www.ciel.org/research-publications
xmedia + ciel_documents - mixed
E-cigarettes are harmful to health and not safe
The secret is out: The tobacco industry targets the vulnerable
1:37
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByR0cONMSf8
For decades, the tobacco industry has deliberately employed
strategic, aggressive and well-resourced tactics to attract
youth to tobacco and nicotine products. Internal industry
documents reveal in-depth research and calculated approaches
designed to attract a new generation of tobacco users, from
product design to marketing campaigns aimed at replacing the
millions of people who die each year from tobacco-attributable
diseases with new consumers – youth.
Tobacco is killing us and the planet
1:03
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3RemnDHS9o
The harmful impact of the tobacco industry on the environment
is vast and growing adding unnecessary pressure to our
planet’s already scarce resources and fragile ecosystems.
Tobacco – threat to our environment
4:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs4Aoolq5aI
With an annual greenhouse gas contribution of 84 megatons
carbon dioxide equivalent, the tobacco industry contributes to
climate change and reduces climate resilience, wasting
resources and damaging ecosystems.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::
Smoke and Fumes: A Hidden History of Oil and Tobacco
5:23
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfN6-fVM8OI
D:\00_WORKER_C\0_INCOMING\DATA_MIXED\BOOK_RAUCHEN\SMOKE_FUMES\MEDIA
https://www.youtube.com/@CielOrg/videos
The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) is a
public interest, not-for-profit environmental law firm founded
in 1989 in the USA to strengthen international and comparative
environmental law and policy around the world. With offices in
Washington, DC and Geneva, Switzerland, CIEL's staff of
international attorneys provide legal counsel and advocacy,
policy research and capacity building through four program
areas: People, Land & Resources; Environmental Health;
Climate & Energy; and Human Rights & Environment.
x10
Smoke & Fumes: A deep history of the oil industry and
climate change
3:51
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsacawRiEVs
This is a story about how the world’s most powerful industry
used science, communications, and consumer psychology to shape
the public debate over climate change. And it begins
earlier—decades earlier—than anyone suspected.
Read more: www.smokeandfumes.org
Smoke & Fumes Part 2: What they did with what they knew
3:43
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t_Fe_Y-Yys
Once they knew of climate risks, oil companies had a choice:
act to reduce CO2 emissions or continue business as usual. How
did they respond?
Fossils, Fertilizers, and False Solutions
1:57
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES0SFWKt-Jk
The science is crystal clear: fossil fuels are the main driver
of the climate emergency and the intersecting crises that flow
from it. At every phase of their life cycle, coal, oil, and
gas are not only heating the planet but also threatening
ecosystems, poisoning the environment and our bodies, and
harming health and human rights.
How Fracked Gas, Cheap Oil, and Unburnable Coal are Driving
the Plastics Boom
2:01
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igYw2F0Mxco
Did you know over 99% of plastics are made from fossil fuels?
But not only are they made from the same materials; they're
made by the same companies. That means plastic pollution is
worse than we thought: It's not just the waste that reaches
our oceans. Plastic production is also dirty.
Fueling Plastics: Untested Assumptions and Unanswered
Questions in the Plastics Boom
2:16
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0EmJ6wsyo4
In the next 5 years, global plastic production could increase
by as much as a third. But what's fueling these investments?
Companies are making massive investments in plastic, betting
on the availability of low-cost chemicals and continued
increase in demand for disposable plastic. But global shifts
raise questions about whether these new investments will be
profitable in the long term.
Plastic Industry Awareness of the Ocean Plastic Problem
1:04
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_-mnKs3MgM
By no later than the 1970s, the plastics industry was aware
its products were polluting the oceans. Yet they spent decades
denying responsibility and fighting regulation.
Plastic is Accelerating the Climate Crisis
3:07
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgSBzfa-eKk
We know that plastic can harm people, animals, and the
environment. But did you know that it also accelerates climate
change?
Fueling Plastics: The Truth Behind the Plastic Bag
2:24
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyevwk1NQhE
How is plastic made, and how does it impact our future? Over
99% of plastic is made from fossil fuels, with deep impacts on
our environment and out health.
Learn more with our Fueling Plastics series:
https://www.ciel.org/reports/fuelingplastics
The Human Right to a Toxic-Free Environment.
1:31
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__527GMbaVI
During the 49th session of the UN Human Rights Council, the
Special Rapporteur on the Environment and the Special
Rapporteur on Toxic presented their new report on the right to
a toxic-free environment.
The report shines a light on the dramatic ongoing toxification
of people and the planet which is causing environmental
injustices and creating “sacrifice zones”.
Read our statement:
https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/CIEL_-statement-at-the-HRC-on-sacrifices-zones.pdf
Why We March
1:16
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48eyemZV5qI
CIEL's President & CEO, Carroll Muffett, with a few words
on why #WhyWeMarch to #EndFossilFuels
::
Fueling Plastics: Series examines deep linkages between the
fossil fuels and plastics industries, and the products they
produce
Launched on September 20th, 2017, Fueling Plastics, an ongoing
investigative series, examining the deep linkages between the
fossil fuels and plastics industries and the products they
produce, and exposing how the US shale gas boom fuels a
massive buildout of plastics infrastructure in the United
States and beyond. In the wake of Hurricane Harvey, and the
release of air pollutants and toxic substances from
petrochemical facilities across the Gulf region, these reports
shed new light on the harmful impacts of fossil fuels at every
stage of their lifecycle.
Fossils, Plastics, and Petrochemical Feedstocks outlines the
role of fossil fuels in plastics production, detailing how
over 99% of plastics are produced from chemicals sourced from
fossil fuels. Because fossil fuel production is highly
localized to specific areas, plastics production is also
concentrated in specific regions where fossil fuel development
is present, especially in the US Gulf Coast. Because plastics
production is part of the fossil fuels supply chain, many
fossil fuel companies own plastics producers and many plastics
companies own fossil fuel operations.
https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Fueling-Plastics-Fossils-Plastics-Petrochemical-Feedstocks.pdf
How Fracked Gas, Cheap Oil, and Unburnable Coal are Driving
the Plastics Boom warns of the enormous influx of investment
to expand or construct new petrochemical facilities in the
Gulf. The availability of cheap shale gas in the United States
is fueling a massive wave of new investments in plastics
infrastructure in the US and abroad, with $164 billion planned
for 264 new facilities or expansion projects in the US alone,
and spurring further investment in Europe and beyond. In as
little as five years, these investments could increase global
plastics production capacity by a third, driving companies to
produce ever greater volumes of plastics for years to come. In
so doing, this wave of investment increases pollution risks to
frontline communities throughout the plastics supply chain and
directly undermines efforts by cities, countries, and the
global community to combat the growing plastics crisis.
https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Fueling-Plastics-How-Fracked-Gas-Cheap-Oil-and-Unburnable-Coal-are-Driving-the-Plastics-Boom.pdf
Plastic Industry Awareness of the Ocean Plastics Problem
reveals the evolution of industry’s awareness of the problem
of plastic pollution in the ocean. Scientists became aware of
the ocean plastics problem in the 1950s, and understanding of
the nature and severity of the problem grew over the following
decades. By no later than the 1970s, the major chemical and
petrochemical companies and industry groups were also aware of
the problem. Originally, the plastics industry ignored the
issue, claiming that it was merely cosmetic. Now industry
acknowledges the problem, though they promote reuse and
recycling while fighting local regulation of plastic products.
https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Fueling-Plastics-Plastic-Industry-Awareness-of-the-Ocean-Plastics-Problem.pdf
Untested Assumptions and Unanswered Questions in the Plastics
Boom raises new and significant questions about the economic
rationale for the massive wave of new infrastructure
investments for plastics and petrochemicals. Companies
investing in plastics are counting on plastic infrastructure
being profitable for decades to come. But changes in the
economy, government regulations, and consumer attitudes
worldwide could make these investments much riskier than
previously assumed.
https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Fueling-Plastics-Untested-Assumptions-and-Unanswered-Questions-in-the-Plastics-Boom.pdf
::
Governments and institutions are slowly but surely beginning
to address fossil fuels head-on, but they still fail to look
at the bigger picture. The fossil fuel industry sees that its
days are numbered as the world’s main source of energy, and to
maintain its extractive business model, it is turning its
focus to synthetic agricultural chemicals such as pesticides
and fertilizers. Like other petrochemical products (e.g.
plastic), agrochemicals are fossil fuels in another form.
Together with oil and gas companies, agrochemical producers
are promoting carbon capture and fossil fuel-derived hydrogen
and ammonia to secure additional revenue streams for their
business-as-usual production and green their image.
The Center for International Environmental Law is releasing a
new report, “Fossils, Fertilizers, and False Solutions
How Laundering Fossil Fuels in Agrochemicals Puts the Climate
and the Planet at Risk,” exposing this new harmful strategy.
It calls on governments to rapidly transition to resilient and
regenerative models that enhance food and energy sovereignty
and protect human rights.
https://www.ciel.org/reports/fossil-fertilizers
https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Fossils-Fertilizers-and-False-Solutions.pdf
Sowing a Plastic Planet: How Microplastics in Agrochemicals
Are Affecting Our Soils, Our Food, and Our Future (May 2022)
https://www.ciel.org/reports/microplastics-in-agrochemicals
https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Sowing-a-Plastic-Planet_1dec22.pdf
https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/SaPP-Factsheet-English_Jan2023.pdf
Pushing Back: A Guide for Frontline Communities Challenging
Petrochemical Expansion (May 2022)
https://www.ciel.org/reports/pushing-back-a-guide-for-frontline-communities-challenging-petrochemical-expansion-may-2022
The plastics and petrochemicals industry has big plans to
expand its footprint around the world. If this expansion moves
forward, the industry will blow through our global carbon
budget, exacerbate the plastics crisis, and threaten the
health and safety of frontline communities, from the Gulf
Coast of the US to Southeast Asia and beyond.
Pushing Back: A Guide for Frontline Communities Challenging
Petrochemical Expansion is an informational resource for
communities facing the threat of petrochemical production and
expansion. Community leaders, organizers, and public interest
attorneys can use this site to learn more about:
petrochemicals, the risks and impacts of their production and
use, and ways to raise concerns about existing or proposed
facilities. While this guide is is primarily focused on
petrochemical developments in the US, some of the information
and tools may apply more broadly.
https://www.pushbackagainstpetrochemicals.org
https://www.pushbackagainstpetrochemicals.org/additional-resources
Plastics: The Last Straw for Big Oil?
https://www.asyousow.org/report-page/plastics-the-last-straw-for-big-oil
IPCC Unsummarized: Unmasking Clear Warnings on Overshoot,
Techno-fixes, and the Urgency of Climate Justice
https://www.ciel.org/reports/ipcc-wg3-briefing
https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/IPCC-Unsummarized_Unmasking-Clear-Warnings-on-Overshoot-Techno-fixes-and-the-Urgency-of-Climate-Justice.pdf
Beyond the Limits: New IPCC WG II Report Highlights How
Gambling on Overshoot is Pushing the Planet Past a Point of No
Return (Feb 2022)
https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/CIEL_HBF_IPCC-WGII-Key-Messages-28Feb2022.pdf
Permian Climate Bomb (Oct 2021)
https://www.ciel.org/reports/permian-climate-bomb
https://permian-climate-bomb.squarespace.com/home
Indigenous Peoples’ Participation in Bodies Established Under
UN Climate Agreements: Fact Sheet Series (Oct 2021)
https://www.ciel.org/reports/indigenous-peoples-participation-in-un-climate-bodies
Indigenous Peoples and Traditional Knowledge in the Context of
the UNFCCC (Jun 2021)
https://www.ciel.org/reports/indigenous-peoples-and-traditional-knowledge-in-the-context-of-the-un-framework-convention-on-climate-change-2020-update
https://social.desa.un.org/issues/indigenous-peoples/united-nations-declaration-on-the-rights-of-indigenous-peoples
https://social.desa.un.org/sites/default/files/migrated/19/2018/11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf
https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N06/512/07/PDF/N0651207.pdf?OpenElement
::::::::::::
Smoke and Fumes: The Legal and Evidentiary Basis for Holding
Big Oil Accountable for the Climate Crisis (Nov 2017)
Click to read.
Smoke and Fumes: The Legal and Evidentiary Basis for Holding
Big Oil Accountable for the Climate Crisis presents a
comprehensive synthesis of the available evidence on what the
oil industry knew about climate science, when they knew it,
and what they did with the information. It combines that
synthesis with an update on the latest developments in
accountability research and science, which have dramatically
improved our ability to identify the impacts of climate change
on individuals and communities, the corporate actors that
contributed to those impacts, and the nature of their
contributions. The report presents this evidence in the
context of the core elements of legal responsibility in tort
and human rights law. It concludes that oil industry actors
had early knowledge of climate risks and important
opportunities to act on those risks, but repeatedly failed to
do so. Those failures give raise to potential legal
responsibilities under an array of legal theories.
https://www.ciel.org/reports/smoke-and-fumes
https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Smoke-Fumes.pdf
::::::::::::
Delivering on the Paris Promises: Combating Climate Change
while Protecting Rights (May 2017)
Click to read full report
Recommendations for the Negotiations of the Paris Rule Book
(Español abajo) (En français ci-dessous)
The adoption and the rapid entry into force of the Paris
Agreement constituted a significant step towards a global
response to the climate crisis. The Paris Agreement
establishes the first international framework that commits
states to take steps to keep temperature increase below 1.5ºC,
under which all states have agreed to take climate action on
the basis of equity.
Significantly, the Paris Agreement also placed climate action
in the context of efforts to achieve sustainable development,
stressing the relationship between climate action and poverty
eradication. It further reaffirms the need for governments to
respect and promote human rights, including the rights of
indigenous peoples, gender equality and the empowerment of
women, the fundamental priority of safeguarding food security,
the importance of public participation and access to
information, the imperatives of a just transition and creation
of decent work, and the importance of securing ecosystems
integrity. The international community has long recognized
that climate change poses a considerable threat to the
realization of human rights, especially the rights of
vulnerable people and local communities, and the rights of
indigenous peoples.
Read the report.
https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Delivering-On-Paris-Web.pdf
Read more: DeliveringOnParis.com
Concretando las Promesas de París: Combatir el Cambio
Climático Protegiendo Derechos
Recomendaciones para las Negociaciones del Libro de Reglas de
París
Haga click para leer el informe
La adopción y la rápida activación del Acuerdo de París
constituyen un significativo avance hacia una respuesta global
frente a la crisis climática. El Acuerdo de París establece el
primer mecanismo internacional que compromete a los estados a
mantener el incremento de la temperatura (global) por debajo
de los 1.5 °C. Este mecanismo acuerda que todos los estados
tomen acción climática basada en la equidad. De especial
relevancia es el hecho que el Acuerdo de París pone en
contexto los esfuerzos para lograr el desarrollo sostenible,
haciendo hincapié sobre la relación entre la acción climática
y la erradicación de la pobreza. Además, reafirma la necesidad
que tienen los gobiernos de respetar y promover los derechos
humanos, incluyendo por cierto los derechos de los pueblos
indígenas, la igualdad de género y el empoderamiento de las
mujeres, la prioridad fundamental de salvaguardar la seguridad
alimentaria, la importancia de la participación ciudadana y el
acceso a la información, los imperativos de una justa
transición y creación de trabajo decente y la importancia de
asegurar la integridad de los ecosistemas.
Lee el informe.
https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Delivering-On-Paris-Spanish-Sep2017.pdf
Aprende más: www.DeliveringOnParis.com
Transformer l’essai de Paris : lutter contre le changement
climatique tout en protégeant les droits
Recommandations pour les négociations portant sur les lignes
directrices pour la mise en œuvre de l’Accord de Paris
Cliquez ici pour lire le rapport complet.
L’adoption et la rapide entrée en vigueur de l’accord de Paris
ont constitué des étapes essentielles pour une réponse
mondiale face au changement climatique. L’accord de Paris est
le premier cadre international qui engage les Etats à agir
concrètement pour contenir la hausse de la température de la
planète en dessous des 1,5°C. Dans ce cadre, tous les Etats se
sont accordés pour prendre des mesures afin de faire face au
changement climatique en tenant compte du principe d’équité.
L’accord de Paris a également placé l’action climatique dans
le contexte des efforts à entreprendre pour parvenir à un
développement durable, en soulignant les liens entre action
climatique et éradication de la pauvreté. Il réaffirme aussi
la nécessité pour les gouvernements de respecter et promouvoir
les droits humains, y compris les droits des peuples
autochtones, l’égalité des sexes et l’autonomisation des
femmes, la priorité fondamentale de garantir la sécurité
alimentaire, l’importance de la participation du public et de
l’accès à l’information, les impératifs d’une transition juste
et la création d’emplois décents, et l’importance de garantir
l’intégrité des écosystèmes.
Lisez le rapport.
https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Delivering-On-Paris-French-Nov2017.pdf
En savoir plus : www.DeliveringOnParis.com
https://www.ciel.org/reports/delivering-paris-promises-combating-climate-change-protecting-rights
::::::::::::
https://www.deliveringonparis.com
::::::::::::
About
The negotiations of the Paris Rule Book are critical to
ensuring that the promises made in the Paris Agreement will be
met – including the commitment of governments to respect,
protect and take into consideration existing human rights
obligations. To enhance the likelihood that the Paris
Agreement is effectively implemented, when developing the
Paris Rule Book, parties should fully integrate human rights
and the social and environmental principles reaffirmed in the
preamble, including the rights of indigenous peoples, public
participation, gender equality, safeguarding food security and
ending hunger, a just transition, and ecosystem integrity.
Doing so is not only essential for the Paris Agreement
implementation, but also for ensuring policy coherence. The
parties to the Paris Agreement have numerous obligations under
existing human rights agreements and other international
agreements and declarations that relate to the Paris Agreement
and how they should address climate change. By incorporating
these obligations into the Paris Rule Book, parties are not
creating additional burdens for themselves, but instead
ensuring policy coherence and making it easier for them to
meet their international obligations.
Key human rights and environmental and social principles set
forth in the preamble of the Paris Agreement, including the
linkages to existing international obligations, as well as how
these principles should be integrated into four key elements
of the Paris Rule Book: Nationally Determined Contributions,
Adaptation Communications, the Transparency Framework, and the
Global Stocktake (without precluding the relevance of other
aspects of the work of the APA or work under other bodies in
the UNFCCC).
The Paris Agreement is an important step to addressing climate
change. Its effective implementation relies on the creation of
a robust and rights-based Paris Rule Book.
This report is available in English | Español | Français
Human Rights
Protecting, Promoting & Respecting Human Rights
Climate change threatens the realization of human rights as
can the actions taken to address climate change. Climate
impacts already endanger millions of people and their
livelihoods and make it difficult for them to realize their
rights to life, food, water, and a healthy environment, among
others. Effective state action against climate change is
necessary to uphold the human rights of millions of people.
Further, actions to mitigate and adapt to climate change must
also respect human rights and include necessary safeguards to
avoid human rights abuses. The Paris Agreement and
parties’ existing human rights obligations necessitate that
action must be taken to limit global temperature rise to no
more than 1.5 degrees Celsius and those actions must adhere to
the existing obligations.
Key International Instruments:
Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Adopted by the UN
General Assembly, the UDHR sets out the fundamental human
rights that must be universally protected and acknowledges
that these human rights must be realized by all people. This
includes the right to life, health, participation, and
education, among others.
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: The
ICCPR is one of three treaties that makes up the International
Bill of Human Rights along with the UDHR and ICESCR. The
ICCPR has been adopted by 169 parties and lays out numerous
rights including freedom of movement, freedom of assembly, and
freedom of expression among others.
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights: The ICESCR has 164 parties and is a fundamental human
rights treaty. It includes the right to work, the right
to health, and the right to an adequate standard of living
including the right to food, water, and housing. It also
includes the right to public participation, which includes
stakeholder engagement in decision-making,
Convention on the Rights of the Child: The Convention on the
Rights of the Child provides a comprehensive overview of the
rights of the child including related to a healthy environment
and education, among others and has been ratified by all UN
states except for one. Article 29 guarantees every child the
right to an education on matters related to the environment..
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: The
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities protects
the human rights of people with disabilities and ensure their
equality under law, as well as ensuring their right to
participate in public affairs. It includes specific rights for
people with disabilities including accessibility, inclusion in
society, respect for differences and equality of
opportunities, among others, as well as reiterating rights in
the ICCPR and ICESCR.
International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Racial Discrimination: The CERD condemns discrimination and
calls on parties to eliminate racial discrimination in all
forms while also promoting tolerance. Additionally,
article 5(c) guarantees all people the right to participate in
public life without discrimination.
Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Protecting, Promoting & Respecting the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples
Indigenous peoples are among the first to face the impacts of
climate change. And the plans and strategies to mitigate and
adapt to climate change also often pose threats to indigenous
peoples as they are neither meaningfully consulted nor are
their rights taken into account. Both the Paris Agreement and
the IPCC AR5 recognized the important contributions of
indigenous peoples in ecosystem conservation with their
traditional knowledge, innovations, and practices. The Paris
Agreement builds upon the recognition of indigenous peoples’
rights in the Cancun Agreement and must be implemented in a
way that recognizes and safeguards the rights of indigenous
peoples, including collective rights to lands and free, prior,
and informed consent, among others, and that includes the
participation of indigenous peoples.
Key International Instruments:
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
(UNDRIP): The UNDRIP was adopted by the UN General Assembly in
2007. The text recognises the wide range of basic human rights
and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples. Among these
are the right to unrestricted self-determination, an
inalienable collective right to the ownership, use and control
of lands, territories and other natural resources, their
rights in terms of maintaining and developing their own
political, religious, cultural and educational institutions
along with the protection of their cultural and intellectual
property.
ILO Convention No. 169: The ILO convention No. 169 is, along
with the UNDRIP, a cornerstone of the international framework
on the rights of indigenous peoples. Convention No. 169 is
aimed at ensuring that indigenous peoples enjoy their
fundamental human rights equally, exercise control over their
own development and participate fully in the national
development of the States in which they live, in accordance
with their cultural identities.
2014 Outcome document of the World Conference of Indigenous
Peoples: The High-Level Plenary Meeting of the General
Assembly to be known as the World Conference on Indigenous
Peoples adopted an outcome document, in which the highest body
of the UN committed to concrete actions with which to
implement the UNDRIP with the majority of those actions
directed at the national level.
UN System Wide Action Plan: At the 2014 World Conference on
Indigenous Peoples, the General Assembly requested the
development of a system-wide action plan for a coherent
approach to achieving the ends of the United Nations
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples:
Adopted in 2016, the American Declaration reaffirms the rights
in the UNDRIP and provides specific protection for indigenous
peoples in North America, Central America, South America, and
the Caribbean. This includes provisions, such as protections
for those living in voluntary isolation, that address the
particular situation of indigenous peoples in the Americas. It
also further builds on the UNDRIP by including specific
references to gender equality.
Public Participation
Ensuring Public Participation
The public’s right to participate in environmental
decision-making is a core principle of international
environmental law. The Paris Agreement and Sustainable
Development Goals build off of Principle 10 of the 1992 Rio
Declaration in recognizing that combating climate change and
promoting sustainable development require effective engagement
of all actors of society. Public participation and access to
information at all stages of decision-making better informs
the design of policies and actions, reduces risks of disputes,
and increases public support.
Key International Instruments:
Rio Declaration Principle 10: In 1992, countries adopted the
Rio Declaration at the Earth Summit in Brazil. Principle 10
lays out a core principle of international environmental law,
the public’s right to participate in environmental
decision-making. It recognizes access to information, access
to participation in decision-making, and access to justice as
the three key procedural rights for matters related to the
environment and development.
Chapters 23-31 of Agenda 21: At the 1992 Earth Summit, the UN
also adopted an action plan on sustainable development, Agenda
21. In Chapters 23-31, it noted that to achieve
sustainable development all social groups needed to be engaged
with and to participate in decision-making. To do so Chapters
23-31 sought to lay out ways to strengthen the role of key
social groups and to guarantee that the voices of major groups
could be heard in policy-making related to the environment
including women, youth, indigenous peoples, non-governmental
organizations, local governments, workers and trade unions,
business and industry, the scientific and technological
community, and farmers.
Agenda 2030, Sustainable Development Goal 16: SDG16
promotes “inclusive societies for sustainable development” as
well as access to justice and accountable and inclusive
institutions. As such included in its targets is ensuring
inclusive and participatory decision-making (16.7). It also
calls for the development of “effective, accountable and
transparent institutions” (16.6). Like Principle 10 its
targets also focus on access to information and access to
justice as well.
UNEP Bali Guidelines on Principle 10: In 2010, governments
adopted the Guidelines for the Development of National
Legislation on Access to Information, Public Participation and
Access to Justice in Environmental Matters at the 11th Special
Session of UNEP’s Governing Council/Global Ministerial
Environmental Forum. These Bali Guidelines are designed to
accelerate action in implementing the access rights embodied
in Principle 10 in countries around the world.
Regional Frameworks
UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public
Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in
Environmental Matters (Aarhus Convention): Adopted in 1998 and
building on the concept of environmental democracy in the Rio
Declaration, the European governments signed the Aarhus
Convention to promote good environmental governance across the
continent. It was signed to not only promote these values, but
also make them into enforceable rights with the establishment
of an independent review mechanism to evaluate complaints.
Since the adoption of the Convention, its parties have adopted
by consensus additional guidelines detailing minimum standards
for the full and effective implementation of some of its core
provisions including:
The Maastricht Recommendations on Promoting
Effective Public Participation in Decision-making in
Environmental Matters
The Almaty Guidelines on the Promotion of
the Aarhus Principles in International Forums
Escazu Convention on Access to Information, Participation and
Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the
Caribbean: In March 2018, ECLAC (or CEPLA) adopted a regional
instrument on Principle 10 (access to information,
participation, and justice in environmental matters) in the
Latin America and Caribbean region. The Regional Agreement
will open for signature on September 27, 2018.
Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment
Ensuring Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment
The Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
recognize that women and girls are disproportionately affected
by climate change. Oftentimes, restricted access to education,
resources, and decision-making spaces deepen and intensify the
impacts on women and girls, developing an increased burden on
their livelihoods. At the same time, women and girls possess
critical knowledge and are already developing innovative
gender-just solutions to mitigate the impacts of climate
change. Climate policies must recognize both the
differentiated impacts and the innovative women-led solutions
in order to be gender-responsive. Policies must also be
developed in consultation with communities, including women,
in order to ensure effective, safe, and sustainable
implementation.
Key International Instruments:
Agenda 2030, Sustainable Development Goal 5: SDG 5
recognizes that ending all forms of discrimination against
women and girls is not only a basic human right but also
crucial to accelerating sustainable development. It recognizes
that empowering women and girls has a multiplier effect and
helps drive up economic growth and development across the
board.
Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action: The Beijing
Declaration and Platform for Action was the unprecedented
global pledge to attaining equality, development, and peace
for women worldwide. The Platform for Action requires
immediate action by all to generate a just, humane, and
peaceful world based on fundamental freedoms and human rights.
Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination
Against Women (CEDAW): CEDAW defines what constitutes
discrimination against women and sets up an agenda for
national action to end such discrimination.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR): UDHR, although
not legally binding, has been elaborated in subsequent
international treaties, women’s rights, regional human rights
instruments, and national constitutions.
Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace &
Security: UNSCR 1325 addresses not only the inordinate impact
of war on women but also the pivotal role women should and do
play in conflict management, conflict resolution, and
sustainable peace.
Food Security
Right to Food
Globally, 815 million people – up from 795 million last year –
are chronically hungry. The IPCC concluded that climate
change will impact all aspects of food security, not just
food production. SDG 2 on food security and nutrition cannot
be achieved without a principled approach to climate action
grounded in human rights and an end to inequality. The Paris
Agreement and existing human rights obligations demand that
parties’ actions be ambitious enough to limit global warming
to 1.5ºC and to enhance adaptive capacity, strengthen
resilience, and reduce vulnerability. Parties’ actions – and
support provided – must adhere to existing human rights
obligations and the principles of the Paris Agreement,
including to safeguard food security and end hunger.
Key International Instruments:
Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 25: The UDHR
first enshrines the right to food as part of the realization
of everyone’s right to a standard of living adequate for
health and well-being.
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
Article 11: The ICESCR builds on the UDHR, enshrining in a
legally binding instrument a right to food, again as part of a
right to an adequate standard of living.
The Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights,
General Comment 12: It defines the right to food as
realized “when every man, woman and child, alone or in
community with others, has the physical and economic access at
all times to adequate food or means for its procurement.
Sustainable Development Goal 2 captures all countries’
commitment to end hunger, achieve food security and improved
nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture.
Just Transition
Ensuring a Just Transition
Complying with the goals of the Paris Agreement to keep global
temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius will require a
major transformation in society, including in the world of
work and employment. The Paris Agreement reinforces the need
to have a just transition for workers, so that there is a
strategy in place to protect those whose jobs, incomes, and
livelihoods are at risk due to climate policies. At the same
time, the ILO similarly has recognized the forthcoming
problems, and adopted guidelines for a just transition. To
ensure a fairer, prosperous society for everyone, parties must
embrace a just transition and consider workers in implementing
the Paris Agreement.
Key International Instruments:
International Labour Organization, Guidelines for a Just
Transition towards environmentally sustainable economies and
societies for all (2015): The ILO Guidelines on Just
Transition have been agreed by Governments, Employers and
Trade Unions to guide policies in order to accompany the world
of work in the transition to an environmentally sound society.
They build on previous trade union recommendations.
Declaration of Philadelphia: The Philadelphia Declaration,
adopted by the ILO in 1944, is the paramount guidance for
employment & social commitments. In it, the ILO
highlighted the centrality of human rights to social policy
and linked it to employment and economic security.
Rio+20 Outcome Document: The Future We Want: In 2012,
governments recommitted to the principles in the Rio
Declaration and laid out a vision for achieving sustainable
development in the outcome document of the UN Conference on
Sustainable Development (Rio+20). This includes the need to
promote decent work for all and having a just transition for
“workers to adjust to changing labour market conditions.”
Relevant Readings:
ITUC Climate Frontlines: This document introduces the
rationale for deploying just transition strategies at
different levels.
https://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/ituc_frontlines_climate_change_report_en.pdf
cosystem Integrity
Ensuring Ecosystem Integrity
As acknowledged by the Paris Agreement, maintaining and
enhancing the integrity and resilience of ecosystems is
critical for the long-term effectiveness of climate mitigation
and adaptation actions. Climate actions must be designed to
address the systemic nature of the challenges climate change
presents, including the nexus between people and ecosystems.
Climate action that converts or degrades ecosystems reduces
their resilience, which in turn increases vulnerability of
people to the impacts of climate change and threatens their
lives and livelihoods. For example, the IPCC AR5 identifies
possible mitigation actions in the land sector such as
large-scale bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, but
stresses the uncertainty and high level of risk associated
with such actions. This will impact food security, tenure
rights, biodiversity, and livelihoods, particularly for those
most vulnerable, such as indigenous peoples and local
communities. Instead, mitigation measures that prioritize
conservation, as well as the sustainable use and restoration
of ecosystems, ensuring a rights-based approach, should be
incentivized and developed. Such measures should ensure the
enhancement of biodiversity and environmental services, while
protecting natural ecosystems (including forests), and
respecting customary and sustainable land use systems and
security of indigenous peoples’ and local communities’ land
tenure. Combating climate change through a holistic approach
is in our best interest. Not only will we avoid possible
ruinous mitigation consequences, ensuring ecosystem integrity
as part of a rights-based approach will also greatly aid our
adaptation efforts. The more healthy and biodiverse the
ecosystem, the more resilient it will be to the impacts of
climate change.
Key International Instruments:
Agenda 2030, Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 14: SDG 14
includes ambitious targets such as preventing and
significantly reducing marine pollution of all kinds, in
particular from land-based activities by 2025; and sustainably
managing and protecting marine and coastal ecosystems to avoid
significant adverse impacts, including by strengthening their
resilience by 2020.
Agenda 2030, Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 15: SDG 15
includes ambitious targets including: ensuring the
conservation, restoration and sustainable use of forests,
wetlands, mountains and drylands by 2020; and promoting the
implementation of sustainable management of all types of
forests, halting deforestation, restoring degraded forests,
and substantially increasing afforestation and reforestation
globally by 2020.
Aichi Biodiversity Targets 6, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15: Created under
the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Aichi Targets
state ambitious objectives, including:
Target 6 that by 2020 all fish are managed and harvested
sustainably, legally, and by applying ecosystem based
approaches, so that overfishing is avoided and recovery plans
and measures are in place for all depleted species.
Target 8 that by 2020, pollution, including from excess
nutrients has been brought to levels that are not detrimental
to ecosystem function and biodiversity.
Target 10 that by 2015, the multiple anthropogenic pressures
on coral reefs, and other vulnerable ecosystems impacted by
climate change or ocean acidification are minimized.
Target 11 that by 2020, at least 17 percent of terrestrial and
inland water, and 10 percent of coastal and marine areas,
especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and
ecosystem services, are conserved.
Target 14 that by 2020, ecosystems that provide essential
services, including services related to water, and contribute
to health, livelihoods and well-being, are restored and
safeguarded, taking into account the needs of women,
indigenous and local communities, and the poor and vulnerable.
Target 15 that by 2020, ecosystem resilience and the
contribution of biodiversity to carbon stocks has been
enhanced, through conservation and restoration, including
restoration of at least 15 percent of degraded ecosystems,
thus contributing to climate change mitigation and adaptation
and to combating desertification.
UNFCCC Article 2 states that the ultimate objective of the
convention and related legal instruments, such as the Paris
Agreement, is to achieve stabilization of greenhouse gas
concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent
dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.
The convention states that that level should be achieved
within a time frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt
naturally to climate change and to ensure that food production
is not threatened. That means that climate actions must be
designed to address the systemic nature of the challenges
climate change presents, including measures to ensure the
protection of natural ecosystems.
Paris Agreement: preamble, articles 7.5 and 9: The Paris
Agreement tasks countries with ensuring the integrity of all
ecosystems, and protecting biodiversity when taking action on
climate change. This preambular paragraph finds solid footing
in article 9 on finance and article 7.5, which states that
adaptation action should take communities and ecosystems into
consideration.
ransparency Framework
The Transparency Framework is essential for promoting trust
and accountability of governments as well as for sharing
information and best practices. Additionally, to ensure that
it is helping to promote a holistic approach, the transparency
framework should not just include accounting for emissions and
financial transfers, but also how parties fulfill existing
human rights obligations in their climate actions. Further, in
preparing reports and communications, parties should be
inclusive and offer opportunities for the public to
comment and provide additional information.
Relevant Submissions:
Submission on APA Agenda Item 5 prepared in advance of COP22
and submitted by CARE International, CIEL, Franciscans
International, ATD Fourth World, International Working Group
on Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA), the Rainforest Foundation
Norway and WEDO (2016)
ransparency Framework
The Transparency Framework is essential for promoting trust
and accountability of governments as well as for sharing
information and best practices. Additionally, to ensure that
it is helping to promote a holistic approach, the transparency
framework should not just include accounting for emissions and
financial transfers, but also how parties fulfill existing
human rights obligations in their climate actions. Further, in
preparing reports and communications, parties should be
inclusive and offer opportunities for the public to
comment and provide additional information.
Relevant Submissions:
Submission on APA Agenda Item 5 prepared in advance of COP22
and submitted by CARE International, CIEL, Franciscans
International, ATD Fourth World, International Working Group
on Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA), the Rainforest Foundation
Norway and WEDO (2016)
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https://www.ciel.org/reports/right-healthy-environment-convention-rights-child-august-2016/
The Right to a Healthy Environment in the Convention on the
Rights of the Child (August 2016)
In a written submission to the Day of General Discussion on
Environment at the Committee on the Rights of the Child (the
Committee), CIEL urges the Committee to articulate the right
of the child to a healthy environment as implied in the
Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The Committee’s articulation of the Right of a Child to a
Healthy Environment, as implied in the Convention on the
Rights of the Child, would clarify State responsibilities to
prevent, and protect against, environmental harms that impact
children’s rights. An implied recognition of the right to a
healthy environment also would: (i) secure greater protection
to children; (ii) recognize inter-linkages between protected
rights and the environment; and (iii) identify preconditions
necessary for fulfillment of all rights guaranteed under the
Convention.
This written submission first explores why and how human
rights law bodies have articulated implied rights. The
submission then provides examples of implied rights in human
rights jurisprudence. Next, the submission analyzes the links
between a healthy environment and children’s enjoyment of
their Convention rights. This body of work shows that the
recognition by the Committee of the right of the child to a
healthy environment would be a highly significant step in the
Committee’s efforts to strengthen the system of protection for
children’s rights.
Read full submission.
https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/CRC-Submission-RtE-23-AUG-2016.pdf
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https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Plastic-Health-German.pdf
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This is a story about how the world’s most powerful industry
used science, communications, and consumer psychology to shape
the public debate over climate change. And it begins
earlier—decades earlier—than anyone suspected.
Explore our documents and discover what they knew, when they
knew it, and how they collaborated to confuse the public,
promote scientific theories that contradicted their own best
information, and block action on the most important challenge
of our time.
Exxon and its allies have dismissed comparisons to Big Tobacco
as baseless. Our research in more than 14 million documents of
the Tobacco Industry Archives reveals compelling evidence that
the relationship between these two industries is neither
coincidental nor casual. Beyond a doubt, the oil companies
have benefitted from the tobacco playbook in their fight
against climate science.
But the question arises, where did the tobacco companies get
their playbook in the first place?
www.SmokeAndFumes.org
https://www.smokeandfumes.org/documents
https://www.smokeandfumes.org/smoke
https://www.smokeandfumes.org/fumes
http://act.ciel.org/site/Survey?ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS&SURVEY_ID=1560
https://www.ciel.org/research-publications/
Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL)
CIEL (Headquarters)
1101 15th Street NW, 11th Floor
Washington DC, 20005 USA
Phone: (202) 785-8700
Fax: (202) 785-8701
E-mail: info@CIEL.org
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