By Keely Boom, Common Dreams, November 13, 2015

New York state attorney general Eric T. Schneiderman is investigating ExxonMobil to determine whether the corporation lied to the public about climate change, or to investors about the risks to the oil industry. A subpoena was issued last Wednesday, demanding extensive financial records, emails, and other documents.

Exxon knew about global warming decades ago (and in fact launched its own extensive climate research program), yet spent US$30.9 million to support think tanks running climate denial campaigns from 1998 to 2014.

A common misconception about climate change is that we are all responsible for the problem, and therefore no one is responsible. However, a scientific study revealed that two-thirds of the carbon dioxide emitted the Industrial Revolution can be traced back to just 90 oil, coal, and gas producers, dubbed the “Carbon Majors.” Exxon is the world’s second biggest polluter, according to the study, contributing 3.1% of the carbon dioxide that has accumulated in the atmosphere. If New York finds that Exxon has indeed deceived the public and investors, this investigation will have significantly bolstered Exxon’s liability for the climate crisis.

Holding ExxonMobil responsible

Exxon has also been targeted in a recent climate lawsuit. The communities that suffered the horrific impacts of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines have brought a case alleging that the contribution of the biggest fossil fuel corporations to climate change is a violation of their human rights. The 50 respondents include Exxon, Chevron, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Total, BHP Billiton, Anglo American, Lafarge, Holcim, and Taiheyo Cement Corporation.

In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan displaced 4 million people, destroyed or damaged 1 million houses, and killed at least 6,300 people. While the Philippines suffered a financial blow of approximately US$10 billion from the storm, Exxon made US$ 32.6 billion in profits. Yet the oil giant has not paid for the climate damage caused by its products. Chevron, the corporation with the most responsibility for carbon emissions, made US$21.4 billion that year. Big Oil is making a killing.

The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights state that corporations must respect human rights, in compliance with both national and international legal standards. Yet the fossil fuel industry is fueling climate change, and has failed to prevent the human rights impacts directly linked to its activities.

Kick Big Oil, Coal, and Gas out of climate policy

Politicians have also failed to hold the industry responsible. Instead, these corporations receive obscene subsidies from the same governments that are meant to protect their people and their human rights. The IMF has found that the industry is supported by as much as US$5.3 trillion in subsidies, or $10 million per minute.

Exxon has clearly indicated that it plans to continue producing fossil fuels without limit, stating that serious emissions cuts are “highly unlikely.” And so far, the untold millions spent by Big Oil and Gas to block strong climate policies and other regulations—in 2014, the industry spent US$141 million lobbying in Washington, DC—have indeed been highly effective.

Fossil fuel corporations have long been treated as “stakeholders” at the UN climate negotiations, and they have used this position to push false solutions and ensure that no effective action is taken. A decade ago, the international community established a powerful precedent by removing Big Tobacco from public health policy through a treaty mechanism. It is now time to kick Big Oil, Coal, and Gas out of climate policy.

A new and innovative source of finance

Solutions are urgently needed to address this gross injustice, and particularly the impacts of climate change on the world’s poorest communities. A global levy on the extraction of fossil fuels could raise US$50 billion a year to help fund the international Loss and Damage Mechanism. The 13 largest fossil fuel corporations alone made $132 billion in profits in 2013.

This funding would be used to assist the most vulnerable, those already suffering the worst impacts of climate change. Existing international law supports such a system—especially the polluter pays principle, the “no harm” rule, and the right to compensation—and it needs to be part of a general phase out of fossil fuels.

Exxon’s climate deception comes at the cost of the lives and human rights of people around the world and of future generations to come. To genuinely face this crisis, we must find the strength to kick the fossil fuel giants out of the climate negotiations, and to make the industry pay for its climate damage.

Source: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/11/13/making-killing-who-paying-real-costs-exxonmobils-climate-deception

See also: http://www.FrackCheckWV.net

RE: Edward E. David, Jr., formerly head of EXXON R & D, etc.

David is one of 16 scientists who appended their signatures to a Wall Street Journal article titled “No Need to Panic About Global Warming.”

The article argues that elected officials should avoid implementing climate change policy because it would “divert resources from real needs and are based on alarming but untenable claims of ‘incontrovertible’ evidence.”

Other “scientists” whose signatures appear include Claude Allègre, J. Scott Armstrong, Jan Breslow, Roger Cohen, William Happer, William Kininmonth, Richard Lindzen, James McGrath, Rodney Nichols, Burt Rutan, Harrison H. Schmitt, Nir Shaviv, Michael Kelly, Henk Tennekes, and Antonino Zichichi..

Interestingly, 255 members of the United States National Academy of Sciences wrote their own essay, this on the realities of climate change, which had been rejected by the Wall Street Journal in favor of the sixteen-scientist letter.

Media Matters also reported on the WSJ article, and also found that most of the scientists who signed the Op-Ed “Do Not Actually Publish Peer-Reviewed Climate Research.” They also contacted Yale Economist William Nordhaus who had been cited by the article, and he replied that it was a “Complete Mischaracterization Of My Work.”

 Publications

According to a search of Google Scholar, there do not appear to be any publications in peer-reviewed journals by an “Edward E. David Jr.”

The search does list him as the “Panel Chair” for a 1979 policy report at the New York Academy of Sciences. The report discusses alternative energy sources. At the time he was President of Exxon Research and Engineering Company, and Vice-President of Science and Technology of the Exxon Corporation.

The report’s introduction states that “Any hope of utilizing fusion, photovoltaics, the breeder, biomass, solar, or solar thermal energy on a large-scale economically feasible basis in the next two decades is based on a thin thread of optimism, as is the hope for massive reductions in energy demand through end-use conservation.” 

ZEGART: This is a letter, this is November 9, 1979. This is a letter from the president of Exxon research and engineering, Edward E. David Jr. Mr. David was actually, spent 20 years at [Bell] labs. So he was quite an accomplished scientist by the time he came to Exxon. And he, he talks about how they’ve written–this is the eighth in our series of presidents’ letters, meaning letters from the president of engineering and research, outlining the work we’ve initiated to help evaluate the so-called greenhouse effect, a potential future global warming caused by the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere. This is 1979.

Fast forward to just a, a few years ago and you will see that they were still denying that this science was reliable and that the earth was warming. And then they talk, at the end of this paragraph it says, we focus on past and future growth of atmospheric CO2 concentrations rather than on the resulting effect of CO2 on climate. However, our data could well influence Exxon’s view about the long-term attractiveness of coal and synthetics relative to nuclear and solar energy.

Why is that important? That shows they were thinking about what kinds of fuels would be best for the earth. What kinds of fuels would be the most harmful, what kinds of fuels would be the most helpful. They were thinking about what choice they were going to make about energy. This giant company, back in 1979. I think once this comes to the attention of the world community there’s going to be a lot of pressure to get ExxonMobil and the other big energy companies out of the [COP-21] process.

PERIES: Now, that seems to me a very reasonable request on the part of social movements. But there are other social movements that actually see the business community or the corporations as a part of the solution when it comes to climate change because they’re the only ones with the resources and the money and the research and investigative dollars in order to come up with renewable energy mechanisms, methods, equipment, all of that that needs to be built to switch to a green economy. What do you make of that?

ZEGART: Well I mean, I think, I think it’s a false dichotomy. I mean, this is going to happen one way or the other because that’s where the money is going. Where the investments are going, you know. We have this short, we have a window now for natural gas, for natural gas is being exploited more than it’s ever been. But that’s going to change. Natural gas is also a potent source of greenhouse gas emissions. The money is moving towards renewables. You know, we have an electric car now that can drive as far as a conventional car. Storage capacities are being developed. We really don’t need ExxonMobil to do it, it’s being done.

The scale up will happen because these companies will recognize that they have to invest. And anyone who’s waiting for the energy companies to lead the way is, needs to look at the past history, and they will understand that that is not going to happen. And we are going to have to, the people of the world and people with COP are going to have to make it happen. And they’re going to be dragging these companies and forcing them to do it. It is not going to be done voluntarily.

PERIES: And finally, who opened the doors to the corporate sector in the UN process in the first place?

ZEGART: Well, it was actually a part of the DNA of the process going back to the beginning of this. They had a seat at the table going all the way back to the conferences at Rio and then at Kyoto. They–ExxonMobil actually sent one of their top scientists, Brian Flannery, to the COPs in the past. And Flannery was a very good scientist at ExxonMobil who originally was part of this climate team that discovered that climate change back in the late ’70s and ’80s for ExxonMobil was in fact happening and caused by fossil fuels. So they took Brian Flannery and then they pivoted in the late ’80s and began denying climate change. Then they took Mr. Flannery and converted him to a spokesman to speak against the reality of global warming. And they’ve been sending him to the IPCCs, the conferences, the global climate change conferences ever since.

So it is not necessary to have the companies there. A world tobacco treaty was negotiated by the World Health Organization a decade or so ago without the participation of the tobacco companies. There’s no reason for the perpetrators of what is really a crime against the earth to be present at the table.

PERIES: All right. And I thank you so much for joining us, and we’ll be following this all the way to Paris and beyond, and I hope you can join us again. And thank you for joining us on the Real News Network.