A Hot Mess: The New Climate Denial
Thomas Perrett looks at the new ways the fossil fuel industries are trying to protect their positions - and their profits - through disinformation
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While traditional climate science denial appears to have receded, its place has been taken by a subtler, more insidious form of disinformation – climate delay. An attempt to extend the longevity of the oil and gas industries by portraying decarbonisation measures as costly, unworkable or deleterious towards ordinary citizens already bearing the burden of the cost of living crisis.
Both Conservative leadership frontrunners have failed to substantiate their rhetorical commitments to net zero – arguing instead that addressing the climate crisis could potentially compromise living standards for the majority of people.
Within the Tory Party, backbench opposition to measures required to divest from fossil fuels remains considerable. Allied to free market think-tanks and lobbyists, they argue that while climate change itself is an observable reality, domestic fossil fuel production should be accelerated to provide energy security instead of ‘costly’ net zero measures.
The Net Zero Scrutiny Group, co-founded by Conservative Steve Baker, advocates for scrapping green levies, which it claims could reduce the impact of inflation, and has supported the expansion of North Sea oil and gas – despite stating it accepts the “fundamental facts” of climate change. Baker has himself acknowledged that climate science is “absolutely settled” but has also said that “the cost of net zero could deliver a political crisis greater than the poll tax”.
Last May (2022), Baker joined the board of trustees at the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), arguably Britain’s most prolific climate science-denying organisation. It is part of a transatlantic network which has spearheaded subtler forms of climate change denial. Hedge fund manager Michael Hintze – who gave nearly £4 million to the Conservatives between 2002 and 2018 – is a key donor to the GWPF.
Fossil fuel industry lobbyists and trade associations in the UK and the US have shared similar strategies – reacting to climate science by refining traditional climate denial, while opposing government intervention to promote clean energy alternatives.
In March, energy lobbying group, the American Petroleum Institute (API), wrote to the US Energy Secretary, calling on the Biden administration to “clearly commit to the continued export of crude oil, natural gas, and refined petroleum products” following the war in Ukraine. While it acknowledged that “the oil and natural gas industry commends the administration for its focus on addressing the risks of climate change” – reassuring Biden’s government that “we are working together to accelerate progress on this important issue” – it emphasised the “clear and present need for continued responsible investment in oil and natural gas development”.
The API has also been instrumental in promoting the use of natural gas as a ‘clean’ energy source. In 2020, it spent $2.97 million on Facebook ads targeted at younger users after the launch of President Biden’s $3.5 trillion Climate Bill, saying that oil and natural gas could form part of a “pragmatic energy mix. According to Faye Holder of think-tank InfluenceMap, which documented the ads, “rather than outright climate change denial, the industry is deploying more nuanced messaging including the idea that it is part of the solution to the climate crisis”.
The API has been privately aware of the environmental impact of burning fossil fuels since 1982, when it commissioned a Columbia University report acknowledging that climate breakdown could incur “serious consequences for man’s comfort and survival”. Yet 16 years later, a ‘Communications Action Plan’ issued by the API and reported on by Greenpeace asserted that American involvement in the 1997 Kyoto Protocols – international climate accords which encouraged nations to reduce their carbon emissions – would “place the US at a competitive disadvantage”, claiming that “the climate change theory being advanced by the treaty supporters is based primarily on forecasting models with a very high degree of uncertainty”.
The deliberate misrepresentation and concealment of scientific data for commercial purposes has led to an upsurge in lawsuits issued against fossil fuel companies and lobbyists.
On both sides of the Atlantic, traditional forms of climate science denial have mutated into a sophisticated strategy for delaying the implementation of decarbonisation measures. Conservative political parties and industry leaders may emphasise certain climate commitments, or announce elaborate measures for environmental conservation but, without strict limits on the extraction of fossil fuels – accompanied by the mobilisation of investment into cleaner alternatives – genuine climate targets cannot be accomplished.
The new climate denial is one of the most harmful impediments to climate action that we face