Exxon funded thinktanks to spread climate denial in Latin America, documents reveal | Fossil fuels

Exxon funded right-wing think tanks to spread climate change denial across Latin America, according to hundreds of previously unpublished documents that reveal a coordinated campaign to make the Global South “less inclined” to support the U.N.-led climate treaty process.

The documents, which include copies of checks sent by Exxon, consist of internal documents and years of correspondence between the Texas-based fossil fuel company and Atlas Network, a U.S.-based coalition of more than 500 free-market think tanks and other partners around the world.

The money Exxon sent to Atlas Network helped fund Spanish and Chinese translations of English books denying the reality of human-caused climate change; flights to Latin American cities for American climate deniers; and public events that allowed these denialists to reach local media and network with politicians.

One goal was to convince the developing world of the “harmful effects of global climate change treaties,” Atlas Network told its fossil fuel donor.

According to a strategic proposal “specifically addressing international treaty issues” that Atlas mailed to the company’s headquarters in Irving, Texas, “this investment in market-oriented public policy is a vital key to our future prosperity and well-being – and to maintaining strong returns for Exxon investors.” »

Asked about this and other documents, Atlas Network spokesman Adam Weinberg responded that “these questions concern memos and documents written by former employees more than a quarter of a century ago, addressed to a company that has never been a significant donor to our organization, and in fact has not been a donor at all for almost two decades.”

Exxon did not respond to requests for comment.

“The atmosphere has a huge historical memory when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions,” said Carlos Milani, professor of international relations at the Institute of Social and Political Studies at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. “What happened 30 years ago is very important.”

This match took place in the late 1990s and early 2000s and was obtained by the climate survey site DeSmog.

Stoking confusion and doubt about climate change among developing countries, as Exxon and Atlas Network sought to do during the critical early moments of climate diplomacy, exacerbated geopolitical divides and economic fears that still persist today, according to Kert Davies, director of special investigations at the nonprofit Center for Climate Integrity.

“It’s a pretty ugly story,” he said. “Exxon seemed to think that if you could make developing countries, and all countries, skeptical that climate change is a crisis, then there would never be a global climate treaty.”

As Brazil prepares to host the Cop30 climate negotiations in the Amazon city of Belém in November, the consequences of three decades of insufficient global action are impossible to ignore.

Scientists announced in mid-October that global emissions were so high that the planet had passed the critical point at which the mass disappearance of the planet’s coral reefs would likely be irreversible. Without a drastic reduction in global emissions and deforestation, the collapse of the Amazon rainforest could be imminent within the next 10 to 20 years.

Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Exxon helped fund and direct a constellation of U.S.-based organizations that sought to discredit climate science and block U.S. participation in a U.N.-led climate treaty — a campaign that is now the subject of dozens of lawsuits accusing the company of lying to the public about the climate emergency.

But by 1997, Exxon was “comfortable with the support we provide to U.S.-based organizations and on U.S.-related issues.” He asked Atlas Network to help him “develop free market think tanks outside the United States,” including in Asia, the former Soviet Union, Europe and Latin America.

The following year, Exxon sent a $50,000 check to Atlas Network – which, adjusted for inflation, would amount to about $100,000 today. The oil company’s goal was to develop “international groups with the capacity to influence government policies.”

Atlas Network later reported that its partners in Latin America had produced a Spanish translation of a booklet by Fred Singer titled “The Scientific Case Against the Global Climate Treaty” which claimed “there is no significant scientific support for a global ‘threat’ of global warming.”

Atlas Network partners, including Argentinian think tank Fundación República para una Nueva Generación and Brazilian think tank Instituto Liberal, led and participated in seminars in Argentina on the eve of the Cop4 climate negotiations in Buenos Aires.

At least one event featured Patrick Michaels, a now-deceased American climate denier who called climate change “hysteria.” Atlas Network aimed to introduce Michaels and other American speakers to “ministers, politicians, editorial boards.” [and] business leaders”.

Atlas facilitated the translation of Singer’s libretto into Chinese, as well as the organization of meetings between an India-based think tank called the Liberty Institute and American right-wing groups that challenged the scientific consensus on climate change, including the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute.

Summarizing its activities in a 1998 letter to its donor, Atlas Network noted that “few of these accomplishments would have been possible without the generous financial assistance of Exxon Corporation.” Exxon stressed that it did not wish to be publicly identified.

“The approach took place behind the scenes, intentionally without seeking public kudos for its efforts,” Atlas wrote in notes summarizing a meeting with Exxon executives in 2000. “The goal is to help, but not to be known for helping.”