ExxonMobil's own scientists doubted climate fixes the company hyped
Court filings reveal new details about Exxon's decades of internal climate deliberations.
In a 1988 congressional hearing, James Hansen, a NASA climatologist, warned of the warming climate and its continued progression due to human pollution from fossil fuels. Subsequently, the United Nations formed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Just before the U.N. vote, a memo from Exxon’s research department, Frank Sprow, foresaw potential negative impacts on the company if a global consensus emerged to mitigate greenhouse gas effects.
This memo, disclosed in a lawsuit against ExxonMobil by Massachusetts in 2019, revealed that Exxon scientists doubted the company's own climate solutions, including its work on biofuels and carbon capture and storage.
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