ExxonMobil should “own and pay for” global warming, government climate adviser says

Oil and gas giant ExxonMobil should “own and pay for the role it has played in accelerating climate change,” said a Conservative colleague and government climate adviser.

Lord Deben, the former Tory environment secretary and Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet minister, accused the US multinational of “denying the facts” and singled it out for refusing to “take any responsibility” for global warming.

The colleague’s comments came after research published in Science The Journal said Exxon, one of the world’s largest oil and gas companies, “deftly” predicted global warming in the 1970s but then spent decades discrediting climate science to protect its core business.

Exxon scientists accurately predicted that global temperatures and carbon dioxide emissions would rise steadily beginning in the 1970s. But at the same time, executives at the energy giant made public statements that contradicted their own research.

registered mail The Independent, Lord Deben said it was in Exxon’s “best interest” to “stand up and pay”. “Exxon-Mobil steadfastly refuses to accept any responsibility, let alone admit its wrongdoing,” he said.

“His delaying action has brought us all a huge bill and we should seek redress. As long as it denies the facts and its sole responsibility for the delay, this is not the company to ally with.”

The peer added: “We should give our habits to other companies. By not making themselves complicit as partners or customers, those committed to achieving Net Zero can help Exxon realize that it’s in their financial best interest to own up and pay up.”

A tanker pulls into an ExxonMobil fuel storage and distribution facility in Irving, Texas (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Lord Deben, a former Suffolk Coastal MP, served as John Major’s Environment Secretary from 1993 to 1997. He was appointed to the House of Lords in 2010 after resigning from the House of Commons.

During his tenure he introduced the Environment Act 1995 and the Landfill Tax, the first such environmental tax in the UK.

He is also Chair of the Climate Change Committee, an independent statutory body established under the Climate Change Act 2008.

Its purpose is to advise the UK and local governments on emissions targets and to report to Parliament on progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and preparing for and adapting to the impacts of climate change.

Activists have called for the fossil fuel giants to pay reparations to countries hardest hit by global warming, and the issue has been raised at both the Cop26 and Cop27 climate summits.

The Science According to one study, Exxon not only funded research that confirmed what climate scientists were saying at the time, but also used more than a dozen different computer models that predicted the coming warming with an accuracy equal to or better than that of government and academic scientists.

Scientists, governments, activists, and news sites, including Inside Climate News and the Los Angeles Times, reported a few years ago that “Exxon had known about the science of climate change since about 1977,” while publicly questioning it.

Lord Deben (L) with former Speaker of the House John Bercow (PA)

The Science research describes in more detail how accurate Exxon scientists’ predictions were.

63 to 83 percent of these projections meet stringent accuracy standards and generally correctly predict that the globe would warm by about 2°C per decade.

The Exxon-funded science is “quite astounding” in its precision and accuracy, said study co-author Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard history of science professor.

But she added that this is also the “hypocrisy because so much of the Exxon Mobil disinformation for so many years … was the claim that climate models are unreliable.”

An Exxon spokesman said, “ExxonMobil is committed to providing reliable and affordable energy to support human progress while advancing effective solutions that address the risks of climate change.

“We support the goals of the Paris Agreement and efforts towards net-zero emissions – we plan to achieve net-zero emissions from our operating assets by 2050.

“Over the next six years, we plan to invest more than $17 billion in initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A significant part focuses on the expansion of carbon capture and storage, hydrogen and biofuels.

“This work is described in more detail in our Advancing Climate Solutions 2023 progress report, which is publicly available on our corporate website.”

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