What data did the oil company Exxon have about climate change years ago and what did it issue to its investors?
These questions are now the subject of a sensational trial in the US. The New York district attorney accuses the group of misleading customers and investors about the financial risks of global warming and misrepresenting them. So they should continue to be encouraged to invest.
Exxon is said to have had data decades ago that had forecast the course of global warming much more dramatically. The group is accused of having developed two different forecasting models for climate change, but only one of them has publicly communicated.
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"Investors were concerned about the climate change implications and wanted information," said prosecutor Kevin Wallace in his opening remarks. "Exxon has given them many explanations, but they were neither true nor correct." The damage to investors is between $ 416 million and $ 1.16 billion.
As late as 1997, the oil company had placed an ad in the "New York Times". The content: Science could not predict with certainty if and how much temperatures would rise. The role of man-made greenhouse gases in global warming is unknown.
In addition, Exxon claimed that the climate evolution calculations are more realistic than those of the competition, because of potential government action to limit CO2 emissions.
Exxon attorney Ted Wells rejected the allegations and described them as "politically motivated." The Group used two different methods to determine the financial risks of climate change. But it was not about deceiving investors. Rather, the various projections would have served different purposes: on the one hand, a forecast on energy prices and the demand for energy, on the other, to determine possible investment costs.
As early as 1982, forecasts of CO2 increase
The process, which has been described by environmental law experts as historic, is likely to feature former Exxon chief and later US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. He worked at Exxon from 1975 to 2016.
As early as 2015, journalists had revealed that Exxon knew that their business model promotes climate change. The group had denied the allegations back then. But an investigation by Harvard University researchers from 2017 also covered the reporters' research. For this purpose, 72 scientific papers were analyzed by Exxon researchers and compared to statements from 36 paid ads.
And in May, researchers confirm the data again. According to this, Exxon had already made forecasts of the CO2 content of the atmosphere in 1982, which corresponded fairly closely to today's measured values. Even with the temperature rise, the Exxon experts were close to reality. For the year 2019, they had predicted the temperature to be 0.9 degrees higher than pre-industrial times. This value was actually measured by the US weather and ocean agency NOAA 2017.
