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The French oil company Total had known about the danger of climate change for decades
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The oil companies ExxonMobil, Shell and BP knew about the danger of the climate crisis long before the topic became public.
This is well known, as is the fact that the top 20 fossil fuel companies are responsible for more than a third of all greenhouse gas emissions since 1965.
Now a study shows: The French oil company Total Energies SE was also aware of the risks, right down to the last detail.
And Total has therefore also made every effort to sow doubts about the authenticity of climate change, to counteract political measures and to actively »generate ignorance«.
Total employees had been aware of the danger since 1971
Two historians and a sociologist have published a study in the journal Global Environmental Change.
According to their own statements, they evaluated archive material for this study and held discussions with around 30 participants.
The researchers summarize their core findings as follows:
The people in charge at Total were aware of the harmful effects of global warming - and had done so since at least 1971.
And yet Total openly denied climate science until the 1990s.
In addition, Total pursued various strategies to disguise the danger of the climate crisis - and the contribution of the mineral oil companies.
“It's been ten years since American historians uncovered and analyzed the strategies used by American corporations to avoid and delay environmental regulations.
But in France we tend to think of our advocates as more virtuous than ExxonMobil.
Our study revises the reassuring narrative that we have constructed for ourselves, ”said historian and lead author of the study Christophe Bonneuil of the French newspaper“ Le Monde ”.
The oil companies used their knowledge to block climate policy
The now published study of Total Energies' knowledge and behavior is based on documents spanning fifty years. The authors conclude: Between 1968 and 2021, the company moved from awareness-raising to denial, then to open attack on scientific consensus, and finally to diversion and delaying the fight against climate change.
The results of the study reflect the development that the company's "commitment" has made over the decades: In 1971, Total employees were informed that the company's products had the potential of catastrophic global warming. Proof of this is provided by an article in the company magazine “Total Information” from the year entitled “Atmospheric Pollution and Climate”. It says:
“Since the 19th century, humans have been burning ever larger amounts of fossil fuels. This releases enormous amounts of carbon dioxide [...] The total amount of carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere has therefore increased significantly. [...] In the last 150 years the increase was around 15 percent, which is not insignificant. And [...] if the consumption of coal and oil remains the same in the coming years, the carbon dioxide concentration will reach around 400 parts per million by 2010 [...] «.
It goes on to say: »This increase in concentration is very worrying [...]. Carbon dioxide plays a major role in the heat balance of the atmosphere [...]. Air, which contains more carbon dioxide, absorbs more radiation and heats up.
It is therefore possible that the average temperature of the atmosphere will rise.
The calculated orders of magnitude are of course small (from 1-1.5 ° C), but could have significant effects.
The atmospheric circulation could be changed, and it cannot be ruled out that at least a partial melting of the polar ice caps is to be expected, which would certainly lead to a considerable rise in sea level.
The catastrophic consequences are easy to imagine. "
That was 50 years ago.
The article's predictions were pretty accurate: the carbon dioxide concentration reached 400 parts per million in 2015.
The magazine "Total Information" had a print run of around 6,000 copies.
It was seen as an internal and external means of communication "that was read by executives, employees and business partners," write the authors of the study.
The 1971 article was part of a special edition on the environment.
In the preface to this special edition, signed by a CEO of the company, it was stated that "defending the environment is often accompanied by rather harsh criticism of large industries, including oil companies."
The global oil industry raised the mood against climate science
In the years and decades that followed, the topic of the climate crisis was discussed again and again at the highest levels of the company, the study shows.
And Total sought a coordinated defense strategy.
Various representatives of the petroleum industry came together in a "working group on global climate change", which was led by Exxon's manager for science and strategy development, Duane LeVine.
According to the study, LeVine recommended that the group emphasize the uncertainties in climate research, the need for further investigation and the cost of policy measures so that the core business of the industry would not be threatened.
The International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association (IPIECA) coordinated the corporations' activities.
According to the study, part of their agenda was to postpone significant controls on CO₂ emissions until evidence research produced what the group called a clear “verification of climate change”.
In an internal Exxon document from 1982, however, it had already been pointed out that it would take decades before statistical evidence of global warming could be produced.
"Once the effects are measurable, they may not be reversible," the document said.
There is "no certainty," wrote Total in the 1990s
The French oil companies had also promoted the narrative of uncertainty in their own communications and public relations. In 1992, Total's environmental director, Jean-Philippe Caruette, emphasized in the company's magazine: “Certainly there is a relationship between temperature and the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but this relationship does not allow extrapolation to lead to more or less catastrophic global warming scenarios Planet leads [...]. Most importantly, there is no certainty about the effects of human activities, including the burning of fossil fuels. "
During the Rio Climate Change Conference that year, Total distributed a pamphlet criticizing that "global warming [...] polarizes all attention and gives rise to apocalyptic descriptions of the future," while claiming that " The considerable advances in climatology since the beginning of the century have not allowed the uncertainties about the greenhouse effect to be dispelled ”.
One must insist that energy policy "should ensure the growth of [developing] countries, even if this means that greenhouse gas emissions must first be increased".
The Kyoto Protocol marks the turning point
The study describes the year 1997, when the Kyoto Protocol was passed, as a turning point in corporate behavior. The authors of the study suspect that at that time the mineral oil companies recognized the risk of a loss of reputation and possibly also had to fear legal consequences if the open denial of the scientific findings had continued. The potential inevitability of an international agreement was also foreseeable. The companies have changed their position in such a way that they publicly accept the results of the IPCC and present the industry as a rational, scientific actor.
When the concern about the consequences of the climate crisis in the 2000s pushed more and more into the public discourse, the oil companies followed suit.
The study takes a look at the commitment of Total, which in 2006 organized its own conference on climate change with around 280 experts.
The aim of the group was to present itself to the scientific community as open-minded, to the public as responsible.
The companies pretended to find solutions
"Science describes climate change, and companies pretend to find solutions," the study's authors summarize the results.
What does the Total group say about the allegations?
In a written response to the study, which is available to the AFP news agency, the company announced: "TotalEnergies' knowledge of climate risk corresponds to the scientific publications of the era." Since 2015, the company has pursued the goal of "becoming an important player in the energy transition will".
In the 44 years between 1971 and 2015, annual CO₂ emissions rose by 25 billion tons.
With material from AFP