Some US companies are quietly supporting climate-change-denial groups – while publicly supporting action on global warming

Americans are not as concerned about climate change as they used to be. Several factors are behind the shift, researchers say, including cooler weather, and strong rhetoric from the right-wing campaign trail. Rick Santorum called climate change a “pseudo-religion”, for example.

“It’s difficult to measure the exact effect on the public. But we’ve seen companies cast doubt on the science and say there isn’t enough evidence to justify regulation. It’s similar to what we saw with the science around tobacco, DDT and lead in gasoline,” says Gretchen Goldman, co-author of a UCS report looking at how US companies influenced the debate in 2009 and 2010.

The study accuses companies of questioning the scientific consensus on climate, promoting tendentious academic studies, paying “seemingly independent” scientists, intimidating climate scientists, and undermining the regulatory process. It finds that many companies took contradictory positions on climate change, publicly claiming to be sympathetic on the issue, and even supportive of legislative action, while less publicly supporting groups that work to block action.

“A lot of the engagement on climate change was in indirect venues, through spending to political candidates who opposed climate policy, or through funding of industry trade groups, thinktanks and other non-profits,” Goldman says. Those groups include the US Chamber of Commerce, and less visible outfits such as the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), and the Heartland Institute.

For example, ConocoPhillips was a member of the Climate Action Partnership (which wants government to “quickly enact strong national legislation” on climate change), but was also a board-member of the American Petroleum Institute, which vigorously opposed climate legislation tabled at the time.

The report singles out energy companies such as Peabody, Valero and Marathon for the most “obstructionist” activity.

Goldman says companies have every right to a voice in the climate debate, but not to spread “misinformation about the science that informs that policy discussion. The science should come from experts and not special interests.”

She also thinks companies should have higher disclosure standards covering advocacy activities. “We ought to be able to tell who is truly supporting climate science-based policy, and who is blocking it behind this concerned image that companies might project.”

Management interviews

Six of the 28 companies analysed in the report granted UCS interviews with senior managers. Several said they saw nothing wrong with supporting groups with different climate change positions.

“We support a whole range of groups across the political spectrum and across the spectrum of views on climate change,” says David Bailey, manager of climate policy at Exxon Mobil, which has been heavily criticised for its support for climate-denial groups.

Bailey says Exxon does not have a climate “litmus test” when deciding which groups to back. “We don’t support people because of their views on climate change. We support them because they do a variety of work in the area of public policy.”

Exxon, though, has “stopped supporting some groups, in part because of their attitudes toward climate change”. They include Frontiers of Freedom, and CFACT.

Others, such as Waste Management, claimed not to have a position on climate change, despite being members of groups such as the US Chamber of Commerce, which opposed climate legislation before Congress in 2009, and has tried to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating carbon emissions.

“We have been very careful not to take a position on the science,” says Kerry Kelly, the waste company’s director of federal public affairs.