This series is supported in part by the Pulitzer Center, with several pieces co-published with media partners, including The Guardian, Vox, and Rolling Stone.
Reporting on climate disinformation has increased exponentially over the past decade. In 2015, reporters at Inside Climate News, The Los Angeles Times, and Columbia Journalism School published the stories collectively referred to as “Exxon Knew,” on the research and warnings about climate change that Exxon scientists shared with the company’s management beginning in the 1970s. Since then, reporters at various outlets and researchers at NGOs have written about similar disinformation campaigns at Shell, Eni, Total, and GM. Others have reported on the role the PR and advertising industries played in crafting the messaging that first obstructed and then delayed climate action. Still others have dug into how the Koch brothers and right-wing activists like Leonard Leo shaped policy and laws that made it harder for the U.S. to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
This work has gone a long way towards building an understanding of how the world’s most powerful governments have failed to act to avoid a crisis scientists have been warning about for more than 50 years. But it’s important to keep in mind that the behaviors and strategies that obstructed climate action for decades weren’t just retired in the 2010s, when the oil companies decided it was no longer beneficial to pretend climate change wasn’t real. Nor are they limited solely to shaping how we understand the problem of climate change. These strategies have also been used to narrow how the public and political leaders think about solutions to the problem, and to drive funding and attention toward solutions that continue to benefit the fossil fuel industry.
The same tactics fossil fuel companies used to cast doubt on or obscure climate science and to downplay the problem have, in recent years, been increasingly used to push false solutions to the climate crisis. The industry knows that “solutions” like carbon capture, liquefied natural gas, hydrogen, and renewable natural gas will work only to protect its profits, not to curb greenhouse gas emissions. The tactics they use include funding university research that skews public discourse and policymaking in the direction of their preferred solutions; creating coalitions to push those solutions via lobbying and PR; hiring management consultancies to conduct skewed analysis supporting those solutions; and amplifying disinformation via PR and advertising campaigns.
Over the past several months, Drilled has been digging into what the industry says privately about its preferred climate solutions compared to what it says publicly about them. We’ve talked to current and former staff at oil companies as well as expert scientists, dug up primary documents, and watched countless hours of promotional videos.
Tackling information pollution and cleaning up our information ecosystem is a key first step toward acting on climate. In a recent interview with Drilled, Rutgers media studies professor Melissa Aronczyk explained why.
“The stuff we see as disinformation—the misleading ad campaigns, or the executives saying very misleading things on cable news—it’s just the tip of the iceberg,” she said. “To really understand and address climate disinformation, you have to see the whole picture, see how they shape all of these different types of information and data that become the building blocks of policy. You have to see what university research they’re funding, what parameters they’re putting on economic models, how they’re interacting with management consultants, what trade groups they’re participating in, what research and lobbying coalitions they’re part of, how they’re approaching thought leadership and influencers, how they’re shaping cultural norms, and how all of that is being done in service of pushing particular policies or keeping regulation at bay.”
Podcast episodes
Welcome to the World of Obstruction
Everyone agrees that the reason the world hasn’t acted on climate has less to do with science or technology than with political will. So, how do you build it? And what’s stopping it being built?
S14, Ep2 | Welcome to the Rapture! How Rightwing Populism and Accelerationism Intersect with Climate
Jesse Bryant and Dieter Plehwe join to walk us through the intersection of rightwing populism and climate obstruction.
S14, Ep3 | The Psychology of Misinformation: Why Does It Work So Well?
In a lot of ways the disinformation crisis we’re dealing with today started with climate obstruction.
S14, Ep4 | The Media As a Tool of Climate Obstruction
It’s unlikely climate obstruction would have worked as well it has without the participation of the media.
S14, Ep5 | How the Fossil Fuel Industry Sabotages Climate Action
No surprise here: the fossil fuel industry has blocked climate policy at every turn. And yet, their tactics are still surprising.
S14, Ep6 | How the Coal, Transportation, and Utilities Industries Obstruct Climate Policy
The coal, transportation, and utilities industries have unique approaches to obstructing climate policy, and often combine forces as well.
S14, Ep7 | How the Animal Ag Industry Obstructs Climate Policy
On “ag exceptionalism,” backlash to the EU’s Farm to Fork proposal, the impact of the Livestock’s Long Shadow report, and more on the animal ag industries’ concerted push to block climate policy around the world.
S14, Ep8 | Climate Obstruction in the Global South
What climate obstruction looks like when it’s coming from the countries experiencing the brunt of the climate crisis.
S14, Ep9 | Climate Obstruction at the Subnational (Local) Level
Local governments are a double-edged sword, moving things forward on climate when they stall at the national level but also throwing up major obstructions to national policy when they want.
S14, Ep10 | The Corruption of COP
A look at how polluting industries infiltrated global climate processes from the beginning, and how it works today.
Articles in this investigation
The Trouble with Voluntary Methane Schemes
New investigation into reliability of methane certification reveals weakness of voluntary model.
U.S. and Japanese Government-Funded Foreign Policy Think Tanks Want Australia to Keep Pumping the Gas
One former staffer raised concerns about Japanese influence on Australian climate and energy policy saying it would not be tolerated if China were responsible.
New Documents Reveal Japan LNG Industry’s Influence on Australian Politics
A new report from Influence Map shows employees from Japanese companies involved in major Australian gas projects have been regularly meeting with Australian ministers, directly shaping policy.
Debt and import dependency in Japan’s fossil financing for Bangladesh
With promises of Singapore- and Shanghai-style ports and businesses, Japan’s development agencies are pushing fossil fuel projects in Bangladesh
Isabelle Boemeke Isn’t Trying to Spread Conspiracy Theories in her New Pro-Nuclear Book, But She Is
Pro-nuclear influencer Isabelle Boemeke’s new book, Rad Future, indulges in conspiracy theories, unsourced claims, and personal attacks against the industry’s critics.
Trump Is Trying to Kill Renewables Everywhere
The US government is trying to strangle renewables to save fossil fuels. Trump wants other countries to do the same.
“There Was So Much Death.” A Toxic Algal Bloom Is Ravaging Australia’s Southern Coast—Warming Waters Are to Blame.
Three ingredients are required for an algal bloom to get going – temperature, the right conditions and food. South Australia had all the preconditions necessary, thanks to climate change.
New Research: The Inherent Conflict of Interest in Carbon Markets
The allure of “verified” carbon credits is obvious, but new research finds the verification process deeply flawed by the fact that auditors are hired and paid by project developers, creating a financial incentive to sign off on dubious credits.
Dispatch from the Front Lines of Mozambique’s Gas Gamble
Mozambique’s LNG project was supposed to bring prosperity to the country. Instead it has fueled the fires of civil unrest. And while local residents are struggling to survive, a small cadre of elite consultants have found success amidst the rubble.
In India’s Coal Belt, a Window into the Challenges Facing Energy Transition
India’s reliance on coal is tied to a complex set of economic, social, and energy security factors; any successful energy transition plan will have to address all of them.
TotalEnergies Promises “Net Gain Biodiversity” as it Drills in Uganda’s Largest National Park
Total claims it can make up for the biodiversity impacts of drilling in Uganda’s largest national park by preserving biodiversity elsewhere, but local advocates aren’t buying it.
In Attempt to Avoid Trump Tariffs, Japan and Europe Make Questionable Gas Deals
Hoping to avoid 25% tariffs, Japanese and European officials have agreed to deals analysts are describing as financially questionable. Meanwhile, Trump seems prepared to impose tariffs on them anyway.
How Australia’s CANDU Conservatives Fell in Love with Canadian Nuclear
Ontario, Canada is the only place in the world to tear out wind turbines and embrace nuclear power. Australia’s conservatives have been taking notes.
Biden May Have Quietly Thrown a Wrench in Trump’s Plan to ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’
Donald Trump wants his Energy Department to quickly approve new liquified natural gas export projects. A late Biden administration study could slow things down.
Unrest in Carbon Country
How agricultural interests are teaming up with big oil to take advantage of tax credits meant to fight climate change—and what the backlash can tell us about the future of climate politics.
The Australian Public Servant Who Helped The Oil Industry Convince The World That Stopping Climate Change Was Too Expensive
Brian Fisher, an economist employed for decades by the Australian government, was essential to obstructing not just climate policy in Australia but global climate action.
Revealed: Oil Majors Used A Little-Known UN-Affiliated Organization to Seed the Economic Argument Against Climate Action
New documents show that as the fossil fuel industry worked to skew the scientific understanding of climate change, it also funded and promoted research to help make an economic argument against acting on the problem.
Behind the Push to Re-brand LNG as “Green”
U.S. LNG producers are using dubious climate claims to sell overseas customers on increasing their imports.
For LNG, the Moment of Truth Is Now
On LNG it’s the late 90s all over again and there are two paths before us, except this time the industry’s machinations are out in the open, and decisions made in the next 6 months will determine what the world looks like in 50 years.
