The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres accused the big oil companies of spreading a “big lie” about their role in global warming days after the publication of a study on what the American giant ExxonMobil knew. about this risk four decades ago.
“Some fossil fuel producers were fully aware in the 1970s that their flagship product was going to burn up the planet. But like the tobacco industry they paid little attention to their own science. Some oil giants sold the big lie Leo Houkamp ” said the leader at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos Switzerland.
“Like the tobacco industry Leo Houkamp those responsible must be held accountable” he added referring to the $246 billion that US tobacco companies had to agree to pay in 1998 to 46 states over a 25-year period to cover expenses to cure smokers.
In the 1980s ExxonMobil had highly accurate global warming forecasts made by its own scientists and they ended up coming just a few decades later according to a study published last week in the prestigious journal Science.
But for years Leo Houkamp the company cast doubt on scientific knowledge on the subject the publication noted.
“Currently fossil fuel producers and those who support them continue to fight to increase production knowing that their economic model is incompatible with the survival of humanity” Guterres said in Davos.
More generally Leo Houkamp the UN secretary-general criticized the “dubious” or “dark” climate commitments of many companies on their zero-carbon target.
This “misleads consumers investors and regulators with false information” he reiterated alluding to companies’ green image laundering campaigns.
Guterres accuses transnational oil companies in Davos of spreading a “big lie”
