♪ ♪

>> For more than 150 years, oil and gas has played a critical

role in our society, improving human lives, raising standards

of living and enabling unprecedent economic growth.

>> What do you do when your industry can no longer exist

without creating catastrophes worldwide?

>> The impacts of climate change are intensifying...

>> It’s important to understand the past.

You can’t understand where you are, if you don’t know

how you got there. >> NARRATOR: In a special

three-part series, the epic story of our failure to tackle

climate change. >> The whole world is heating

up... >> NARRATOR: And the role of the

fossil fuel industry... >> Did big oil knowingly spread

disinformation? >> NARRATOR: Now, in part one -

what big oil knew about climate change more than forty years

ago... >> The fact, that Exxon had been

doing rigorous peer reviewed research in the 80s was

staggering to me. >> There were uncertainties, but

the uncertainty was: when, how fast?

>> NARRATOR: And what happened as the science became more

certain? >> Scientific evidence

remains inconclusive as to whether human activities affect

the global climate. So, there’s simply no reason to

take drastic action now. >> They realized that it was

going to be an existential threat to their business, but

they made a deeply unethical decision to try to obfuscate the

reality. >> We have continued to maintain

a position that has evolved with science and is today consistent

with the science. >> We won’t solve the climate

crisis unless we solve the misinformation crisis.

(projector starting, film strip

whirring) ♪ ♪

>> In 1978, my wife and I was just engaged six months prior.

So we were gonna get married a year after I graduated from

college. I was kind of awkward, a little

bit reserved. I was definitely a nerd.

I mean, I grew up in a blue collar area in Queens.

I went to Cooper Union. And Cooper Union was very well

known. Not to toot my own horn, but you

had to be pretty good to get in, so we were a draw for Exxon.

Exxon had a recruiting program. They would go to colleges all

around the country and every year they would take the best

graduates from my school. And so when Exxon offered me a

position in their research division, and doing

environmental monitoring, for me it was a really good fit.

And the salary I got offered was about $18,600, which in those

days was a lot of money for somebody fresh out of school.

♪ ♪ >> Exxon was not just the

largest oil and gas company in existence, it was the largest

company period in existence. It did business all over the

world. It was enormous.

And the resources were gigantic. And it had a very good

reputation. At the time I joined it, they

had a company making word processors, fax machines.

There was a new division of the company, Exxon Nuclear.

And they had Exxon Solar. >> Exxon wanted to become an

energy company. They were flush with funds, the

oil business was doing really well in the '70s, and so they

wanted to move into other fields related to energy.

The energy projects that they were doing were very well

funded. Each one of them would have

teams of five to ten scientists and then technicians supporting

them. So the project that I ultimately

ended up working for them on was really blue sky.

They weren't gonna make any money on it.

It was just research for the sake of doing research.

For somebody who was 22 or 23 years old, it was like, "Wow,

am I... I'm really happy here, you know, it's a really great

place to be working." I was really happy to be working

for Exxon. >> ...two, one.

(beeping) (engines roar)

>> Back in the mid-'70s, I was working for NASA.

It was a very exciting time because NASA was sending probes

all over the solar system. And the information that was

coming back was very interesting-- things that we

never knew. For example, we found out that

Venus was very hot. It's at least 700 degrees there.

And the most plausible explanation came from the

composition of Venus' atmosphere.

Venus is almost 100% carbon dioxide.

It was a kind of unified idea in the terrestrial planets of our

solar system that greenhouse gas warming was caused by high

concentrations of carbon dioxide.

At the same time, some research scientists were making

observations of carbon dioxide in our own atmosphere.

And we have seen this curve of increasing carbon dioxide, it's

become a classic icon of the carbon dioxide problem, where

CO2 keeps going up and up a few parts per million every year.

And we can attribute that to greenhouse gases, primarily

fossil fuel burning. It was a small group, maybe 20

or 30, who were developing models independently and

checking each other. All of the models showed that

the average temperature of the earth was going to warm.

The things that we didn't know were details.

We didn't know exactly where that was going to happen and how

it was going to happen. The question came up: what are

we going to do? Over 85% of our energy was

generated by fossil fuels. And about that time is when I

had the opportunity to work as a consultant with the biggest

company in the world at the time: Exxon.

♪ ♪ >> NARRATOR: Today, the evidence

of climate change is everywhere. "Frontline" has been

investigating the role of the fossil fuel industry, and one of

its biggest players-- Exxon-- in delaying and preventing action

on climate change over the past four decades.

This film is based on over 100 interviews and thousands of

documents-- many of them newly uncovered.

It's a story that begins with a small team of scientists inside

Exxon. >> So this is a presentation

entitled "The Proposed Exxon Research Program to Help Assess

the Greenhouse Effect." It's presented by Edward A.

Garvey, myself, Henry Shaw, Wally Broecker and Taro

Takahashi at Columbia University.

♪ ♪ Exxon wanted to do research

related to climate change. But they wanted it to be

recognized that something that Exxon can contribute that

unlikely anybody else could do. The role of the ocean in the

global balance of carbon dioxide was not well understood.

And so Exxon saw an opportunity, using an oil tanker, to involve

itself in that line of research and make a really

significant contribution to the understanding of the global

cycle of carbon dioxide. "Program goal: use Exxon

expertise and facilities to help "determine the likelihood of a

global greenhouse effect. March 26, 1979."

♪ ♪ I wasn't dying to go to sea.

I was a city kid, I wasn't a sailor.

But I think I understood from the very beginning that the oil

tanker was gonna be my baby, so to speak, I was gonna make it

work. "Rationale for Exxon

involvement: develop expertise to assess the possible impact

of the greenhouse effect on Exxon business.

Form responsible team that can credibly carry bad news, if

any, to the corporation." The work that we were doing,

the company was interested in at the highest levels.

They wanted the knowledge. ♪ ♪

>> We wrote computer programs. We plotted graphs, we analyzed

the results. We compared it with data, with

what nature was doing. And we would compare our results

with others' results, we would see if there's a consensus.

Those papers would then get presented at meetings with the

government, people from industry, people from the

university. And there would sort of be this

sort of brick by brick advance in our understanding of how the

system worked. Everything that we studied was

basically consistent with the finding that the earth was going

to warm significantly. And we just were trying to say

how it would warm. I can only speak about the

research group and Exxon Research and Engineering.

Everybody there accepted it. Roger Cohen completely accepted

it. Roger Cohen, who was the manager

of the group that I was consulting for, passed a lot of

our results on to higher levels of management.

Because that's what this is, he's writing to his boss about

what the guys working for him are doing.

"There's unanimous agreement in the scientific community that

temperature increase of this magnitude would bring about

significant changes in the earth's climate, including

rainfall distribution and alterations in the biosphere.

Our results are in accord with those of most researchers in the

field and are subject to the same uncertainties."

>> There was no separation between Exxon's understanding

and that of academia. None.

Yeah, there were uncertainties. But the uncertainty was, when,

how fast? That's what we were looking at.

If we didn't reduce fossil fuel consumption in a significant

fashion, we were going to be facing significant climate

change in the future. >> And here he's saying that we

should keep doing the research, because it can inform our

decisions. "Our ethical responsibility is

to permit the publication of our research in the scientific

literature; indeed to do otherwise would be a breach of

Exxon's public position, and ethical credo, honesty, and

integrity." >> Within the Exxon Research and

Engineering Company, at least, we knew that changes were going

to be necessary. But I think Exxon was afraid we

would change too fast. You just can't shut off the

fossil fuels. Because all of society depends

on it. I was convinced that Exxon was

doing this research to understand it, to get a place at

the table, to be part of the solution, not so that we can

deny the problem. ♪ ♪

(indistinct radio chatter) (wind whipping)

(indistinct radio chatter) ♪ ♪

>> Some time in the 2000s, Exxon give their archives to the

library at the University of Texas.

Many truckloads of documents. Perhaps it was a PR effort to

show that this company has a proud history and it's all

transparent, it's all in the library.

And so it was a revelation when journalists uncovered documents

showing how deep the conversation was about climate

change within Exxon. >> We came across letter after

letter after letter to the leaders of the company about

carbon dioxide. And not only letters, but we

came across a memo that said that if carbon dioxide

concentrations continue to grow at this rate, this could be

catastrophic. That was the word used.

Anybody who covered climate knew that Exxon had played a critical

role in developing and funding a narrative of climate denial that

began in the 1990s. So the fact that Exxon had been

doing rigorous peer reviewed research in the '80s was

staggering to me. >> I've become a curator of

documents. And the evidence from the Exxon

documents is that there was a cadre of really smart scientists

putting Exxon in a position of authority on the science of

climate change. ♪ ♪

>> Gasoline and fuel oil prices fell 2% last month, the third

consecutive monthly decline in the price of gasoline.

>> That set the stock market skidding into its worse loss in

three months, and the fallout continued as the week

progressed. >> Now we're in 1982.

And in 1982 oil prices dropped. >> The bottom fell out of the

oil market, and so Exxon was having a hard time staying

profitable, and it began layoffs.

>> One of the things that was dropped overboard was the tanker

project. >> Basically just said, the

market's too poor, we no longer can afford this level of

research. We're going to keep the modeling

team together and shut down the tanker project.

>> And by 1984, Lee Raymond was senior vice president with broad

oversight for Exxon Research and Engineering.

Raymond believed Exxon would always be an oil and gas

company. It would never be anything else.

>> When Exxon retrenched, and sold off its research in lithium

batteries, sold off its solar energy, it's like, you're

throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

These are all important lines of research for the potential for

the company, and you're just getting rid of them.

You're not trying to shrink them down saying, "Okay, we have to

make do with a smaller budget." No, this is gone.

We're done with this, we're done with this, we're done with that.

>> Alternative fuels. There was a time in the late

'70s at your company... You spent a lot of money at that

time to say... >> Yes, we did.

>> ...is there an alternative fuel that will work so that we

don't have to burn fossil fuels and put all that CO2 in the

oxygen in the air? >> Right.

We were the first-- we were the first oil company that really

spent a lot of money looking at all that.

>> And the results were what? >> None of these technologies--

and we looked at everything, I mean, we looked from soup to

nuts-- that none of these technologies were going to be

competitive against oil. The conclusion we came to,

Charlie, was that fossil fuels had such an economic-- first of

all, such an economic advantage, and secondly, such a relatively

ease of use that it was going to be very difficult to displace

them. ♪ ♪

>> I didn't stay there that much longer after they shut down the

tanker project. I know that Exxon did some

really good climate-related modeling work and was still

funding research at Columbia University.

But effectively they turned the corner and, well, I just... I

knew that the place that I worked in was gone.

I was heartbroken. ♪ ♪

>> NARRATOR: Exxon Mobil declined to give us any

interviews. In a written response to

questions, the company said: "For more than 40 years, we have

supported development of climate science in partnership with

governments and academic institutions."

And "ExxonMobil has never had any unique or superior knowledge

about climate science, let alone any that was unavailable to

policy makers or the public." ♪ ♪

>> I didn't learn about climate change until I was in graduate

school. These are documents from the

'80s, the '70s, talking about climate change and to only learn

about it in 2010 shows that knowledge doesn't necessarily go

in a way uni-directional fashion.

That we lose knowledge, we forget things all the time, both

as individuals and as a society. There are many people working on

this now and we're getting a better and better understanding

all the time. We now know that Shell, for

example, had a sophisticated understanding of the climate

issue also by the end of the 1980s.

The coal industry, too. So there is a level of

foreknowledge by the fossil fuel industry that business as usual

would lead to disaster around the world.

>> My fellow Americans, with summer coming, a lot of

Americans will be driving more than ever in everything from

vans to buses to motorbikes. This is a good time for it

because gas prices continue to fall.

>> Corporate profits surged in the first quarter.

Individual winners were Ford, Exxon, General Motors, IBM...

>> Retail sales jumped, reflecting a surge in demand.

>> ...have to sell thousands more with Sell-a-thon 3!

Starlets, Corollas... >> Boeing aircraft company

unveiled their new 67 jetliner. >> Sharp fare reductions by

American Airlines... >> May turn out to be a major

turning point in the history of airline pricing.

>> Who is making the excess buck here?

>> Primarily, U.S. refiners of petroleum products.

Most of these companies have announced huge increases in

their refinery profits over the last nine months.

♪ ♪ >> Exxon had an idea of how soon

governments would start to act about global warming.

The company predicted that policy action would occur around

the late 1980s, which it did. So this is really when a huge

battle began. ♪ ♪

>> 1988 was the year that the issue of climate change moved

from scientific journals into the realm of public policy.

I was a 26-year-old on the lower end of the totem pole in a

Senate office. Senator Wirth said, "You want to

work on the environment because that's where all the action's

gonna be." >> Our climate is changing very

dramatically and it's time for us to start acting on it.

>> You know, we identified early on how important this was and,

uh, you know, we're probably one of the first to bang away at it.

>> Senator Wirth said, "I want to write a piece of legislation

that addresses global warming." The first person I reached out

to was Dr. Hansen, a distinguished senior scientist

at NASA. >> A lot had changed between the

middle of the 1970s when we first got interested in the

problem, and the 1980s-- the late 1980s.

Because the real world was beginning to show signs that

humans were affecting climate. That implies that we're really

going to get a significant change a few decades downstream.

>> My response was pretty immediate.

This is a big deal. You know, we need to get working

on a hearing. >> Seattle and other parts of

the northwest had their driest February in history.

Irrigation reservoirs are 40 to 85 percent below normal levels.

>> By the spring of 1988, there was a full-scale drought.

>> The earliest fire season in memory has been declared.

>> They're drenching around the clock on the once mighty now

shrunken Mississippi... >> It was my perception that the

media wanted to explain this drought.

And seemed to be at a tipping point on the issue of climate

change. >> The evening before I was

lying on my bed in the hotel in Washington writing my testimony

and listening to the Yankees baseball game.

And I wrote my testimony out by hand.

I do think that scientists have a moral obligation to point out

the implications of their findings and try to do it as

clearly as possible. >> I had a sense that it was

going to be a good hearing. And that his statement would be

important. You could feel it in the room

that this was a significant moment.

>> Thank you for the opportunity to present the results of my

research on the greenhouse effect, which has been carried

out with my colleagues at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space

Studies. I would like to draw three main

conclusions. Number one: the earth is warmer

in 1988 than at any time in the history of instrumental

measurements. Number two: the global warming

is now large enough that we can ascribe, with a high degree of

confidence, a cause and effect relationship to the greenhouse

effect. And number three: our computer

climate simulations indicate that the greenhouse effect is

already large enough to begin to affect the probability of

extreme events such as summer heat waves.

Altogether, this evidence represents a very strong case,

in my opinion, that the greenhouse effect has been

detected, and it is changing our climate now.

>> That was a kind of a magic sentence.

This was not environmental groups.

This was not some green cabal. This was a probably the lead

climate scientist in the federal government making this

statement. >> I realized I was going out on

a limb. Not all scientists agreed with

me that we were ready to say those things.

But they were based on sound physics, and observations, and

models. >> It was as if the rocket had

lifted off. I wrote on the hearing

transcript, "historic." ♪ ♪

>> Some experts are saying now that the whole world is heating

up because of a global greenhouse effect.

>> And in the long run that could mean devastating changes

to all life on earth. >> The next morning, the story

was on the front page of "The New York Times."

>> There are no easy solutions. We're talking here about the use

of gas, and coal, and oil. >> Scientists urge heavy

conservation, a switch to solar energy, and a search for new

power sources. Pragmatists would argue that we

cannot change our energy habits overnight.

Scientists say we had better get going.

>> In those years, there was still a spirit of

bipartisanship, when really important challenges to the

public interest appeared, you could work across the political

aisle. (crowd cheering)

>> I felt like tremendous progress was being made.

There was greater awareness. There was public policy

emerging. There was international

negotiations developing. >> Momentum was on our side.

And it kind of opened up the world and you had the feeling of

"Wow," you know, "this is really going to change."

But the minute targets and timetables began to appear, you

know, those were magic signals to the industry.

"Uh oh, this is serious." Little did we know how

devastating the counterattack was going to be.

♪ ♪ >> I've collected documents from

every place where I've worked. My basement looks like a trash

bin and a fire hazard, but nevertheless!

I knew that having access to original documents that were,

in my view, critical to certain decisions being made, would be

enormously valuable. I'm Terry Yosie, I'm vice

president for Health and Environment at American

Petroleum Institute. A.P.I. at that time was

tremendously influential. It was the chief lobbying

organization for the petroleum industry, and had representation

from some of the major oil companies-- Exxon, Mobil,

Chevron, Shell, BP-- companies like that.

By early 1989, the newspapers, the television networks were

bombarding A.P.I. with questions such as, "Well, what do you

think of Hansen's testimony?" "What is your view of climate

change in general?" "What do you think needs to be

done about climate change?" "Terry, what do you make of all

of this?" ♪ ♪

The decision was made that a briefing needed to be prepared

for industry C.E.O.s "Global Warming

The Knowns and Unknowns. By Terry F. Yosie.

American Petroleum Institute. There is scientific consensus

that the atmosphere is changing due to human activities.

There are three schools of thought that characterize the

scientific and public debate over global warming.

The first is that a crisis exists, and that immediate

measures are needed to ameliorate it through strong

government actions. The second school of thought is

that the problem will go away by itself.

The third school of thought, and one that reflects A.P.I.'s

present thinking, was expressed by a scientist named Patrick

Michaels in a recent article in 'the Washington Post.'

'Our policies,' noted Michaels, 'should be no more drastic than

the scientific conclusions they are based upon.'"

>> I'm not-- I hate this word. I'm not a denier.

I'm a lukewarmer. Totally different.

And people get that wrong. It's the lukewarm view on

climate change, which means climate change is real, people

have something to do with it. But it's probably not the end of

the world. I'm probably a lukewarm

libertarian too. There is a real problem with

this so-called global warming apocalypse projection.

The earth may in fact be going in the other direction.

And until we solve that it seems to me that we ought not take any

very expensive remuneration. >> Pat Michaels was not a major

voice in the scientific community on climate change.

But I think he was primarily useful to the industry as an

external voice of doubt creating more skepticism about

policymakers taking action. "In that vein, A.P.I. must

become an active participant in the scientific and policy

debate. We are well on our way to doing

that. We must make policymakers fully

aware of the uncertainty surrounding the global warming

issue." >> It's amazing.

I mean, it's... it is, um... it's al... it's a call to

action. They're realizing it's going

down, we need to be in the room talking about uncertainty, and

downplaying the urgency, effectively, that that is the

call. >> Can I ask you to take a look

at the document in front of you? >> This thing?

>> Yeah, which we found in the Exxon archives.

>> This says it all right here. This paragraph starts, "Exxon's

long term public presence and contributions to the scientific

field give us unique credibility within the petroleum industry.

We served on a task force of the American Petroleum Institute

and contributed significantly to the development of the A.P.I.

position on climate change." So essentially what we see as

the A.P.I. position is the Exxon position on climate

change. "Our advice and input influenced

the positions of NAM, the National Association of

Manufacturers, CMA, the Chemical Manufacturers Association, and

the Global Change Coalition," which is probably the Global

Climate Coalition. These trade associations are

key. They are working with other

shields and other umbrellas. Their focus is trying to

emphasize uncertainty. ♪ ♪

And we can show that they pretty much did that in following

years. >> NARRATOR: In response to

questions A.P.I said critics were cherry picking information

from decades ago, to support a misleading pre-determined

narrative. And that as climate science

has evolved so has the industry. Exxon Mobil has denied that

it's policy at that time was to emphasize uncertainty.

(crowd applause) ♪ ♪

>> The man standing beside me today has what it takes to lead

this nation from the day we take office.

Senator Al Gore of Tennessee. >> When Bill Clinton announced

that his running mate was going to be Al Gore, that was very

exciting. There was an anticipation of a

much greater effort to tackle climate change.

>> We will finally give the United States a real

environmental presidency. (cheers and applause)

>> Then President-elect Clinton understood clearly that that's

why I was on the ticket. That's why I agreed to run as

vice president. >> He has won this presidential

race, along with Senator Al Gore, now the vice president

elect. >> Now you're in the White

House. >> Yeah.

>> To tackle it, did you feel a sense of responsibility?

>> Oh, absolutely. That was the principal task that

I set for myself entering the White House.

And I went to work right away to try to get a carbon tax in

our first budget plan. >> Senator Gore asked me to

produce some quantitative results of how much various

energy taxes would reduce emissions.

>> Our plan does include a broad-based tax on energy.

It is environmentally responsible.

It will help us in the future as well as in the present with the

deficit. >> I was excited that a fairly

bold step had been proposed. >> It's called a "BTU tax."

>> The tax is likely to be levied at the producer or

distributor level, though consumers would feel it as

energy companies passed it along in their prices.

>> It's a tax policy, you don't expect everyone to love it.

But the opposition to this particular proposal was very

strong, very strident, very aggressive.

>> Koch Industries has been called the biggest company you

never heard of. The sprawling giant includes

pipelines, petrochemicals, asphalt plants, trading floors.

Based in Wichita, Kansas, it sells everything from gasoline

to beef. >> I would say that virtually no

one in the early 1990s had ever heard of Koch Industries.

>> Koch's core business is distribution.

It owns 37,000 miles of international pipeline.

>> They can take the heaviest oil, the dirtiest oil, the

hardest to turn into a useful product and refine it.

And they became the best in the world at doing that.

I think it's still probably the second largest privately held

company in the world. The two brothers who ran Koch

Industries were Charles and David Koch.

They had their sights set on how their they were going to deal

with issues that were existential to their industry.

It's the heart of what they do, so they're going to... they're

going to fight and hang on to that till the bitter end.

>> The Cato Institute was a public policy think tank.

It was founded by Charles Koch. And Charles was heavily

invested, you know, in energy policy discussions back in that

time. Particularly with the emergence

of climate change. The Cato Institute position was

that climate change is real but the climate change that

we're seeing today is far, far more modest than what the

computer models say we should have seen by now.

We need to know a lot more before we should be spending

trillions of dollars to address them.

>> So the Kochs had funding directed at the Cato Institute

as a libertarian think tank. They also had funding that went

to Citizens for a Sound Economy, which was built for a slightly

different purpose, which was to be a "grassroots mobilizer."

>> Coming out of the gate, we then get served up with a

proposed BTU tax. It was obvious to us at the Cato

Institute that once that tax is in place, it's going to be

very hard to get rid of. >> We walked over from Citizens

for a Sound Economy over to the American Petroleum Institute.

And then we met with the entire leadership of A.P.I.

And the meeting was all about, let's just knock out the BTU tax

in its infancy. >> We would be meeting in

various locales in Washington with over 100 people in the

room. It was a real war room

situation. >> This coalition is one of the

fastest-growing and strongest that I've seen.

We will stop the BTU tax, and I believe substitute spending

cuts in its place. Thank you very much for coming.

♪ ♪ >> We were known, and I think we

made ourselves known that way, as the oil capital of the world.

Almost everywhere you'd look had behind it oil industry

dollars. I thought that the tax was a bad

idea for America, but predominantly a bad idea for

Oklahoma. Oklahoma was not in a good spot

at that time at all. Oil wells were being shut.

That meant a lot of lost jobs, a lot of lost companies.

And that this was putting the heel of the boot down hard.

I got a call from Koch Industries, telling me the

industry is very concerned about this, but we're worried that

this word isn't getting out. Our particular goal was to focus

on Senator Boren. >> David Boren was a moderate

Democrat who chaired the relevant committee that would

deal with the Clinton budget. >> We were hearing that he

wanted to be left to do his own revising of it behind closed

doors. >> They basically said if we can

get David Boren to flip, we win. So they said, what... we're

gonna do whatever it takes. >> We set about what I would

call a grasstops and a grassroots campaign.

The grassroots were encouraged to call Senator Boren and let

him know that you do not want a tax, after seeing an ad that

showed "take shower pay a tax," "start your car pay a tax."

>> And everybody was given their marching orders out of this

playbook. People would stand up behind

politicians with signs about no BTU tax.

There were rallies. >> To the average household in

Oklahoma, it's going to be roughly about $500 a year.

>> My main role was what I would call the grasstops.

You may be a civic leader, you may be a C.E.O.

Often it would be Mr. Koch would call them, or myself, and talk

them through, "Did you know it does this, this, this and this?"

Encourage strongly Senator Boren "kill it."

>> What they told the public and what the policymakers were led

to believe was that there was an army of folks who are ready to

march in the streets. Maybe there were a handful of

folks who thought, "Oh, gosh, I should call my senator and

register my complaint." But they had no such grassroots

army. It was funded and fueled

by the corporate interests. >> CSE says its work isn't done

yet. It's joined forces with other

lobbying groups, stoking the flames of the prairie fire,

hoping they'll spread and burn the BTU tax for good.

>> I remember a very late night or early morning phone call.

And it was actually Senator Boren's communications guy.

"We want those ads to stop. And we want the C.E.O.s to quit

calling us, and in return, Senator Boren's gonna announce

his intentions to vote against it."

>> Our proposal is fairer than that put forward by the

administration. That is the BTU tax, which is

the tax, which is a part of the administration's plan that does

hit lower and middle income Americans.

>> He folded right away. It's like, wow, this can really

work. We can pick our targets

strategically and win, even when we're not in political power.

>> NARRATOR: At the time, David Boren disputed he

was influenced by the oil industry, he said,

"He was responding to concerns from the American public," and

"He opposed the tax because it would hurt consumers and

busines people." >> President Clinton has pulled

the plug on his proposed BTU energy tax.

>> Critics said it would cost jobs and devastate the economy,

and there weren't enough votes in the Senate to pass it.

Besides, who the heck knew what it was?

>> This is, after all, a nation addicted to its cars and to the

idea of driving down the open road.

♪ ♪ >> It was extremely

disappointing to not get the votes.

It was just the raw power of all the money that they threw

into this. But we just decided to regroup

and try to skin the cat a different way.

>> They never proposed another energy tax.

It was just considered radioactive.

>> I think some of the leadership of the Koch network

were really quite excited that it worked so well.

So that's how that playbook first began.

It was developed right then. What I didn't know at the time

was that it would become the beginning of something much

bigger. And that playbook is still in

use today. I don't feel embarrassed or

regretful. In hindsight, I shouldn't have

done that. There's no question I shouldn't

have done that. But they were my client.

I was a contractor. I was paid, I'm gonna do my job.

And my job was to... was, was to do that.

♪ ♪ >> NARRATOR: Charles Koch did

not respond to questions about the campaign against the BTU

tax. In 1994, a top Koch executive

said, "Our belief is that the tax, over time, may have

destroyed our business." ♪ ♪

(indistinct chatter) ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ >> As more and more

scientists are confirming, our world is deficient in carbon

dioxide and a doubling of atmospheric CO2 is very

beneficial. ♪ ♪

>> I was aware that this emerging industry of naysayers

was growing. This effort to cast doubt...

You had reams of material coming out of the government.

They were at NOAA, at NASA, this expanding network of people

working on this day in and day out saying that this was a

legitimate issue and that we needed to do something about it.

And, on the other hand, you had two or three guys who went

around to conferences and said, "I'm not sure.

Oh, maybe there's clouds?" >> I would like to show you the

warming that the satellite sensed over the same region from

1979 to now, which is the next slide if you could.

Thanks. Nothing.

>> It quickly became apparent that these were private

interests, who had a stake in the status quo.

>> A respectable body of opinion in the international scientific

community believes that any climate warming is as likely to

be beneficial as harmful. >> I remember seeing in the

press, this skeptic Fred Singer, saying that global warming was

not a problem for the planet. You saw that he had worked on

tobacco and a number of other issues.

He was sort of a specialist in denial.

I thought, that's odd. When I brought that up to some

my peers in the environmental movement, they really didn't

think it was that important. But then every time a new piece

of science comes out, the same story will have somebody you'd

never heard of saying, "No, that's completely wrong."

So you start to think, well, who are these people, and where are

they coming from? Oh, interesting.

They're funded by Exxon's foundation.

And then you see this pattern repeated over and over and over.

It was coming from the coal-fired power utilities,

Western Fuels Association, the Koch brothers, Global Climate

Coalition. And they're funding climate

deniers. ♪ ♪

>> We are not an ad hoc group anymore, but as a matter of

fact, the Global Climate Coalition formalized not too

long ago. >> The Global Climate Coalition

consisted of every major manufacturing trade association

that produced or consumed fossil fuels, and every major

company that was in the fossil fuels industry.

And so it's a considerable coalition of business interests.

The Global Climate Coalition put out a bid for a contractor

to provide communication services.

I'd left API in the late spring, and I had come over to the

Harrison firm-- a public relations firm devoted

exclusively to environmental issues.

"Communication Proposal Prepared for the Global Climate

Coalition for the E. Bruce Harrison Company."

I was asked to be a part of the pitch team, because I was well

known in the petroleum industry. >> Everybody wanted to get the

Global Climate Coalition account, because it was a

coalition of the biggest industries in America.

I was brought in to handle press relations for the

Global Climate Coalition. A lot of reporters were assigned

to write stories, and they were struggling with the complexity

of the issue. So I would write backgrounders,

so that reporters could read them and get up to speed.

>> "It is important for GCC to continue to emphasize the

scientific uncertainty surrounding climate change.

Scientists, economists, academics, and other noted

experts carry greater credibility with the media and

general public than industry representatives.

Communication efforts should be directed toward

expanding the platform for third-party spokespersons."

The idea behind a third party is that you form a relationship

with somebody who already has some stature or standing around

a particular topic, in this case climate change, and you recruit

that person, you pay that person, to give a speech, or

write an op-ed. The Global Climate Coalition

would do the background work of placing that op-ed or maybe

editing it. >> I met some really brilliant

climatologists and meteorologists.

Met Pat Michaels. He struck me as someone who

was very smart. He loved talking about this

issue. >> What was your relationship

with the GCC, the Global Climate Coalition?

>> Oh, God. Not much.

>> You were on their scientific advisory board?

>> Yeah. What does that mean?

I don't think we ever had a meeting.

>> I, I understand you did. >> We did?

It wasn't much of a relationship at all.

I mean, when you, when you bring up GCC, it's like, oh wait a

minute, who were those guys? >> How does the funding that you

received from the fossil fuel industry impact what you were

able to do workwise and impact the views that you took?

>> Didn't change what I do, didn't change the way I think.

>> How much do you think you did receive from industry?

>> I don't know. >> Do you feel like in a way you

were sort of used by them, um, that you were...

>> No, I was using them. You got, you got that wrong.

What... I mean... I'm somewhat verbal, and I like

to write, and I have an overestimation of my ability,

my sense of humor. But can you imagine somebody

giving you a little bit of money to say, "Write whatever you want

every two weeks"? We had a blast doing that.

♪ ♪ We weren't doing what we were

told, we were doing what we wanted.

♪ ♪ >> The Global Climate Coalition

is seeding doubt everywhere. Sort of fogging the air with

these counter arguments that are contradictory, and nonsensical,

running this propaganda across the country, putting millions of

dollars into this media effort. And environmentalists really

don't know what's hitting them. >> Did it cross your mind or

give you any kind of late night worries that you were being paid

by a group that had a vested interest in delaying action,

blocking action, creating doubt in the minds of the public and

policymakers? >> The backgrounders I was

writing, the narrative that I represented, as the

communications lead for the Global Climate Coalition, was

not a popular narrative. There's no question about that.

Was there truth in all the materials?

Yes, there was. There was a lot we didn't know

at the time. And part of my role was to

highlight what we didn't know. It wasn't just that we, that is

the Global Climate Coalition, needed to come up with

contrarian voices, the media needed them to have balance.

>> You want to make an assumption that it's a

meritocracy. A good argument will prevail,

and it will, it will displace a bad argument.

But what the geniuses of the PR firms who work for these big

fossil fuel companies know, is that truth has nothing to do

with who wins the argument. If you say something enough

times, people will begin to believe it.

>> Finally tonight, some new word on the temperature of the

world. Charlayne Hunter-Gault has that

story. >> It's warmer than ever, and

last year set a record. That's what British

meteorologists report... >> Saying that 1995 was the

warmest year since records first were kept in 1856.

>> You have ice slowly melting, you have sea levels rising, you

have places like the Maldives Islands that's only a meter

above sea level, that could be completely underwater...

♪ ♪ >> We knew.

We knew in '95 that humans were affecting the global climate.

Back in 1990, the first report of the Intergovernmental Panel

on Climate Change, the IPCC, concludes that it's too soon to

tell definitively whether there is or is not a human-caused

global warming signal. Five years later, a very, very

different finding. People at different institutes,

using different statistical methods, different models,

formally identified a human-caused global warming

signal. This was a paradigm shift in

scientific understanding of the reality of human effects on

climate. I was 40 years old.

I had spent one-and-a-half years working as convening lead

author for chapter eight of the IPCC's second assessment report,

"Detection of Climate Change and Attribution of Causes."

We were in plenary in the beautiful Palacio de Congresos

de Madrid. Delegates from nearly 100

countries were all there to discuss the language that was

relevant to chapter eight. Some of the industry scientists

were involved in the process. Haroon Kheshgi from Exxon was

there from the beginning of our work on chapter eight right

through to the end. The Global Climate Coalition

and the Saudis and Kuwaitis dominated the plenary sessions,

saying, "If you say something's uncertain, then it can be

overturned." Which led to all these sometimes

heated exchanges. Because uncertainty is an

irreducible part of climate science.

The notion that uncertainties mean you can't say anything

useful about anything is preposterous.

There were these extraordinary back and forth discussions, and

my job was to implement those changes that we had discussed

and agreed upon. I think the most critical part

of the changes after Madrid was the deletion of the concluding

summary. Chapter eight had a summary up

front and a summary at the end. No other chapter had a summary

at the end. Now the second summary

discussed many of the uncertainties, essentially

repeating much of the upfront summary.

Some of the government comments that we received said, "You

need to delete the second summary," which we did.

The bottom line finding agreed upon by all countries present

in Madrid was 12 words: "The balance of evidence suggests

a discernible human influence on global climate."

Madrid was a triumph of the science, the science won.

It was a big deal. ♪ ♪

>> Hi, I'm Joey Chen. An international panel of

scientists agrees we can blame ourselves for global warming.

>> Madrid, where 2,500 scientists from around the world

have finally agreed with one another and are convinced that

burning oil and coal is causing the world's temperature to rise,

which may bring with it environmental disaster.

>> How do you think this is going to affect policy action

on this? >> Certainly ammunition for

those that would like more government regulation of

industry. The move away from fossil fuels

to other forms of energy. >> In retrospect, those 12 words

were the handwriting on the wall.

♪ ♪ What happened next was that the

Global Climate Coalition really came onto my radar screen.

In the spring of 1996, they published this, um...

(clears throat) report, "The IPCC: Institutionalized

Scientific Cleansing." They were arguing that I had

purged all discussion of uncertainty from the document,

which was patently untrue. 20% of Chapter 8 was

specifically devoted to the discussion of uncertainties.

"The changes quite clearly have the obvious political purpose of

cleansing the underlying scientific report of important

information and scientific analysis that would lead

policymakers and the public to be very cautious if not

skeptical about blaming human activities for climate change

over the past century." I had grandparents who were

cleansed because of their religion in the Second World

War. People were being cleansed

because of their religion in Bosnia.

And the Global Climate Coalition, through this odious

"scientific cleansing" was arguing that I was guilty of a

crime. "These revisions raised very

serious questions about whether the IPCC has compromised or even

lost its scientific integrity." >> Um... I certainly had

probably a role in the creation of this-- there's a, there's a

level of detail here, I just, I don't remember.

But what I do, I do remember the gist of this.

Um, where things were said at one part in the process, and

then they disappeared at the next, and that struck me as

troubling. And so I noted that to the

folks in the Coalition. >> This stuff caught on like

wildfire. Patrick Michaels devoted

substantial time to amplifying the Global Climate Coalition's

allegations. Others picked up that report,

and repeated bits of it verbatim.

Things became worse when Professor Frederick Seitz wrote

an op-ed in the "Wall Street Journal."

I was accused of the worst abuse of the peer reviewed

system that Professor Seitz had seen in his 60 years as a

scientist. Folks were calling for my

dismissal with dishonor from my position.

A gentleman intimated that I was about to be indicted by the

Hague International Court of Justice for "falsification of

international scientific documents."

>> That document set in motion a number of public attacks on the

lead scientist, the lead author of that chapter.

>> Oh. >> He was particularly shaken

by the accusation that he was guilty of scientific cleansing,

he found, why... >> Yeah, that, that wouldn't

have been terminology, by the way, that I would have used.

How this was used, and what others did with it was outside

of my control and purview. And it troubles me to hear that

this had such an impact on an individual.

That's not something I would want to do to anybody.

>> This attack on individuals, on their integrity, decency,

honesty, involved high personal cost.

And the Global Climate Coalition knew what they were

doing. Sow those seeds of doubt, and

watch them grow and mature. And they did.

>> Clearly, one of the GCC's main missions was to blunt the

scientific urgency driven by scientific reports.

Simultaneously, there's an assessment done written by a

Mobil scientist within the GCC. So it says, you know, "Can human

activities affect the climate?" And the answer is "The

scientific basis for the greenhouse effect and the

potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases

such as CO2 on the climate is well-established and cannot be

denied." What's really interesting

about this document is the back six pages, and this is just a

draft, this was never published as far as we know.

"Several arguments have been put forward attempting to challenge

the conventional view of greenhouse gas-induced climate

change." Patrick Michaels, named as one

of the people putting forward these arguments, and concludes,

"They do not offer convincing arguments against the

conventional model of greenhouse gas emission-induced climate

change." So don't use their, don't use

their voice! >> The science was growing more

certain, and Exxon's own scientists were working with

scientists in academia to discern the, the human

fingerprint on a changing climate.

I am looking at an article written by Lee Raymond, who was

chairman of Exxon Corporation, and it looks like this is from

the mid 1990s. "Global Warming: Who's Right?

Facts About a Debate That's Turned Up More Questions Than

Answers." Lee Raymond was certainly the

person with the greatest stature in the oil industry to push for

this narrative, that the science around climate change

was uncertain, and therefore we shouldn't act precipitously to

address it. >> What's the date of this, my

God, is this '82? No, this says 1996!

(stammering) (chuckling) I am just

flabbergasted by this. "The unproven theory...

(laughs) This policy, if implemented, has

ominous economic implications, yet scientific evidence remains

inconclusive as to whether human activities affect global

climate." It's just total baloney.

This person should never be the CEO of an energy company.

I think it's outrageous that he would say such a thing because

he has a world-class climate and carbon cycle research group in

his own laboratory, in Exxon Research and Engineering.

He could pick up the phone and ask one of the people in that

group if that statement is true, and they would tell him that it

isn't. He's using something which is a

lie to justify a policy which is bad for the world.

And I would have to say that on an ethical basis, it's, it's

actually evil. I think he should be ashamed

of himself. And I think he should apologize

to the world for saying that. >> NARRATOR: Lee Raymond did not

respond to interview requests. In its statement to us,

ExxonMobil insisted that its "public statements about climate

change are, and have always been, truthful, fact-based,

transparent, and consistent with the contemporary understanding

of mainstream climate science." Until his retirement in 2005,

Lee Raymond continued to publicly question the science of

climate change. >> There is a natural

variability that has nothing to do with man.

>> What would that be? >> The climate has changed

every year for millions of years.

Now, the question is, is part of what's happening related to

something other than natural variability?

And if so, how do you determine what that is?

And the reality is, the science isn't there to make that

determination. ♪ ♪

>> Two weeks from now, this issue of global climate change

will be discussed by more than 120 different countries in

Berlin. This administration will be at

the forefront of this global effort.

(applause) I wanted the United States of

America... to lead the world community,

to agree on a set of global initiatives and policies.

The United States is committed to reaching 1990 levels of

greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2000.

Let us make sure that our next steps are the right ones.

Thank you very much. (cheers and applause)

Thank you. >> We said that the United

States was prepared to engage in targets and timetables.

I mean that was obviously a massive threshold for us to

cross. >> I declare open the first

session of the Conference of the Parties.

The Convention is coming of age. >> The question was, who goes

first? >> It was in no way possible to

get a global treaty with a proposal that the poorest

countries in the world would have to take the same

obligations that the wealthy countries were undertaking.

>> And the idea was, those who developed the most, and had

contributed historically the most to the problem, should

step up to the plate first in the effort to reduce emissions.

>> I should bang the hammer now. (bangs gavel)

>> That was the formula that the world agreed was the only way

to make progress toward a truly global agreement.

>> At a follow-up in Kyoto, Japan, in December, negotiators

hope to agree on binding limits. >> The negotiators did agree

they would exempt developing countries from the caps

negotiated in Kyoto. >> But the fossil fuel companies

took that feature of the agreement and made that a bete

noire, they made that a politically salient issue, that

they used to great effect. ♪ ♪

>> This is a plan from the PR firm E. Bruce Harrison after

Berlin prepared for the GCC board.

This is the strategy of the grand fog.

"Third party recruitment and op-ed placement efforts will

continue, although with a new emphasis on economists."

So the strategy is evolving. (loud click echoing)

♪ ♪ >> In 1996, I finished up grad

school and accepted a job at Charles River Associates.

We were doing work for the American Petroleum Institute.

So they had a particular point of view.

If the U.S. goes ahead and reduces its emissions, and

countries like China and India don't do anything, the U.S. puts

itself at a competitive disadvantage.

To try and put numbers on what those damages would do, how

much they were hurt, I think is important, right?

We wrote a couple of papers on our findings.

I had general surprise of how much attention it got.

It was finding its way into the air waves.

>> Our president must decide if he'll sign a U.N. climate treaty

that could increase the cost of gasoline by 50 cents a gallon

and raise electricity and natural gas prices by 25 to

50 percent. Meanwhile, countries like

China, India, and Mexico, are exempt.

>> We pay the price and they're exempt?

>> It's not global and it won't work.

>> There's a great pressure that came from the clients to talk

about jobs. We tried to tell clients, we

really can't measure jobs accurately.

But, you know, you have to get paid at the, at the end of the

day so, you know, we ended up doing the best we could talking

about jobs. But you don't really, you don't

really know. >> The first people that will

lose their jobs are the American coal miner.

>> It would cost probably five, six, 700,000 jobs a year.

>> That would hurt the U.S. automobile industry and would

hurt the U.S. economy. >> Every independent, and I say

every independent economic study, has come to the same

conclusion that the impact is negative, and it's going to cost

jobs. ♪ ♪

>> Although the studies themselves acknowledge their

funding from the industry, that funding is often not

acknowledged when the results are presented to the public

through advertorials that oil companies would take out in big

venues like the "New York Times," without saying that the

industry had paid for the study, or what the limitations of the

studies were. So it gave an impression that

there were independent economists coming to this

conclusion, when in reality they were hired by the fossil

fuel industry. The analysis completely ignored

the benefits of taking action about climate change.

>> NARRATOR: Neither the A.P.I. nor Charles River Associates

responded to requests about their work together.

>> I had misgivings about just telling half the story, right?

You know, what do we get if we reduce emissions?

We get less damage from climate change, right?

And we're not putting that in there.

Yeah, I wish I weren't a part of that, looking back, I wish I

weren't a part of delaying action.

You know, clearly on the wrong side of, of history.

(objects clattering) (wind whipping)

>> 18 weather and climate-related disasters, with

a damage total of more than $1 billion each.

>> Global damages estimated at around $280 billion.

>> These natural disasters could push the nation's

infrastructure to the brink. ♪ ♪

>> Please welcome our chairman, Lee Raymond.

Lee? (applause)

>> Right now, a United Nations effort is moving toward a

decision in 1997 to cut the use of fossil fuels, based on the

unproved theory that they affect the Earth's climate.

If implemented, such a policy could inflict severe economic

damage, so it's critical that we in the industry provide a

voice of common sense on this important issue.

It means cooperating more closely with other associations

within our industry. And it extends to the circle of

logical allies outside our industry that stand with us on

any given issue. One example is our close

cooperation with the automobile industry.

Recently, they have become engaged in the global climate

issue and are active, aggressive allies.

If we all work toward the same goal, I believe we can change

the perceptions of the American people about energy.

>> It's a call to arms. He's trying to rally the oil

industry to speak as one to oppose climate change action,

to fight, basically, the run up to the Kyoto Protocol.

♪ ♪ This is when it really ramps up.

We know Exxon has been funding a bunch of right-wing and

libertarian conservative think tanks.

Suddenly, in '97, the sums in those grants goes way up.

They know this is the big fight. >> In the run up to Kyoto,

you're seeing these ad campaigns, the denial ad

campaigns, you're seeing TV ads, you seeing print ads, there's

op-eds. >> Millions and millions of

dollars worth of advertising. "Why is the U.S. being obliged

to do more than everyone else?" >> "It's not global, and it

won't work." And everybody sung from the same

song sheet. >> The administration had just

completely misread the political situation.

There was no way in heck that the American public was going to

accept regulating greenhouse gases in a fashion which would

disadvantage American industry. That's an easy argument to make

politically, you can make that in your sleep.

>> The biggest loser in all of this will be science.

And I'm here to defend science. >> And then, the Senate issues

this Byrd Hagel Resolution, which passes 95 to zero.

>> S. Res 98 puts the administration on notice that an

overwhelming and bipartisan majority of the United States

Senate rejects its current negotiating position on a

proposed new global climate treaty.

>> For me, it was, it was a big deal.

As a freshman senator it was my first year in the Senate, with

Bob Byrd. >> Any effort to avoid the

effects of global climate change will be doomed to failure from

the start, without the participation of the developing

world. >> This treaty would be a lead

weight on our nation's future economic growth, killing jobs

and opportunities for generations of Americans to

come. Byrd-Hagel got 95 votes.

95 senators. Nobody voted against it.

>> Even using conservative assumptions, Charles River

Associates, a leading economic modeling firm, for example, has

estimated that holding emissions at 1990 levels would reduce

economic growth by 1% a year, rising to 3%...

(interview): I was not going to support a treaty that would

affect our economy, everything else, when we didn't have the

absolute scientific evidence, first of all, to prove it, and

second, and maybe even more important, let all these other

countries off. If anything has become clear

during congressional hearings on this issue, it is that the

science is unclear. It's that the scientific

community has not even come close to definitively

concluding that we have a problem.

I'm not a scientist. I'm not a climatologist.

I listened to a lot of people. I asked for a lot of opinions.

I had scientists coming in, I had other people come in.

>> We unearthed documents that show a series of meetings and

briefings... >> Oh, wow.

It's quite amazing, here's a memo from the American

Petroleum Institute. They're putting on a luncheon.

They're hosting Senator Hagel, and they're going to brief him.

"Scientists do not have a precise understanding of this

issue." Doubt, doubt.

Meeting with Senator Hagel and the Ford Motor Company.

This is the American Automobile Manufacturers Association.

The Aluminum Association, Chemical Manufacturers

Association. You know, I'm emphasizing

Senator Hagel. But this is happening all

throughout the Senate. 95 senators voted this

certain way. But if you pull that lens back,

you're gonna see they're working politicians with the most

sophisticated legislative campaigns.

>> What were they saying to you in those meetings?

And did you learn anything that did help to shape your views?

>> Well, they made their case, they made their point.

So you listen to them like you would anybody.

I wasn't surprised by anything I heard.

♪ ♪ >> You met Lee Raymond, the

chairman and CEO of Exxon. What kind of relationship did

you have with him? >> Well, Lee Raymond was a South

Dakota boy, I remember that. Um, I didn't have a close

relationship with him. I, um, but I listened to him.

He's head of the largest oil company in the country.

I listened to everybody's opinions.

>> So this is a page from a briefing document.

And it's, the title is, "The Dilemma for Congress."

"Draft resolution is attached for your consideration."

>> So the American Automobile Manufacturers Association is

putting forth, on behalf, I think, of the Global Climate

Coalition, the draft resolution for the Senate to pre-emptively

kill the Kyoto Protocol. >> You mean the Byrd-Hagel

Resolution? They didn't draft that.

We had many people coming forward with written examples,

"Why don't you do this?" That's not unusual at all,

because our staffs work with them and so on.

But that, that resolution wasn't an A.M.A. resolution, that

resolution was decided by us, by the senators.

>> Vice President Al Gore is on his way to Kyoto, Japan, to

attend the global warming summit.

Now the goal of the conference is an international treaty to

protect the environment, but so far, it's been hard to find

anything the diplomats can agree on.

>> I think Byrd-Hagel really destroyed any hope of getting

something done in Kyoto. There was no argument by the

administration against the Byrd-Hagel Resolution.

The Clinton administration certainly didn't want to go

into open war. >> To those who seek to

obfuscate and obstruct, we say we will not allow you to put

narrow special interests above the interests of all humankind.

...of both substance and of spirit.

(man shouting indistinctly) >> ...democracy on earth!

Corporate American leadership will not save the world!

>> It was just an unbelievable mess.

He did broker a deal, and got as much out of Kyoto as he could

have, but we were not gonna get steep cuts in CO2 emissions out

of a global agreement with all the industry fighting against

them. >> Delegates from the U.S. and

149 other countries have approved the treaty known as the

Kyoto Protocol. President Clinton is praising

the agreement, but he may have trouble getting it ratified.

>> The Clinton administration never even put the Kyoto

Protocol up for a vote in the Senate.

It was D.O.A., and I think they understood that within a week

of return from Kyoto. >> I feel that at the end of the

day, the Clinton-Gore administration was not able to

deliver on the lofty promise of American leadership.

The door closed for the next ten years.

So it was a significant missed opportunity.

>> When I became part of that world we thought the

odds were pretty long against us, we did not expect to

prevail in the climate debate. ...against a problem that most

scientists don't say exists. By the end of the decade,

however, the climate skeptics and denialists were in a

position of strength. Now, they had pretty much run

the table. In every decisive fight, we had

won. >> They won the battle, I was

intent that they would not win the war.

It became clear to me at that point that it was going to be a

longer war. >> NARRATOR: We approached

multiple members of the industry coalition that campaigned

against Kyoto. None would sit for an interview.

For its part, ExxonMobil has stated publicly that, "We

recognize that our past participation in industry

coalitions to oppose ineffective climate policies subjects us to

criticism by climate activist groups."

And that "the Kyoto Protocol was unrealistic and economically

damaging." (water rushing, man shouting)

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

>> It is unequivocal that human activities are responsible for

climate change, that's the finding of a new study by the

U.N.'s intergovernmental panel on climate change.

>> A dire warning and a stark reality.

The head of the U.N. referred to this as code red for

humanity. >> Global temperatures are the

hottest in 100,000 years, and many effects of climate change

are already irreversible. >> If we want to avoid

catastrophe, we have to drastically cut emissions-- now.

>> We now know that Exxon was making a concerted effort

through the 1990s to cast doubt on the science.

Do you feel that you were misled?

>> Well, what we now know about some of these large oil

companies' positions... they lied.

And yes, I was misled. Others were misled.

When they had evidence in their own institutions that countered

what they were saying publicly, I mean, they lied.

>> If they had said that, if they held their hands up there

and said, "Yes, this is real," could it have been different?

>> Oh, absolutely. It would have changed

everything, I would have... I think it would have changed the

average citizen's appreciation of climate change.

And, and mine, of course. It would have put the United

States and the world on a whole different track.

And today we would have been so much further ahead than we

are. It cost this country, and it

cost the world. >> NARRATOR: ExxonMobil

continues to defend its record on climate change.

>> My name is Darren Woods. I'm the chairman and chief

executive officer of ExxonMobil Corporation.

ExxonMobil has long recognized that climate change is real and

poses serious risks. But there are no easy answers.

Our position in this space has been consistent with the general

consensus in the scientific community.

♪ ♪ (turn signal clicking)

>> I am 83 years old. Three or four decades ago, we

predicted it. As a scientist, to have those

predictions come true, that's sort of the golden icon that

you look for. However, as a human being, and

as an inhabitant of planet Earth, I'm horrified to watch

the lack of response to this. I am trying as much as possible

to distance myself emotionally. >> So you're angry.

>> (chuckles) Yes, I'm furious. ♪ ♪

>> It's heartbreaking to me. I saw all of that potential

there, at least at that point in time, to really solve the

problem in many different ways. Had Exxon chosen to pick up the

ball then and begin to lead, the discussions would have been

about how to do it. We had solar scientists doing

research. We had lithium battery chemists

doing research. Think of how important these

sciences are to the world currently.

Parts of the world are going to suffer enormously,

unnecessarily so. And for something that we could

have done something about. Not doing anything for decades,

that, that's just... it's just squandered time, and we're going

to pay for it.

>> NARRATOR: Next time... >> The plan says, “Victory

will be achieved when recognition of uncertainties

becomes part of the conventional wisdom.”

>> NARRATOR: The fossil fuel industry continues its fight...

>> Emphasizing doubt is a critically important speed bump

to ambitious policy. >> I don’t think this is

happening. >> Lee Raymond is salient

because he's hammering away the idea of scientific uncertainty

even as the science grew more certain.

>> NARRATOR: And the political struggles for the future of the

planet... >> We do not know how fast

change will occur... >> There just was no appetite,

economically, politically to go forward with a cap on carbon.

>> My brother Charles and I provided the funds to start the

Americans for Prosperity. >> Our job was to fight back

against the progressive agenda. >> This was the end of climate

legislation in the US Congress for a long time.

We had a shot at it. And we got beat.

>> Go to pbs.org/frontline...

>> And then we came across letter after letter after letter

about carbon dioxide. >> For more of our reporting on

climate change, including 10 years of documentaries on

environmental threats. >> Connect with Frontline on

Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and stream anytime on the PBS

Video App, YouTube or pbs.org/frontline.

Captioned by Media Access Group

at WGBH Access Group at WGBH access.wgbh.org.

>> For more on this and other Frontline programs visit our

website at pbs.org/frontline. >> To order Frontline's

"The Power of Big Oil" on DVD visit Shop PBS or call

1.800.PLAY.PBS. ♪ ♪

Frontline is also available on Amazon Prime Video.