Monitoring Desk
DAVOS: The United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday accused oil firms of peddling a “big lie” regarding their role in global warming. He warned that these oil firms should be held accountable for their deeds.
“Some in Big Oil firms peddled the big lie,” Guterres told the World Economic Forum (WEF) in the Alpine village of Davos, Switzerland, a week after a study said ExxonMobil rejected the findings of its own scientists about the role of fossil fuels in climate change.
“Last week, we learned that certain fossil fuel producers were completely aware in the 1970s that their core product was baking our planet,” the UN said.
Oil firm denies science over global warming
“Just like the tobacco industry, the oil firms rode rough-shod over their own scientific findings,” Guterres said. “And like the tobacco industry, the responsible firms must be held accountable.”
In 1998, US states won a crucial settlement against tobacco companies worth $246 billion to recover the costs of treating tobacco smokers from the harmful effects of tobacco cigarettes.
The study on ExxonMobil published in Science last week found that the firm’s scientists had modelled and predicted global warming “with shocking accuracy,” only for the company “to spend a coming couple of decades denying that very climate science.”
ExxonMobil is the target of several lawsuits in the United States.
Asked about the Science report, an ExxonMobil spokesman said last week that the issue had come up several times in the recent past. In each case, the company answered, “those who talk about how ‘Exxon Knew’ are wrong in their conclusions.”
