American Petroleum Institute
TO PYROLYZE : <https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Smoke-Fumes-FINAL.pdf> "SMOKE AND FUMES: THE LEGAL AND EVIDENTIARY BASIS FOR HOLDING BIG OIL ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE CLIMATE CRISIS" Center for International Environmental Law (November 2017)
Fossil Fuel Industry Disinformation
Premeditation
An internal account of industry-funded research projects in 1958 indicates that at least one project funded by the American Petroleum Institute (API) was measuring the proportion of atmospheric carbon “of fossil origin,” i.e., the Suess effect.48 Funded under the auspices of the American Petroleum Institute’s Smoke and Fumes Committee, the research into atmospheric carbon was part of a broader research program targeting atmospheric pollutants of concern to the oil industry as a whole. This history provides clear documentary evidence that key oil and gas industry actors were collaborating in and through API to investigate carbon dioxide as an atmospheric pollutant by no later than 1958.[1]
In 1968, the API commissioned a study on the "Sources, abundance, and fate of gaseous atmospheric pollutants" from the Stanford Research Institute.[2]
Published more than fifty years ago, the report clearly states: "the abundant pollutants which we generally ignore because they have little local effect, CO2 and submicron particles, may be the cause of serious world-wide environmental changes ... Significant temperature changes are almost certain to occur by the year 2000 and these could bring about climatic changes ... If the earth's temperature increases significantly, a number of events might be expected to occur, including the melting of the Antarctic ice cap, a rise in sea levels ... "
Litigation
New Jersey Superior Court
The state of New Jersey filed a lawsuit October 2022 against Exxon Mobil, Shell Oil, Chevron, British Petroleum, ConocoPhillips, and the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry's most powerful lobbying group in which the five oil companies were members.[1]
The lawsuit, filed in the New Jersey Superior Court, states that the companies knew about climate change for decades and actively sought to conceal that information from the public. Instead, they funded PR campaigns aimed at confusing and misleading the public. [2]
The oil companies “concealed and misrepresented the dangers of fossil fuels; disseminated false and misleading information about the existence, causes, and effects of climate change; and aggressively promoted the ever-increasing use of their products at ever-greater volumes,” the complaint states.