Exxon's Climate Denial Comes Under Scrutiny in EU Parliament on Thursday

On Thursday, March 21, the EU Parliament will hold the first-ever hearings by a major body of lawmakers focused on ExxonMobil's climate denial, in response to a petition brought by Food & Water Europe, the European programme of U.S.-based Food & Water Watch. The hearing illustrates heightened international scrutiny of the company for its decades-long role in concealing the link between fossil fuels and climate change; two U.S. states (Massachusetts and New York) have launched legal actions in response to Exxon's climate coverup, and the District of Columbia Attorney General has just announced his intentions to do the same.

Exxon was invited to speak at the hearing, but has refused to participate.

Dr. Geoffrey Supran, a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard and MIT, who in 2017 co-authored with Professor Naomi Oreskes the first academic, peer-reviewed analysis of ExxonMobil's history of climate communications, will be testifying at the hearings as an expert witness. "Our research shows that ExxonMobil has misled the public about climate change and its implications," says Supran. "In fact, thousands of pages of documented evidence reveal that the fossil fuel industry has known about the basic dangers of global warming for 60 years; yet instead of taking action or warning the public, it turned around and spent decades orchestrating and funding denial and delay campaigns dwarfing even those of Big Tobacco."

"Exxon's influence by deceit must end," says Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch and Food & Water Europe. "Exxon has known about its role in fueling climate change for decades and its approach has been deny, deny, deny. It's time for members of the EU parliament to rethink whether they want to continue giving Exxon the privilege of peddling its fraud, and to consider the impact the company's trickery has had on all of us as we teeter on the edge of climate chaos. These hearings must name and shame the insidious influence Exxon has enjoyed for too long over lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic. We'd like to see similar hearings in the U.S. Congress as well."

Frida Kieninger, petitioner and Food & Water Europe Campaigns Officer, will be speaking at the hearing as well. "It's time EU parliamentarians strip Exxon of its priority lobbying access, which is slowing down urgently needed ambitious climate policies," says Kieninger. "While Exxon has a history of snatching up lobbying opportunities in the EU, the company is refusing to show up to defend its behavior. Exxon must be held accountable. We are asking the EU Parliament to strip the multinational of its EU Parliament lobby badges, just like it did with Monsanto in 2017."