LAST UPDATE | 21 Jan

THE FOSSIL FUEL industry has spent decades lying to and misleading the public and policymakers about climate change. Multiple investigations have revealed that Exxon’s own scientists had by the late 1970s and early ’80s with eerie accuracy predicted the devastating climatic consequences of continued fossil fuel burning by the early to mid-21st century.

Back then, senior industry executives faced a tough choice: on the one hand, they could own up to their own scientific findings and begin the long-term process of pivoting their business model towards a safer, cleaner future powered by renewable energy. 

On the other hand, they could cover up the evidence and instead spend hundreds of millions of dollars funding climate denial. They could buy up media space to run hit-piece editorials and mendacious adverts while pouring money into bogus think tanks designed to misrepresent the science and engage in character assassination of leading climate scientists.

You will by now have worked out which path this industry followed. Even though they knew that, in their own words, their products would trigger “globally catastrophic” climate breakdown, still they lied, deceived and covered up. 

Fossil fuel companies have been “killing members of the public at an accelerating rate”, according to a paper in the Harvard Environmental Law Review last year. It argues that oil giants’ awareness that their pollution could have lethal consequences fits within the definition of homicide, which, in its basic form, is causing death with a “culpable mental state.” 

Let’s be frank: these are some of the worst criminals in human history. “The scope of the lethality is so vast that, in the annals of crime, it may eventually dwarf all other homicide cases in the United States, combined”, according to a separate paper. It is likely that by the middle to late 21st century, hundreds of millions of people will have died and countless millions more forced to become refugees as a direct result of the boundless greed and duplicity of these industrial racketeers.

A new dawn?

You will by now have heard how the industry was changing, had learned from its mistakes, was on board with the green transition and is fully committed to being net zero carbon (whatever that means) by 2050, or some other date in the distant future. 

Don’t be deceived. Energy giant BP in recent years solemnly pledged to make aggressive cuts to its oil and gas output by 2030, then late last year quietly scrapped these plans. Shell also made a huge PR fuss over its plans to sharply phase back on fossil energy by 2035, then it too walked away from this commitment.

But wait, maybe we’ve all just rushed to judgment? An article in this weekend’s Business Post, headed ‘Fossil fuel lobbyists really have the good of the planet, not profit, at heart’ was at first widely mistaken for a headline from Waterford Whispers, but no, there it was, in black and white in a broadsheet newspaper. It now appears online as ‘Lobbying is vital to good government – the fuels industry can’t be excluded’ and the piece has been the focus of much attention in recent days. 

It was penned by Kevin McPartlan, CEO of a group called Fuels for Ireland (FFI), having rebranded in recent years from the rather more honest ‘Irish Petroleum Industry Association’. FFI represents many companies that operate petrol stations and suppliers of home heating oil. McPartlan is aghast at efforts to limit the ability of fossil fuel lobbyists to, well, lobby. He is worried that critics of his sector dismiss it, “based solely on false assumptions about their objectives, rather than on the merits of their contributions”.

It turns out that FFI is “fully committed” to the woolly and nebulous aim of net carbon neutrality by 2050, so that is certainly reassuring. We must, McPartlan added, “judge ideas and arguments on their merit, not on the identity of the person or group presenting them”. Apparently, the key to a low-carbon future is “through inclusive and constructive dialogue” with the very industry doing everything in its power to burn down that future.

Power of lobbying

While you and I may have thought that lobbying was a way for the powerful commercial interests to ride roughshod over the public interest by buying politicians and corrupting the political process with dirty money, nothing could be further from the truth, explains McPartlan. “Lobbying is at its core a democratic process. It ensures a diversity of voices are heard and considered in policymaking”. 

I suppose the $219 million the fossil fuel industry just pumped into the 2023-24 US election cycle buys an awful lot of democracy. All you have to do is look at Trump’s actions in the past 24 hours and his mantra of “drill baby, drill” to see the power of lobbying play out in real time.  

So committed are the tree-huggers at FFI to a safer, low-carbon future that in 2021 it threatened legal action against the Irish state over efforts to redirect a 2 cent per litre fuel levy to the Climate Action Fund. The same FFI has a vision for petrol station forecourts to become, wait for it, “dynamic community hubs” selling something called “transformational liquid fuels” (biofuel-blended petrol and hydrotreated vegetable oil). The verbal gymnastics involved here are a sight to behold.

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The fossil fuel industry is about as useful as a chocolate teapot in transitioning Ireland towards a near-future where all sectors of our economy, from home heating to transport and industry are powered by clean, domestically-produced renewable electricity direct from wind and solar. 

Lobbyists around the world are engaged in a game called extend-and-pretend, using a variety of ploys to create the impression that fossil fuels can play some part in our decarbonised future. Perhaps pushing the idea that the future really will be bright with renewable diesel, or pretending we can fuel aircraft with used cooking oil. Remember the old saying: fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

John Gibbons is an environmental journalist and commentator.

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