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misled its customers, shareholders, or the general public in the United
States or any other country?
A15: Yes, based on our findings, we conclude that ExxonMobil misled nonscientific audiences about the state of climate science and its
implications. It did so in three ways:
(1)
•
Exxon and ExxonMobil Corp misled with discrepant
communications:
Both statistical and document-to-document discrepancies between
advertorials and other documents lead us to conclude that
ExxonMobil Corp misled the public about climate change as real
and human-caused, serious, and solvable, and about the risks of
stranded fossil fuel assets.
•
Statistically significant discrepancies also suggest that Exxon and
ExxonMobil Corp’s non-peer-reviewed communications, which
tended to be more orientated towards non-scientific audiences
than peer-reviewed papers, were also sometimes misleading.
(2)
Mobil, Exxon, and ExxonMobil Corp misled with misinforming
advertorials and non-peer-reviewed publications. Using as proxies for
mainstream climate science both the conclusions of the IPCC and the
science of Exxon and ExxonMobil Corp itself (ExxonMobil Corp says
its “researchers recognized the developing nature of climate science at
the time...[and] mirrored global understanding”), it is evident that
Mobil, Exxon, and ExxonMobil Corp’s public communications were
inconsistent with available scientific information and therefore
misleading to public audiences [5,55].
(3)
Exxon and ExxonMobil Corp misled by funding climate denial. Our
study reveals overwhelming acknowledgement by both Exxon and
ExxonMobil Corp scientists that climate change is real and humancaused. At the same time, it is well documented that from at least the
late 1980s through to today, Exxon and ExxonMobil Corp have
funded groups and individuals and participated in organizations that
cast doubt in public on climate science [1,44–53]. This is a third way
in which Exxon and ExxonMobil Corp misled the public.
Q16: Do you recall if any of ExxonMobil’s private or public communications
discussed impacts of anthropogenic climate change in the Philippines or
any other countries? If so, could you describe what was said and whether
there were any discrepancies between internal and public communication?
A16: Yes, some of ExxonMobil’s communications discussed impacts of
anthropogenic climate change. With a few exceptions, most of these
discussions were geographically generalized. To my knowledge, the
Philippines was not specifically discussed in any of the documents
investigated.
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