In the 1990s, even as it acknowledged climate realities internally, the oil industry intensified its public campaigns against climate science Even as they acknowledged climate realities internally, major oil companies continued and intensified their efforts to increase uncertainty regarding climate science and climate risks among the public and policymakers. In 1990, a shareholder petitioned Exxon’s board of directors asking it to develop a plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from its operations facilities.74 The board responded that its “examination of the issue supports the conclusions that the facts today and the projection of future effects is very unclear.”75 That same year, Exxon scientist Brian Flannery reportedly urged the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to emphasize the uncertainties surrounding climate models in its first Scientific Assessment Report.76 In 1989, companies including Respondent Carbon Majors BP, Chevron, Mobil, Exxon, Shell, and others organized the Global Climate Coalition (GCC).77 Throughout the 1990s, the GCC lobbied aggressively against action on climate change not only within the United States but at the international level. In briefings provided to policymakers and reporters, the GCC routinely asserted that “[t]he role of greenhouse gases in climate change is not well “The scientific basis for the understood.”78 Internally, however, the GCC members Greenhouse Effect and the potential acknowledged the reality of climate change, including the impact of human emissions of role of fossil fuels in climate impacts. 79 A 17-page “primer greenhouse gases such as CO2 on on global climate change science” distributed to GCC climate is well established and members acknowledged that: “The scientific basis for the cannot be denied.” Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied.”80 The stark dichotomy between the oil industry’s internal understanding of climate change and its public communications on climate science and climate policy is manifest in an internal “Global Climate Science Communications Plan” prepared by the American Petroleum Institute in 1998. The Plan outlined the 74 Id. Id. 76 Jeremy Leggett, The Carbon War (1999) (attributing the following statement to Exxon scientist Brian Flannery during the final drafting session for the IPCC’s Scientific Assessment Report: “The range of model results isn’t any better justified than it was ten years ago. The range is quite scientifically uncertain. This should be stated as such in the executive summary.”) 77 See KATHY MULVEY & SETH SHULMAN, UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS, THE CLIMATE DECEPTION DOSSIERS: INTERNAL FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY MEMOS REVEAL DECADES OF CORPORATE DISINFORMATION 34 (2015), available at http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/07/The-Climate-Deception-Dossiers.pdf. 78 Andrew Revkin, Industry Ignored its Scientists on Climate, New York Times (April 23, 2009) http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/science/earth/24deny.html. 79 Id. 80 Id. 75 13