24 C E N T E R F O R I N T E R N AT I O N A L E N V I R O N M E N TA L L AW Key Findings On the basis of the foregoing evidence, several essential conclusions may be drawn with regard to the notice, awareness, opportunity to act, and documented conduct of leading investorowned oil companies with regard to climate science and climate risks. • Theories regarding the potential link between fossil fuel combustion and atmospheric temperature increase were widely reported in scientific literature and academic texts relevant to the oil industry from the early decades of the twentieth century. • The oil industry had incentives, opportunity, and relevant expertise to investigate and understand climate science. • Documentary evidence demonstrates the oil industry was on notice of potential climate risks by 1957-1958. • Humble Oil, at the time a wholly- © Foto-Rabe/Pixabay owned subsidiary of Esso (now ExxonMobil), published research acknowledging the link between fossil fuels and atmospheric CO2 in 1957. • Industry records document that industry research into air pollution issues was highly coordinated and shared widely within the industry, and included research into fossil carbon in the atmosphere by no later than 1958. • Industry records and other sources indicate that this coordinated industry research program was used to mobilize public opposition to the regulation of air pollutants by sowing doubt regarding air pollution science. • The oil industry was expressly warned of the potential severity of climate risks by its own consulting scientists in 1968 and repeatedly thereafter. • Numerous industry documents demonstrate these risks were communicated by industry scientists to executives at the highest levels of the industry over the ensuing decades. • The oil industry held early patents on numerous technologies that might have reduced climate change risk. • Even while blocking public action to address climate change, oil companies took steps to protect their own assets from climate risks. This divergence between industry communications to the public and industry action to safeguard their own investments began as early as the 1970s and is well established by the 1980s. • Notwithstanding their own best information, leading oil companies and industry associations actively participated in or funded climate misinformation efforts for decades through media intended to reach wide audiences of consumers, investors, and the general public.