3
A5: Yes, I am familiar with the petition and have contributed to the drafting of
legal documents referenced throughout that support arguments found in the
petition.
Q6: How did you become familiar with said Petition?
A6: CIEL is one of a several expert organizations approached to provide advice
and support to the petitioners in conjunction with the filing of the original
petition in 2015.
Q7: Given your background and extensive experience in climate, energy, and
human rights issues as mentioned in your brief bio and Curriculum Vitae
(Annex “A” hereof), what can you say about the Petition, if any?
A7: As an attorney working on issues of energy, environment and climate change
for the last 15 years, this is a pivotal moment in the course of human rights
and climate change. This petition is both a moral and legal plea to address
climate change as one of the greatest threats to human rights of our time and
an opportunity to uphold the rule of law where corporate actors that have
contributed to climate change and knew about the foreseeable harms caused
by climate change have a responsibility to respect human rights.
Q8: The Petition, on page 43, mentions that, “in April 2016, CIEL released
hundreds of new documents demonstrating that the oil industry was
explicitly warned of climate risks in the 1960.”2 Can you confirm this?
A8: Yes. CIEL compiled the documents and made them publicly available for
the first time with the launch of the Smoke and Fumes website in April
2016.
Q9: How was CIEL able to get hold of these documents, if you know?
A9: The documents compiled through CIEL’s Smoke and Fumes website were
gathered through the course of five years of original research undertaken by
CIEL staff. A significant portion of the early period of this research was
spent developing a substantial understanding of the early history of climate
science in order to identify the distinct terminologies, debates and biological
figures relevant to research during different time periods, and to researching
the structure, technical and scientific capacity of the oil industry at relevant
periods as presented by the industry itself and by informed observers.
Building upon this foundation, the documents were gathered through
publicly accessible but sometimes obscure sources, including through webbased archives, scholarly databases, digitized patent collections and search
engines. Most documents remain publicly available on the internet and free
of charge, although some documents are behind paywalls and a fee is
2
See: Center for International Environmental Law, Press Release, New Documents Reveal Oil
Industry Knew of Climate Risks Decades Earlier Than Suspected; Suggest Coordinated Efforts
to Foster Skepticism, 13 April 2016, available at: http://www.ciel.org/news/smoke-and-fumes/,
last accessed on 13 March 2018.