Introduction Background The Paris Agreement of 2015 marked a distinct change in the messaging strategies of the large integrated oil and gas companies (the oil majors) on climate change. Realizing public, political and media attention was shifting overwhelmingly in favor of more urgent action, the European oil majors initiated a campaign of top line positivity on climate. This included calling for a price on carbon, supporting the Paris Agreement and the formation of groups like the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) promoting voluntary measures and the investments the companies are making on climate change. Following increased public and legal pressure, ExxonMobil and, to a lesser extent, Chevron, joined the European majors in this communications strategy. The US giants joined the OGCI in September 2018. InfluenceMap’s October 2015 Big Oil and the Obstruction of Climate Regulations confirmed that while Shell, BP and others were nominally asking policy makers for a price on carbon, they and their powerful trade groups were lobbying against strands of policy and regulations designed to create such a meaningful price. InfluenceMap’s widely cited analysis of 2016 How Much Big Oil Spends on Climate Lobbying confirmed this numerically, showing ExxonMobil, Shell and three key trade groups were spending over $100M a year on obstructive climate lobbying. In October 2018, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that urgent action is needed to limit climate change to 1.5°C, and that just an extra half degree of global warming (i.e. warming of 2°C) would significantly increase the risks of drought, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people. The report implies the need for reductions in the use of fossil fuels and strong policy responses from governments worldwide. At the same time, oil major climate messaging strategies continue to evolve in sophistication whilst their investments remain focused on fossil fuels. In light of this urgency, this work updates and expands upon InfluenceMap’s 2016 lobby spend research to assess both the climate lobbying and branding efforts of the five largest oil and gas majors (ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, BP and Total), as well as the activities of the key trade groups globally which lobby on their behalf. Feeling the Heat on Climate While campaign groups like Greenpeace and 350.org have long targeted the oil and gas majors on climate change, the last three years have shown a marked uptick and strategic coordination of pressure from several other key stakeholder groups, concerned at the global lack of progress on binding climate policy. 4 InfluenceMap March 2019