Internal documents reveal Exxon Mobil's strategy to diminish concerns about a warming planet, The Wall Street Journal reports
Published 09/14/23 11:18 AM ET
Al Lewis

Exxon Mobil finally conceded that fossil fuels contribute to climate change in 2006, but behind closed doors its executives still strategized ways to minimize climate change concerns and cast doubts on scientific findings.

Dozens of lawsuits filed against the nation's top oil producing company have alleged it engaged in climate change deception. Now, a sweeping review of previously unreported internal documents by The Wall Street Journal shows just how extensive the strategy went, the financial newspaper reported on Thursday.

The Journal's report puts former CEO Rex Tillerson, who also served as Secretary of State under former President Donald Trump, in a far different light. Publicly he's been viewed as the executive who led the oil company on a path to addressing climate change, but internal documents show he led efforts to cast doubts on the impacts.

“This is the first X-ray into Tillerson’s head and shows he wanted to throw climate mitigation off the rails," Lee Wasserman, the director of the Rockefeller Family Fund, a charity that partly focuses on environmental issues, told the Journal. "It’s obituary-changing.”

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