Total knowingly downplayed its role in the threat of climate change, scientists say - France 24

Paris (AFP)

This research was conducted by Christophe Bonneuil, research director at the CNRS, Pierre-Louis Choquet, sociologist at Sciences Po, and Benjamin Franta, researcher in history at the American University of Stanford, and published in the journal Global Environmental Change.

As early as 1971, a publication in the journal of Total explained that the combustion of fossil fuels leads "to the release of enormous quantities of carbon dioxide" and to an increase in the quantity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, an "increase (. ..) quite worrying ".

However, the group ignored this subject, the researchers note.

In the mid-1980s, the American giant Exxon, via the Oil Industry Environmental Association (IPIECA), led an international campaign by oil groups to "challenge climate science and weaken controls on fossil fuels ", continue the researchers.

"The novelty is that we thought that only Exxon and the American groups were in duplicity. We realize that our French oil champions participated in this phenomenon at least between 1987 and 1994", explains to AFP Christophe Bonneuil, speaking of a "factory of ignorance".

The IPIECA "torpedoed by active lobbying the ecotax projects of the European Commission between 1990 and 1994" and other projects for the regulation of fossil fuels, Christophe Bonneuil said Wednesday at an online press conference.

"There are internal notes welcoming this lobbying work" in the archives studied.

At the same time, Total and Elf have sought to acquire environmental credibility through voluntary commitments, the study suggests.

"Science and business"

At the end of the 1990s, the approach changed.

UN climate experts, the IPCC, publish their first report.

The Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 led to the adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The Kyoto protocol was adopted in 1997.

A Total refinery in Gonfreville-l'Orcher, near Le Havre, December 14, 2019 JEAN-FRANCOIS MONIER AFP / Archives

"The French oil industry stops publicly questioning climate science, but continues to increase its investment in oil and gas production," to insist on "uncertainty, downplaying (climate) urgency and deflect the attention to fossil fuels as the primary cause of global "global warming," continue the researchers.

In the mid-2000s, a new strategy.

Its CEO at the time, Thierry Desmaret, recognizes the reality of climate change and the conclusions of the IPCC.

Christophe Bonneuil qualifies this phase of "the age of greenwashing" where "what is at stake is the capacity of Total to put itself in scene on the side of the solutions and not on the side of the problem".

In a response sent to AFP before the publication of the scientific article, the group declared: "The leaders of Total (...) recognized the existence of climate change and the link with the activities of the oil industry" and since 2015, the company has aimed to "be a major player in the energy transition", he continues.

"It is imperative that the Parliament seizes these revelations by launching a commission of inquiry", ask the NGOs Notre affaires à tous and 350.org in a joint press release, also criticizing the fact that "TotalEnergies still intends to increase its capacities of production and development of new devastating projects in protected areas ".

What this research shows "is extremely serious," insisted Marie Toussaint of Our Everyone Affair at the press conference.

"We are talking about a company closely linked to the French state," which has been a shareholder in the oil group in the past, as well as Elf, she recalls.

A 2017 study showed that the US oil group ExxonMobil had known since the 1980s that climate change was real and caused by human activities.

But the group has struggled for years to maintain doubts about this reality, thus deceiving its shareholders and citizens.

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