like these are becoming more and more common as climate change alters the world we live in but leading governments are doing little or nothing about it being knighted states will withdraw from the paris climate accord. donald trump's cabinet include several former oil executives who play down the climate change. there is no model that has yet been developed their scientists would say oh because it's predicting the future. but some lawyers in the us say big oil is lying prosecutors in new york have sued exxon mobil and other companies in a multi-billion dollar case. every fossil fuel company. has a responsibility to be honest with his investors and with the boss. the first amendment ladies and gentlemen does not give you the right to commit fraud. carol muffet has also been trying to get to the bottom of this law he's found documents that he says prove oil companies have been researching climate change for sixty years without informing the public of the results so they all oil industry knew from the one nine hundred forty s. and fifty's that there was a connection between sea level rise and carbon in the this is one of the biggest scandals in global history. just big oil new why did it do nothing about global warming. the trail of secret files leads us to washington d.c. where we arrange a meeting with the man who discovered and publish them. the oil company exxon mobil and its executives have allegedly known about climate change for sixty years. the company trades in germany under the name. why should they have kept a lid on this knowledge. if you're a. lawyer carol most that works for an environmentalist nongovernmental organization . he shows us studies related to possible climate change and its effect back in one nine hundred fifty seven the brennan report examined the effects of vehicle exhaust on our atmosphere it was commissioned by exxon mobil. and the one nine hundred sixty robinson report conducted by the stanford institute and commissioned by the american petroleum institute and industry federation we have it there in black and white here are a few things that they said about carbon dioxide if c o two levels continue to rise at present rates it is likely that noticeable increases in temperature could occur however there seems to be no doubt that the potential damage to our environment could be severe although there are other possible sources for the additional c o two now being observed in the atmosphere none seems to fit the presently observed situation as well as the fossil fuel imitation theory this device was delivered to the oil industry at its very top levels and we can prove that we can prove that high level executives in all of the companies solve this before. so one thousand nine hundred sixty eight the robinson report was already warning the oil industry that vehicle exhaust was probably driving global warming. what you do when you vote for the answer is that they immediately asked the stanford research institute to go back and check its work they didn't like these conclusions said they said try again they tried to deny and in reporting to the government they began cherry picking. and highlighting only the passages out of this report that talked about the uncertainties not about the reality. this is a story we'll see over and over again with the oil industry so that the doubt becomes the message it's a very effective form of propaganda. carol moffatt has the evidence to back up his claims he has compared the original robinson report with the revised version so when the exactly did the oil industry start this game of cloak and dagger. as we drive through washington muffet explains that big oil was already trying to deflect attention before they even began scientific climate research with the huge increase in car traffic in the one nine hundred forty s. . i'm thinking this is how it started and this is why it started in los angeles in the one nine hundred forty s. as cars were exploding the automobile economy was exploding los angeles was plagued by smog and when the people of los angeles started looking to oil and gas as the reason for small the end history started fighting back and it was that fighting back that led in december one nine hundred forty six to the creation of the smoke and fumes committee and to the oil industry's grand strategy to combine science with public relations to constantly delay action on a range of air pollution measures that began with smog but soon expanded to include sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide the main driver of climate change. the smoke and fumes committee had one main goal to forestall any attempt to legislate against pollution its president vents jenkins made this unmistakably clear in one thousand nine hundred fifty four. the worst thing that can happen in many instances is the passage of a law or laws for the control of a given air pollution situation. big oil began assembling a network of companies supported colleges and think tanks like the stanford research institute was donations they returned the favor with a specific study and studies like the robinson report which returned unsavory results were revised. forty years later exxon mobil executives were still pretending that these studies were never conducted. warming. that hiring people. are causing real temperatures in the room. earning. scientific evidence. clues as to whether human activity is a. big oil used it's advanced no one. to sow doubt and stymie legislation that might hobble it but was this the only reason to secretly investigate global warming we drive two hundred kilometers to pennsylvania to visit a former exxon mobil employee. of the delaware river has been a ship building center for hundreds of years one of those ships belong to exxon mobil. in one thousand nine hundred ninety oil giant refitted a three hundred meter long tanker for an expedition to the arctic. much of what exxon did with the voyage it held and even in secrecy this is a company that was very good at controlling what went on. they had every incentive to try at find a route through the sea ice to get that oil to market where they also looking at the long term prospects of a melting arctic. indeed the official reason given for the voyage was to look for a shipping passage to access reserves in alaska but believes that exxon mobil wanted to find out when pack ice might start melting clearing the way for shipping . the voyage itself was really remarkable they brought the ship for retrofitting here to chester pennsylvania just two years the growth of the bridge and on the good times because first they cut the shebeen to four pieces and the senate to the senate to shipyards across the country so they could rebuild it and retrofit it and they brought it back to the sun and the sand shipyards and put it back together and then sailed it out under this bridge. did exxon mobil executives already know back then that the pack ice was likely to start melting in the near future one of the scientists aboard the s.s. manhattan was edwin clark. was it perhaps his job to find out if and when that might happen. we tracked down edwin clarke and he agreed to talk for the first time about his work for exxon mobil and the company's motives. hello gentlemen clerk it's nice to meet you at least to meet you you'll want to be very nice to meet you dillman yeah. we drive to the shipyard docks of chester with edwin clark this is one of the places where the s.s. manhattan was retrofitted in one nine hundred sixty nine. twenty years later the shipyard shut down. well i can remember the manhattan sitting between two gates of this nature welders working money. and what was your first impression when you thought. it's a big big big big. and i was i was very proud to be selected is a scientist on a. man at moore's the first tankard across the northwest passage of the voyage forty eight years ago proved that oil transports across the arctic sea are feasible for me one of the really interesting questions is how much of the possibility of m it changes was in the atmosphere in the lead up to the manhattan expedition. hi i didn't really hear about it until in sixty nine i went on to work on the trance alaska pipeline and it was a year or two after that that we started putting a provision in there for an increase in soil temperatures due to global warming really you know it's amazing. what two or three years after that that well that no that's that's that's really that's really it's really incredible to hear. back in sixty nine there were proponents and doubters that it really. system and the scientific community was was divided on that so. that they knew you took into account the risk and started planning for. well even though yes we did. so edwin clark an ice researcher in the pay of exxon mobil already knew forty seven years ago that the climate was changing he and other scientists were already using the knowledge of global warming back in one thousand seventy for the planning and construction of the trans alaska pipeline the melting permafrost made it easier to drive these piles into the ground. and when clark's colleagues of exxon mobil were also building oil rigs in the arctic at the same time did they already have access to secret knowledge about climate change. our search for new evidence to back up my foot's theory takes us to robert baer an engineer who worked for shell oil company in the one nine hundred sixty s. he doesn't want to appear on camera. and though the words he. doesn't tell you and thank you for your time no problem how can i help you when did it all start well. rask are going. to have a good time change has. been mentioning to us not really being question it was being characters a car the question was how it was going because very important importance or saunders trying to be our. point we ask. would be ice stronger weaker computer why didn't you change plannings of these constructs of ice breakers was secret so there was made to pay for good sign peace sixty six issues and our own conditions. are saved. would be that severe. so the first platform you decide is still for a t.v. deers operating. we want to confirm these claims and take a look at the platform a journey from washington involves a nine hour flight to anchorage alaska as largest city and a four hour drive across the kenai peninsula where crude oil has been extracted since one nine hundred sixty three. the company responsible did not respond to our inquiries so we it's to lift on a fishing boat accompanied by the environmental activist bob shavelson he's been battling for years against the pollution caused by the oil companies in the area. because in the front lines of rapid climate change we're seeing a bad steer that there are not safe anywhere else in the united states if you look in the arctic area we have our sea ice is diminishing minute in a decade or so there may be no more sea ice in the arctic that's an incredible impact the permafrost that buys into the ground is melting soap infrastructure roads and houses are falling in so there's real quantifiable good bad but i'm a change that we're seeing now and that's something that we're talking theoretically about the future. finally we arrive at our destination platform a built by the shell engineer robert and is calling us. good he already know that the ice would be thinner in the future and that the rig would last as a result. fisherman robert ma and his niece are getting their nets ready their fishing grounds are in the same area as people will rakes. this blindfold way i spoke to the engineer all built that and he sent them to use the findings on climate change and you always think c.s. to recalls like that or if they knew that it would be less ice in the future so that's this surprise you know not at all i think they've known about it for many many decades and they've just chosen to suppress that information and they realise that all they had to do is say that there's some doubt about this and there's a question about this and they pay people to raise those questions you say oil companies are betraying the paul thing oh absolutely yeah i think they're acting in a in a private interest when they should be acting in the public interest and i think it's a crime i think it's a set of theft not only for current generations but future generations were robbing from our children and that's wrong we're doing it in the in the name of money. robert told us that when he was planning the construction of the oil rig he made use of a study about pack ice from one nine hundred fifty seven did this report already featured findings about global warming was the commissioning company shell already aware of this and similar studies in the one nine hundred sixty s. we double check the answers with carol moffatt. but what do you think about that it's not a coincidence i don't think you can really and. we know that al qaeda research on the i. think. there is or there. are exchanges with muffins and various engineers yield pieces of a larger puzzle. people regain cooking and left appears to have been the first example of an oil company adapting to climate change the permafrost was melting engineers took this into account when building the trans alaska pipeline they carried out research into the powerful storms in the gulf of mexico to make sure any oil rigs built there. would be able to withstand future threats and the sea levels rose engineers' raised the height of several refineries and rigs along the coast of canada. the norwegian oil rig troll was also built two metres higher in one thousand nine hundred nine. and a gas pipeline between germany and norway was heavily reinforced in the early one nine hundred ninety s. these facilities were expensive and the cost of upgrading them was in the billions these investments are an indication that the oil companies are already allowing for the effects of climate change at a time when scientific research into the phenomenon was still in its infancy. what do they already know did big oil really have its own secret research program for decades beforehand. our research leads us to new jersey home to a geochemist who worked on a study on behalf of the board of exxon. and he invited us to visit him. oh. good to see you yes that's me. edward garvey worked for exxon mobile from the one nine hundred seventy eight to nine hundred eighty three. so this is your day off you're all an old x. on the long right as it's only a helmet still it still fits. the coveralls. yes we were installing the equipment more of the measurements of sea water we made measurements of the air we did it almost continuously as the ship in the gulf of mexico to the persian gulf in the horn of africa. big oil must have known that the climate was changing the aim of this research project was to better understand change it was so important that exxon mobil shot a film with that work r.v. for its shareholders the research took four years and cost about four million u.s. dollars today garvey grow tomatoes. right come on just a bit of just really good climate to produce tomatoes here and you think one. edward garvey was privy to the results of the study. what has been your findings on so that well as the whole map of the oceans c o two levels so that was it was an important step in understanding the role of the ocean in governing atmospheric c o two it was so new and challenging that it really what my appetite for the kind of work and the scientists i work with they were all excited as well it was just a tremendous amount of enthusiasm in house and within the science itself and you know when all we have we we presented to the corporate board by me but the but the but the my boss was out of the corporate board and. the only executives cut funding for the project officially because there was no money for it at the same time they so doubt about the accuracy of the study's findings according to carole most of. the oil industry was an early investor in the idea that climate change is actually caused by changes in the sun that very ation in the sun it is a major driver of climate variation and that's an argument that we see climate denialism using to this day and so in that way the oil industry's early investments really paid off over the long term. garvey agrees. we still have in government think of denials that we had attacks on a decade ago and they could have been leaders but instead they did they chose not to and they really were in a position in the seventy's in the early eighty's where they could have been a position of leadership where they would have decided that they were doing would have been taken seriously and they would've been listening to the good work that we were doing and i was just it's frustrating and frustrating and that's. you know we've known about this problem for a long time and it's just it's just. guys are really frustrated. we asked exxon mobil to comment on the robinson reports and edward garvey c o two studies and whether the company took account of climate change and its planning the company did not respond. to. the propaganda strategy involved companies commissioning their own research casting doubt on the results and thus questioning the existence of climate change but does big oil still use the same approach. we visit communication specialist sebastian schrock in new york he works on the sixteenth story of an office block in manhattan . truck provides consulting services to american and german energy firms. siemens with its five fixes in it's always easier to sew doubts than it is to convince someone of the truth. is that the p.r. experts call it narrative as one of many different perspectives that all lay claim to be true. and invites even exxon mobil would no longer claim that climate change is not a problem they know exactly what is going on even sometimes even of us because. of likely listed companies are under closer scrutiny now than they were fifty years ago they must account exactly for what they spend and take in they have to get other people to do. the dirty work for them side gives none of the nets and that's why in my view there are networks that specialize in what you might call semi public relations and. the kind of slide that way they can cover up who is financing certain things without breaking any laws when it doesn't get them to. because that's officials of the ball in its infancy and basically what they need is a couple of studies some kind of scientific or semi scientific authority. that we teach and there are a range of research institutes that basically deliver results on demand especially in the energy business if you can still even got it but they have to get funding that's a mistaken and cns course that depending on the survey on the subject matter studies can cost anything from fifty thousand to a hundred thousand euros or even more. if you really have a lot of money you create your own research institute and that's how it's done in the us and it is in the research is basically in one direction only this is stuff that's what it can be scientific or some resign tipper gore even pseudo scientific . time to forced. climate change is no longer a priority in the highest echelons of u.s. politics president trumps cabinet includes several former representatives of the energy industry most of them are climate change deniers. attorney general jeff sessions prevented investigations at the exxon mobil energy secretary rick perry says he doesn't believe in climate change neither does e.t.a. chief scott pruitt science tells us that the climate changes and then human activity in some matter impacts that change the ability to measure what percentage of the degree and extent of that impact and what to do about it are subject to continuing debate and dialogue. secretary of state rex tillerson was c.e.o. of exxon and insists it hasn't yet been proven how climate change will affect the world there is no model that has yet been developed that scientists would say is palpable at predicting the future. president trump even fantasizes about environmentally friendly coal today i'm taking bold action to follow through on that promise my administration is putting an end to the war on coal and have clean coal really clean coal last june he announced that the us would leave the paris accord on climate change. united states will withdraw. from the paris. climate a court. now that the nine years are in the ascendancy in washington. on november ninth two thousand and sixteen the day after donald trump was elected president carol moffatt was sued by exxon. the lawsuit demands that reveal his sources. that his colleague stephen fight was also interested in this case what was it like when you got that subpoena the day after the election. that the real irony of waking up on the morning after donald trump was elected and having having a subpoena from exxon that day. it was striking and it really it really pointed to the whole new world of the dark world that we've we've entered in this war so what's that like. it's a desperate got a long way to go. one third of all members of congress are also climate change deniers. they are laughable. it is laughable to have a member of congress walk in to the floor of congress on a snowy day and hold up a snow ball and say because it snowed today climate change doesn't exist that is. ridiculous it is laughable and it is sad. get the seeds sown by big oil have taken root in the us through years of secrecy misleading trials and studies and targeted lobby work oil companies have succeeded in playing down climate change and preventing regulation and legislation we returned to germany to assess the situation there. germany prides itself on its environmental credentials. but are there people here to. who blame global warming on the fluctuations in solar radiation. in a country that's pledged to phase out power generated by fossil fuels surely the deniers are ridiculed. true steffen rob store has been researching climate change for twenty five years in germany and abroad he says he and his colleagues are encountering increasingly hostile reactions here. of course we scientists are alarmed by the massive levels of hostility by the hate mails the death threats even against me and my family and other researchers and media because. my colleague mike man in the us has been sent packages of white powder which led to an entire university being evacuated to avoid it would it go yes more than annoy. and german environmentalists take part b. all believe that when power is essential in the fight against climate change but progress is slowing. them along if you've got shares in a renewable energy cooperate if you get called a gold digger if you aren't used to only being interested in making money suddenly although you are actually fighting for something good namely renewable energy you're the bad guy. in a combo often that's nice and we've observed that most of the claims made by climate change deniers here in germany as well originated in the us. yet they keep popping up here. and in recent years one of the most prominent proponents was have annoyed with his book because it is on a or the cold sun the title says it all because solar radiation is declining which leads to the conclusion that the climate is going to cool down which is a spectacularly false claim. i know spectacularly five so far as we know this because we're going through the hottest years on record twenty fourteen twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen the hottest years on record three years in germany there goes. my goodness that according to our calculations carbon dioxide accounts for a maximum of half of the global warming asserted by the intergovernmental panel on climate change a solar activity and ocean currents account for the rest of us as. he demands that germany postpone its energy plans be given that will give us time to adjust power generation sensibly so there will not be a climate catastrophe the market us powerful common. foreign holt is now chairman of the german foundation for wild animals. he remains firmly against wind energy. but now it's for animal protection reasons. energy companies are actively lobbying in berlin to sowing doubts and politicians' minds the old strategy devised seventy years ago in los angeles works in germany to this day claudio comfort's the german institute for economic research says the battle lines have shifted. that. we're seeing unlikely alliances nature activists or people purporting to protect nature are suddenly teaming up with politicians who are also against renewables or with climate change deniers. and they all share the same goal to talk down renewables and publicly they claim to favor environmentalists friendly power generation but in the background they're using other means to oppose it german companies are also active lobbyists in the u.s. employees of the chemical giant buyer donated eighteen thousand dollars to republican congressman michael conaway of texas over the last six years he's a prominent climate change denier. change the phrase ology because it's up to the clubs not not warming. and they paid thirty four thousand dollars to fred upton he casts doubt on whether anything can be done about climate change. no real science to verify that it would reduce the count here by its own predicted. the buyer employees in the us used what is called a political action committee to donate five hundred forty four thousand dollars to climate change deniers employees of another chemicals giant b.s.f. donated five hundred fifty one thousand dollars. the sums account for some thirty percent of donations made by both companies in the past six years both companies also stand simply support climate protection we asked them why they support climate change deniers and why they're involved with us politics. name couldn't be. german companies can definitely profit from the political shift in the us that is because the conversations that are started there are against climate protection in favor of climate change denial or efforts to reduce emissions to postpone all that and buy time for conventional business models that's how the companies benefit from a. buyer tells us that the donations are for different reasons. those reasons include health an agricultural policies. the press department also rights it can hardly be avoided that the chosen candidates also include people who do not share our views for example on climate protection. b.s.f. says it is not responsible arguing that the payments for private donations by employees . the only support they receive from the company is of a logistic nature in the form of access to company infrastructure email telephone etc. how can this cycle of misinformation biased studies and lobby as a be broken. how can companies be made to take responsibility. all over the world lawyers are seeking solutions they want to get the big energy companies into court and pay the price for the damage caused by their emissions. german attorney wrote a very high end it was one of them she prepared a lawsuit against the power company r w e e no other company in europe and that's as much c o two as our w e. he's allowed from the cooling towers are basically steam. the actual bladder plant emits via the chimneys and those huge chimneys are where the real emissions come from. as in my land on my client is a peruvian mountain guide and house owner his house is in who are us city at the feet of the andes. looming over the city our glaciers and alou good at this lagoon has grown considerably due to melting glaciers and the danger of flooding has also grown considerably it's practically a question of when there will be flooding not if a. leo has to build a dam to protect his house he's sued r. w. e. for twenty thousand euros and damages. in the us than it fires are w e responsible for a melting glacier in peru. and that's a problem for really glacier in peru is not melting just because of this particular power station but this power station is part of the problem it's about the partial caused by all emissions by all power stations operated by our w.e.e.e. which also affect the local climate elsewhere including melting glaciers in the andes in. the peruvian case was initially dismissed by the regional court in hot summers wrote over iran's lawsuit crazy or justified. that describes some of the reactions to that naturally i was described as crazy and my suit was decried as non-legal istic totally unjustified and it's not the kind of suit that gets brought before german courts every day that you talk about i don't think my case will be the last time even if i lose it it will not be the last because and i see this happening with my own eyes more and more potential clients are approaching me with these problems for example dyke associations individual islands mayors from communities on endangered coastlines clients from abroad. you ask me if they can bring a similar suit for the himalayas it won't be the last case of its kind because people can see the damage being caused. some people might find the case absurd a peruvian farmer sues a german power company because of climate change. but lawyers in the us are also investigating energy companies over their role in climate change one of the highest profile cases is in new york it's not about twenty thousand euros it's about billions of dollars. the findings of carol moffat to others provided the impetus. here. attorney general eric schneiderman who's currently investigating exxon and its former c.e.o. rex tillerson trump secretary of state. they have told the public for years that there were no competent models was the specific term used by an exxon executive not so long ago no competent models to project climate patterns and we know that they paid millions of dollars to support organizations that put out propaganda denying that we can predict or measure the effects of fossil fuel on our climate or even denying that climate change was happening the first amendment ladies and gentlemen does not give you the right to commit fraud. attorney peter laner used to work for schneiderman's team has head of the environmental department at the attorney general's office. what is the action item an investigation of the schneiderman is investigating whether exxon knew about climate change and knew. that it would cause to it the company. and failed to disclose those to the shareholders but what is the legal basis and i mean it's about climate changed. based totally different. legal basis is actually very simple it is shareholder fraud if a company knows that climate change is going to affect the value of the company in these cases oil companies or coal companies and they're not just closing what they know to the shareholders that can be fraud and that's really the question here to what extent is exxon saying one thing and doing something else. the attorney general's office in new york. four other big oil companies meanwhile come to new york to meet. a spokeswoman for the campaign cash to exxon new. my mom recently organized a demonstration two hundred thousand people take to the streets to demand better climate protection now is absolutely. there is already a public distrust of the fossil fuel industry we've seen a rose in trust and heinz allen really on that exxon. there's ice times in theory right full of variation. and then the sense of what you might do without it that was the goal that's you know our goal in doing this research was for other people to take the research and do more with it i don't care at all what i care about is fossil fuels and effects on sticks to fossil fuels and doesn't look to the future and look to a safer planet exxon will fail and i will applaud if exxon adapts effects on says we're ready to be part of the real solutions and we're ready to own what we did in the past and make up for what we did in the past then i will cheer at you i expect that not all that. popular trust in the big oil companies has fallen off its revelations are providing the ammunition for lawsuits. three mayors in california brought lawsuits some time ago third. rising sea levels. for new york. so you can see the water. and it's all around new york city has many miles of shore front and sea level rise whether generally or in a storm all of these areas either have already had been flooded or could be flooded and madge and trying to protect new york from these floods it would cost billions of dollars maybe they would put in a sea wall there or something. he would cause billions and billions of dollars just to try to protect new york city from new floods. it's going to be the new york city taxpayer these cities are beginning to realize there's going to have to billions of dollars to protect against the damages from sea level rise is not just nature that is caused largely by the fossil fuel so you think. i think the kind of the cities that will be bringing these cases have a pretty good basis for doing that yes. or no searches over investigations in new york or. responsible for climate change. around the world. so far no company has been made to. change. learn german with d w. any time any place. with or with jo jo and her friends. colleagues discuss it in the next day or night christmas spirit says it's better to join the cause of war with friends all over the world. online and interactive. we make up about three quarters of a folks that conduct education we ought to seventy seven percent. want to shape the continent's future to. be part of it enjoying african youngsters testing share their stories their dreams and their challenges. the first seventy seven percent duty dummy's platform africa is charging. player . playing. place. this is deja vu news wire from berlin the temporary truce for eastern ghouta is in question one day after it failed its. effect the fighting resumes with no sign of aid going in or civilians getting out we'll talk to a red cross representative about why he will not send his people into the embattled syrian enclave also coming up. he's a president's son in law and right at the heart of donald trump's in the inner circle reports indicate jared kirshner's top level security clearance has.

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