It’s only been a few weeks since the last uncritical climate attribution story, but climate activists are still trying to keep it in the headlines. This time the Union of Concerned Scientists is out with a study claiming that half of all ocean acidification can be blamed on just 88 companies, specifically targeting major energy producers.
The study, which appeared in the scientific journal Environmental Research Letters, relies on data from the Climate Accountability Institute (CAI), and tries to work backwards to determine how much ocean acidification occurred because of the emissions released by the 88 largest gas, oil and coal producers and cement manufacturers during fossil fuel extraction, production, and use.
Like previous climate attribution studies, this paper relies heavily on the work of Richard Heede, who is also one of its co-authors. Heede is an early member of the climate liability movement and co-founded CAI with anti-fossil fuel research Naomi Oreskes.
To say CAI has an anti-energy bias is to put it mildly. Since its founding, the CAI has worked to undermine energy companies by churning out research in explicit support of an endless series of lawsuits. As co-host of the infamous 2012 La Jolla conference where activists designed a legal strategy against oil companies, the group can claim to have launched the movement. Since then, it has sponsored several studies trying desperately to tie specific fossil fuel companies to climate change impacts.
Heede recently revealed that his research is not undertaken in the pursuit of objective truth – indeed, he and the activist group Union of Concerned Scientist are the only researchers contributing to this field of “science.” Instead, Heede has from the beginning established this field for the sole purpose of suing energy companies:
“The Climate Accountability Institute was formed in 2011 to confront fossil fuel companies. … We work with investigators, human rights commissioners, advocates and lawyers in an effort to curb the carbon industry’s enthusiasm for unabated fossil fuel development. ”
That certainly seems to be the case with this study, which the dark money activist website Climate Liability News covered in an article that linked it to the lawsuit filed by the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Association (PCFFA) filed against 30 energy companies last year. The lawsuit argues that global warming has led to lower fish counts—an argument that would be helped by the study’s conclusion. The most recent study was likely intended to help support the case.
And this isn’t the only tie to the climate lawsuits. Another of the study’s co-authors is Peter Frumhoff of the Union of Concerned Scientists. Frumhoff has long been one of the largest cheerleaders for climate liability suits. He was the one who briefed state attorneys general, including Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey at a meeting immediately before she announced her investigation of ExxonMobil in 2016. Since then he continues to speak at events promoting the lawsuits and is an outspoken critic of fossil fuel use.
In the end, all of this work tracks back to funding from the Rockefellers, the wealthy anti-fossil fuel donors who have manufactured the climate litigation campaign. The CAI has received funding from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund to support Heede’s climate attribution research. Going further, in the ocean acidification study’s acknowledgements, the authors thank the Rockefeller Family Fund to the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Wallace Global Fund. Heede further thanks the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and UCS for financial support.
This latest study looks like a clear attempt by familiar names to bolster the climate liability lawsuits currently languishing in courts across the country.
