Lawsuits that focus on climate liability—suing companies to make them pay for climate change damages—are part of a long-running strategy by anti-oil and gas activists. However, this campaign is far from a grassroots effort. It’s funded and directed by wealthy donors, and its activists are well-connected with scholars, journalists and politicians who subscribe to the “keep-it-in-the-ground” philosophy.

Well-devised and generously funded environmental campaigns are nothing new. But from the very beginning, the climate litigation campaign has been different. This campaign started with an argument that ExxonMobil had known about climate change long before the public and even the United States government but had tried to cover up this knowledge and mislead the public. This “Exxon Knew” argument was thoroughly debunked and failed in the courts. Yet the #ExxonKnew campaign had a lasting effect and expanded beyond focusing solely on ExxonMobil. It has grown into a well-funded and highly-coordinated collection of activists, politicians, lawyers, academics and pay-for-play journalists, and they have created an echo chamber not just as a vehicle for advocacy, but also to prod government officials to open investigations into oil and gas companies, whom they believe they can harass into obsolescence.

The key goal of the #ExxonKnew campaign according to the agenda of a meeting held at the Rockefeller Family Fund is, “To establish in public’s mind that Exxon is a corrupt institution that has pushed humanity (and all creation) toward climate chaos and grave harm.”

To meet this goal, activists have targeted the company and the entire industry in various ways to create and amplify the #ExxonKnew narrative and obtain internal company documents. Activists partnered with friendly state attorneys general to investigate the company and make use of their vast subpoena powers to gain unprecedented access to internal company documents and attempt to build a legal case. The NY AG is one of the few AGs to continually investigate for years and ultimately filed a lawsuit—under a completely different legal theory than when the investigation was opened. Activists also partnered with lawmakers in Congress who initiated additional investigations. Finally, activists recruited municipalities around the country to file nuisance lawsuits against a handful of energy companies to further increase pressure on the industry.

Activists’ Playbook

The origins of the climate litigation campaign go back more than a decade, but activists began forming a unified strategy—the #ExxonKnew campaign—during a June 2012 conference in La Jolla, California. At the conference, the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Climate Accountability Institute held a strategy session on how they could develop a legal campaign against energy companies that mirrored successful lawsuits against big tobacco companies. According to the activists, success hinged on obtaining internal company documents from ExxonMobil and using them to craft a narrative that misled the public about their knowledge of climate change in a long shot attempt to create liability for the company.

Attendees included top environmental campaigners, lawyers with a history of suing the oil and natural gas industry and lawyers who were involved in successful lawsuits against major tobacco companies.

The workshop attendees identified how strategic litigation could bring internal company documents into the public domain, which activists could then use to develop new narratives against the targeted companies. Their goal from the beginning was to use litigation to obtain internal company documents that could be used to discredit the industry in the eyes of the public according to a summary report that the workshop attendees published:

“One of the most important lessons to emerge from the history of tobacco litigation is the value of bringing internal industry documents to light.”

The first suggested means of obtaining internal documents was through legal avenues—including recruiting friendly state attorneys general to launch investigations under racketeering laws.

“State attorneys general can also subpoena documents, raising the possibility that a single sympathetic state attorney general might have substantial success in bringing key internal documents to light.”

Phase 1: Environmental activists begin finding their “sympathetic state attorneys general”

As documents made available through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests have shown, activists present at the La Jolla conference have been aggressively meeting with state attorneys general and encouraging them to launch a campaign against ExxonMobil, just as they said they would in 2012.

One log of correspondence shows that Lee Wasserman with the Rockefeller Family Fund contacted the NY AG frequently in early 2015 regarding the “activities of specific companies regarding climate change.” The Rockefeller Family Fund has bankrolled groups like Bill McKibben’s 350.org, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and InsideClimate News, all of which have played prominent roles in attacking energy companies over climate change.

In a July 21, 2015, email to a fellow activist, Peter Frumhoff with the Union of Concerned Scientists wrote, “we think there’ll likely be a strong basis for encouraging state (e.g. AG) action forward, and in that context, opportunities for climate scientists to weigh in.”

Friends of the Earth President Erich Pica emailed the Maryland Attorney General’s office in November 2015, offering to brief him on “the potential consumer related complaints and other authorities re: ExxonMobil.”

In a July 2016 forum hosted by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, climate activists including Naomi Oreskes and several representatives from the Union of Concerned Scientists admitted they had been meeting with state AGs who launched climate RICO investigations for over a year.

Phase 2: Groups publish pre-conceived “news” stories to give AGs a hook for investigations

The timing of the actions by the Rockefeller Family Fund and the Union of Concerned Scientists are important, because they preceded publication of major reports that suggest those actions were indeed part of a broader political campaign.

On September 16, 2015, InsideClimate News published the first article in its #ExxonKnew series, falsely alleging that ExxonMobil had reached definitive conclusions on anthropogenic climate change in the 1970s but hid their research from the public. A few weeks later, on October 9, 2015, the Los Angeles Times published another article that was nearly identical in focus and tone, written by students at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Both InsideClimate News and the Columbia program received large sums of money from Rockefeller-linked foundations, including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Rockefeller Family Fund, who have funded nearly every aspect of the #ExxonKnew campaign.

InsideClimate News, in its cover letter for consideration for the Pulitzer Prize, described the Columbia team’s work as “completely independent” of theirs, but conceded that the Los Angeles Times’ story “corroborated our accounts.” However, two months before the Pulitzer cover letter was submitted, E&E News reported that both teams knew of each other’s pursuit of the same story.

Documents obtained in public records requests have also confirmed that InsideClimate News, far from an objective news source, was an active participant in the #ExxonKnew campaign all along. Prior to publication of one of its stories in September 2015, David Sassoon—InsideClimate News’ publisher—emailed an embargoed version to several staffers at Climate Nexus, a Rockefeller-backed PR firm. A Climate Nexus staffer then emailed a group of activists calling for government prosecution of climate skeptics, adding that the #ExxonKnew story would provide the “perfect news hook” for their effort to go after “deniers.”

The InsideClimate News and Columbia teams’ work attracted attention because these organizations had published previously unheralded documents, providing an obvious media hook, which was also a key tactic outlined during the La Jolla conference in 2012. Sassoon even told the Pulitzer committee that his team had “unearthed” the papers.

But many of the documents, reports, and memos cited in the Los Angeles Times and InsideClimate News reports were procured from ExxonMobil’s own public archives at the University of Texas, as well as peer-reviewed academic journals. However, the Rockefeller-backed entities had done their job: the public discussion was now on these “key internal documents,” as the La Jolla activists had envisioned it.

Within weeks of these reports’ publication, the most “sympathetic” state attorney general—Eric Schneiderman (D) of New York—announced he had opened an investigation into ExxonMobil’s statements on climate change. In the months that followed, attorneys general from Massachusetts and the U.S. Virgin Islands announced their own probes.

The same day that the NY AG issued its subpoena, InsideClimate News referenced a “person familiar” with Schneiderman’s investigation, who told the group that the Los Angeles Times and InsideClimate News reports made the issue “more ripe” for an investigation of ExxonMobil.

Less than a week later, in response to questions referencing the reports from InsideClimate News and the Los Angeles Times, Schneiderman told PBS that “the public record is troubling enough” that “we decided we had to bring this investigation.”

Phase 3: With attorneys general in tow, activists seek to amplify campaign with “delegitimize” strategy

On March 29, 2016, Schneiderman, flanked by several other state attorneys general and former Vice President Al Gore, held a press conference announcing an “historic state-based effort to combat climate change.” During the press conference, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey announced that she would launch an investigation of ExxonMobil, basing her decision on information learned through the InsideClimate News and Los Angeles Times reports. But her comments suggested she had already determined ExxonMobil’s guilt before her investigation had even begun:

“Fossil fuel companies that deceived investors and consumers about the dangers of climate change should be, must be, held accountable. That’s why I too have joined in investigating the practices of ExxonMobil. We can all see today the troubling disconnect between what Exxon knew, what industry folks knew, and what the company and industry chose to share with investors and with the American public.”

The #ExxonKnew activists, however, had played a key role behind the scenes prior to that press conference.

As Reuters reported in April 2016, the AGs present at the press conference “received guidance from well-known climate scientists and environmental lawyers in March as some of them opened investigations into Exxon Mobil for allegedly misleading the public about climate change risks.” Reuters went on to describe this as a “previously unknown level of coordination with outside advisors.” Those advisors included Peter Frumhoff from the Union of Concerned Scientists and Matt Pawa, who previously “litigated against Exxon in a global warming case,” according to Reuters. Frumhoff helped organize the 2012 La Jolla conference, while Pawa had been a key presenter on possible legal tactics.

When asked about the meeting, Lee Wasserman from the Rockefeller Family Fund said the coordination should be “considered a good thing—not a conspiracy.”

But that was not the only coordination. A leaked memo from a meeting at the Rockefeller Family Fund’s offices in New York detailed a January 8, 2016, strategy session that brought together folks like Bill McKibben and Jamie Henn of 350.org, Kert Davies, Sharon Eubanks, Bradley Campbell of the Conservation Law Foundation, Carroll Muffett of the Center for International Environmental Law, Naomi Ages of Greenpeace, and—once again—Matt Pawa.

The goals listed on the agenda included establishing “in the public’s mind that Exxon is a corrupt institution,” and to “delegitimize [ExxonMobil] as a political actor.” They would also consider which strategies would be ideal for “creating scandal.”

Phase 4: The truth comes out, but the climate litigation campaign continues

In June 2016, facing public backlash and concerns about threats to the First Amendment, the Virgin Islands’ AG withdrew his subpoena alleging that ExxonMobil knew about climate change. In October 2016, a federal judge issued a discovery order to Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey to determine whether “bias or prejudgment” influenced her decision to initiate a “bad faith” investigation into ExxonMobil. The judge referenced Healey’s remarks at the press conference with Al Gore, and how her comments suggested she had prejudged the outcome of her investigation. In November, the judge extended that discovery order to include Schneiderman.

Emails obtained under Freedom of Information requests have also shown that many of the state AGs invited to the March 29, 2016, press conference with Schneiderman and Al Gore actually refused to join the #ExxonKnew campaign, over concerns about its scope and intent.

David Kaiser of the Rockefeller Family Fund and Valerie Rockefeller Wayne of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund appeared on CBS This Morning in December 2016 and confirmed what InsideClimate News and the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism had repeatedly denied: they funded those groups with the explicit purpose of writing the original #ExxonKnew pieces.

When asked about the Rockefellers funding the #ExxonKnew reports a few months earlier, Lee Wasserman from the Rockefeller Family Fund told Reuters that their support was more general in scope:

We supported public interest journalism to better understand how the fossil fuel industry was dealing with the reality of climate science internally and publicly…No specific company was targeted in our push to drive better public understanding and better climate policy.”

But Kaiser and Wasserman then admitted the exact opposite, writing in the New York Review of Books in December 2016:

“With help from other public charities and foundations, including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF), we paid for a team of independent reporters from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism to try to determine what Exxon and other US oil companies had really known about climate science, and when. Such an investigation seemed promising because Exxon, in particular, has been a leader in the movement to deny the facts of climate change.”

That same month, Kaiser and Wasserman finally disclosed in a separate column that they met with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and pressured him to launch an investigation:

“…the Rockefeller Family Fund (RFF) informed state attorneys general of our concern that ExxonMobil seemed to have failed to disclose to investors the business risks of climate change. We were particularly encouraged by Schneiderman’s interest in this matter, because New York’s Martin Act is arguably the most powerful tool in the nation for investigating possible schemes to defraud.”

Today, the #ExxonKnew campaign continues, but the wealthy donors and environmental activists who manufactured the controversy have little to show for their years of work.

Perhaps frustrated by the lack of progress from the state attorneys general, the La Jolla activists have adjusted their strategy. They have convinced several cities and counties, mostly in California, to sue energy companies over alleged “damages” from climate change. But that new tactic may be backfiring: the municipal plaintiffs are suing for damages that they downplayed to their own investors, raising questions about possible securities fraud. Several of the plaintiffs misrepresented evidence and were called out by a federal judge. New York City is suing oil and natural gas companies for causing climate change, even as it uses oil and natural gas to mitigate climate change.