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Early warnings and emerging accountability: Total’s responses to global warming, 1968-2021

Author

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  • Christophe Bonneuil

    (CRH (UMR 8558 CNRS / EHESS) - Centre de Recherches Historiques (CRH) _ Unité Mixte de Recherches (UMR 8558 CNRS / EHESS) - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Pierre-Louis Choquet

    (CSO - Centre de sociologie des organisations (Sciences Po, CNRS) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Benjamin Franta

    (Stanford University)

Abstract

Building upon recent work on other major fossil fuel companies, we report new archival research and primary source interviews describing how Total responded to evolving climate science and policy in the last 50 years. We show that Total personnel received warnings of the potential for catastrophic global warming from its products by 1971, became more fully informed of the issue in the 1980s, began promoting doubt regarding the scientific basis for global warming by the late 1980s, and ultimately settled on a position in the late 1990s of publicly accepting climate science while promoting policy delay or policies peripheral to fossil fuel control. Additionally, we find that Exxon, through the International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association (IPIECA), coordinated an international campaign to dispute climate science and weaken international climate policy, beginning in the 1980s. This represents one of the first longitudinal studies of a major fossil fuel company's responses to global warming to the present, describing historical stages of awareness, preparation, denial, and delay.

Suggested Citation

  • Christophe Bonneuil & Pierre-Louis Choquet & Benjamin Franta, 2021. "Early warnings and emerging accountability: Total’s responses to global warming, 1968-2021," SciencePo Working papers Main halshs-03390521, HAL.
  • Handle: RePEc:hal:spmain:halshs-03390521
    DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102386
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03390521
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Keywords

    Oil industry; Climate change; Global warming; Agnotology; Denial; Public relations;
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