Electric utilities misled the public on climate change for decades
Based on E.L. Williams, S.A. Bartone, E.K. Swanson, and L.S. Stokes. “The American electric utility industry's role in promoting climate denial, doubt, and delay,” Environmental Research Letters (2022).
Significant parts of the American electric utility industry actively promoted climate doubt and denial, and later delayed climate action. Utilities that maintain the most fossil assets today also historically promoted the most denial, doubt and delay.
The Policy Problem
Oil and gas companies conducted in-house research and knew, earlier than most of us, that fossil fuel combustion was driving climate change. Motivated by their financial interests in fossil fuels, an array of corporations, trade associations, think tanks, lobbying firms and faith-based organizations built an opposition movement (Brulle 2019). Despite growing scientific consensus on human-caused global warming, these groups spread disinformation in the form of climate doubt, denial and delay.
Climate disinformation is harmful: it can affect media coverage, public opinion and— as a result—the feasibility of political action. It is now well-established that the fossil fuel industry undermined climate science, publicly casting doubt on the existence of global warming and its human cause (Supran and Oreskes 2017, Bonneuil et al 2021). We have known less about the role of other industries such as electric utilities—this research addresses that gap.
Key Findings and Proposed Solutions
In the 1980s, the utility industry joined hands with oil and gas companies to cast doubt on climate science.
Throughout the 1990s, despite the established scientific consensus on human-caused climate change, utilities shifted toward outright climate denial, including founding front groups to spread climate disinformation.
By the 2000s, utilities’ messaging shifted to delay, shifting responsibility to other countries and sectors, and promoting CCS and “clean coal” as the most promising climate solutions.
Utilities sell electricity – not fossil fuels, so they don’t need fossil fuels to survive. Recent policy successes increase incentives to decarbonize, clearing the path for utilities to move toward clean electricity and electrification.