The Global Role of the Oil and Gas Industry in Climate Delay and Denial

In the years since the 2015 Paris Agreement, the oil and gas industry has gone to great lengths to portray itself as a committed climate leader. This chapter surveys a large and growing body of academic literature and investigative journalism that reveals that this current stance is the latest iteration of a decades-long strategy to obstruct global progress on mitigating climate change. It documents three primary obstruction tactics deployed by oil and gas producers: undermining or denying scientific results, utilizing socioeconomic scare tactics to achieve tactical delay, and co-opting or trying to shape the environmental policy discourse on terms favorable for the industry. By learning to identify these tactics, climate advocates and governing bodies can gain a better understanding of how to neutralize and overcome them.