Shell Knew Fossil Fuels Created Climate Change Risks Back in 1980s, Internal Documents Show

A trove of documents shows the oil company’s scientists urged its leaders to heed the warnings.  That could now play into lawsuits over global warming.

Internal company documents uncovered by a Dutch news organization show that the oil giant Shell had a deep understanding, dating at least to the 1980s, of the science and risks of global warming caused by fossil fuel emissions.

They show that as the company pondered its responsibility to act, Shell's scientists urged it to heed the early warnings, even if, as they said, it might take until the 2000s for the mounting evidence to prove greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were causing unnatural climate change.

"With the very long time scales involved, it would be tempting for society to wait until then before doing anything," company researchers wrote in a 1988 report based on studies completed in 1986.  "The potential implications for the world are, however, so large that policy options need to be considered much earlier.  And the energy industry needs to consider how it should play its part."

Otherwise, a team of Shell experts said, "it could be too late to take effective countermeasures to reduce the effects or even to stabilize the situation."

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