Geoffrey Supran's avatar

Geoffrey Supran

@geoffreysupran.bsky.social

713 followers 67 following 91 posts

Professor of Environmental Science & Policy and Director of Climate Accountability Lab at University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science. Investigating Big Oil's climate propaganda. Formerly Harvard, MIT, Cambridge.

Geoffrey Supran's avatar Geoffrey Supran @geoffreysupran.bsky.social
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"PR firms & media companies have been aiding & abetting fossil fuel propagandists for decades & today’s speech [by the UN Secretary General] puts them on notice like never before" - Thx to BBC News for having me on to discuss António Guterres's call to ban fossil fuel ads. x.com/GeoffreySupr...

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Geoffrey Supran's avatar Geoffrey Supran @geoffreysupran.bsky.social
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Banning or boycotting fossil-fuel ads would "hit oil companies where it hurts" by "removing one of the key cogs in Big Oil's climate denial & delay machine" - My take to
The Guardian's @dharna.bsky.social on the UN Secretary General's call to ban fossil fuel ads. www.theguardian.com/media/articl...

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Geoffrey Supran's avatar Geoffrey Supran @geoffreysupran.bsky.social
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This is massive. UN Secretary General calls for a worldwide ban on fossil fuel advertising. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

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Geoffrey Supran's avatar Geoffrey Supran @geoffreysupran.bsky.social
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RIGHT NOW: US Senate Budget Committee formally refers its 3-year investigation of Big Oil's "continuing pattern of...knowingly & misleading the public" on climate change to Department of Justice. "The complaint writes itself," says Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. www.youtube.com/watch?app=de...

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Reposted by Geoffrey Supran

Geoffrey Supran's avatar Geoffrey Supran @geoffreysupran.bsky.social
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Didn’t expect to be invited to Congress to testify as an expert witness about Big Oil’s climate deceit only for a Senator to ask me if I'd call him a “sick f*ck” based on a Tweet I’d never seen 😂. Thanks to HEATED's @emorwee.bsky.social for setting the record straight: heated.world/p/gop-senato...

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Geoffrey Supran's avatar Geoffrey Supran @geoffreysupran.bsky.social
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Honored & excited to be testifying to Congress next Wed at
the Senate Budget Committee's hearing on "Denial, Disinformation, & Doublespeak: Big Oil’s Evolving Efforts to Avoid Accountability for Climate Change", w/ Rep Jamie Raskin & lawyer Sharon Eubanks: www.budget.senate.gov/hearings/den...

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Geoffrey Supran's avatar Geoffrey Supran @geoffreysupran.bsky.social
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For the first time in its 28-year history, a UN climate agreement uses the F-words: Fossil Fuels. COP28’s oil tanker-size loopholes notwithstanding, how did we get here? Our 2017 @sciam piece sums up the confluence of forces that have finally named the elephant in the room:

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Geoffrey Supran's avatar Geoffrey Supran @geoffreysupran.bsky.social
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As we (rightly) celebrate the first ever UN climate pact to recognise the role of fossil fuels, just a reminder that fossil fuel interests have known that their products could cause dangerous global heating since before UN climate talks even began three decades ago.

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Geoffrey Supran's avatar Geoffrey Supran @geoffreysupran.bsky.social
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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then a global pact calls for "transitioning away from fossil fuels"... ...then they fight you some more.

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Geoffrey Supran's avatar Geoffrey Supran @geoffreysupran.bsky.social
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OPEC's leaked goal to “proactively reject any [#COP28] text...that targets...fossil fuels, rather than emissions” is, I think, the first *explicit* admission of Big Oil's strategy to shift climate responsibility from supply/fossil fuels to demand/emissions. 1/n www.theguardian.com/environment/...

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Geoffrey Supran's avatar Geoffrey Supran @geoffreysupran.bsky.social
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Fixation on only phasing out "unabated" fossil fuels by some politicians & oil interests at COP28 is reminiscent of Big Oil's history of "appropriating wonky scientific language" to confuse debate & "greenwash their image" - My take to @nytimes.com's Manuela Andreoni: www.nytimes.com/2023/12/07/c...

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Geoffrey Supran's avatar Geoffrey Supran @geoffreysupran.bsky.social
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"It’s really important not to beat around the bush...[this] is literally Big Oil & mainstream media collaborating in PR campaigns for the industry" - My take on how Big Media is helping Big Oil do its climate bidding. 1/n www.thenation.com/article/envi...

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Geoffrey Supran's avatar Geoffrey Supran @geoffreysupran.bsky.social
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There are 2,456 fossil fuel representatives at this year's UN climate talks, and there have been at least 7,200 of them (ultra conservative estimate) over the past 20 years.

Nuf said.
heated.world/p/its-offici...

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Geoffrey Supran's avatar Geoffrey Supran @geoffreysupran.bsky.social
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1989 Exxon internal strategy memo: "Increase emphasis on costs/political realities" of addressing climate change. 2023 COP28 President: Addressing climate change by phasing out fossil fuels will "take the world back into caves".

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Geoffrey Supran's avatar Geoffrey Supran @geoffreysupran.bsky.social
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10/n: The 'Fossil Fuel Saviour' narratives in Woods' remarks are: 1️⃣ Fossil Fuel Solutionism & Technological Shell-Games (aka false, fossil fuel-friendly solutions) 2️⃣ Individualized Responsibility (aka fixation on *demand* & *emissions* rather than *supply* & *fossil fuels*)

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Geoffrey Supran's avatar Geoffrey Supran @geoffreysupran.bsky.social
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8/n: Exxon CEO's call for UN climate talks to focus less on booming renewables & on cutting fossil fuels, which threaten Exxon's business interests, & more on unproven hydrogen, biofuels, & CCS, which don't, is 100% consistent with the company's history of climate denial & delay.

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Geoffrey Supran's avatar Geoffrey Supran @geoffreysupran.bsky.social
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7/n: The evolution of the "predominant framings of [climate] policy targets" since 1992 has been (green):

1️⃣ "stabilization" of climate
2️⃣ % emissions cuts
3️⃣ CO2 concentration
4️⃣ emissions budgets
5️⃣ temp limits

No fossil fuels. What is Exxon's CEO TALKING about?
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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Geoffrey Supran's avatar Geoffrey Supran @geoffreysupran.bsky.social
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5/n: As we wrote, "'The largest, most extraordinary, & damaging misframing' in climate policy, climate communication specialist George Marshall observes, has been that the problem 'could be defined entirely and exclusively as a problem of gases.'" blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations...

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Geoffrey Supran's avatar Geoffrey Supran @geoffreysupran.bsky.social
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3/n: Fossil fuels have been almost ENTIRELY ABSENT from climate negotiations for 30 years. I and others have written numerous articles lamenting this absence - and celebrating the gradual emergence of attention to supply-side climate policy over just the past couple of years.

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Geoffrey Supran's avatar Geoffrey Supran @geoffreysupran.bsky.social
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2/n: Exxon CEO Darren Woods says that UN climate negotiations have "put way too much emphasis on getting rid of fossil fuels, oil and gas, and not . . . on dealing with the emissions associated with them". What an insanely backwards, self-interested thing to claim...

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Geoffrey Supran's avatar Geoffrey Supran @geoffreysupran.bsky.social
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Fun final class of the semester today!: Popcorn 🍿, Ribena 🥤, & my friend & favourite climate comedian in the whole world Rollie Williams Zooming in to talk about his incredible climate storytelling on @climatetown.bsky.social, trying to “find the peanut butter to put on pills of information”.

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Geoffrey Supran's avatar Geoffrey Supran @geoffreysupran.bsky.social
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5/n: It also comes the day after the UK government announced a bill with two completely contradictory goals: (1) To "hel[p] the country to transition to net-zero by 2050" by (2) "support[ing] the future licensing of new oil and gas fields". www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

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Geoffrey Supran's avatar Geoffrey Supran @geoffreysupran.bsky.social
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4/n: The UK net zero minister's claim that oil and gas are "not the problem" comes literally hours after the UN once again confirmed that global fossil fuel production will blow the planet’s carbon budget twice over.

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Geoffrey Supran's avatar Geoffrey Supran @geoffreysupran.bsky.social
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3/n: This is wholly consistent with my & @naomioreskes.bsky.social's 2021 analysis of ExxonMobil's climate rhetoric, which found that "fossil fuel industry discourse [has] encouraged & embodied 'an accelerating individualization of responsibility'".

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Geoffrey Supran's avatar Geoffrey Supran @geoffreysupran.bsky.social
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2/n: For comparison... In 2020, Total's CEO said: "Change will not come from changing the source of supply. You have to reduce demand." And the US Republican Party's 2020 legislative agenda on climate change stated that “fossil fuels aren't the enemy. It's emissions."

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Geoffrey Supran's avatar Geoffrey Supran @geoffreysupran.bsky.social
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UK's net zero minister adopts identical climate change talking points to Big Oil & US Republicans, saying:

“I don’t think supply is the key driver – it is demand"

AND

"There is nothing fundamentally wrong w/ oil & gas...emissions are the problem"

1/n
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

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Geoffrey Supran's avatar Geoffrey Supran @geoffreysupran.bsky.social
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Damning new leaked docs & whistleblowers show McKinsey is "best understood as possibly the most powerful oil & gas consulting firm on the planet posturing as a sustainability firm, advising polluting clients on any opportunity to preserve the status quo." www.france24.com/en/live-news...

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Geoffrey Supran's avatar Geoffrey Supran @geoffreysupran.bsky.social
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So great to have climate journalist extraordinaire @amywestervelt.bsky.social join our class and department seminar today here at @MiamiRosenstiel to talk about the Standard Oil octopus, “a big tent full of clowns”, and much more! Thx for visiting, Amy!

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Reposted by Geoffrey Supran

Akshat Rathi's avatar Akshat Rathi @akshatrathi.bsky.social
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🚨 New investigation & 🧵 Oxy built the world's largest carbon-capture plant by capacity in 2010. It never operated at more than a third of its capacity. In 2022, Oxy quietly sold it for a fraction of the price. Story with Natasha White & Kevin Crowley. Free to read:

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