Exxon under investigation by NY for historic climate denial

A legal investigation was triggered this week to determine the extent to which oil multinational giant Exxon Mobil conducted research in the 1970s about human-caused climate change, then lied to the American public about the risks of global warming for decades.

The New York Attorney General issued a subpoena on Wednesday demanding that the company — then known as Exxon — hand over historic corporate memos related to its research on climate change going back four decades. The probe was fuelled by the disclosure of many such documents this year by investigative journalists at Inside Climate, The LA Times and the Columbia School of Journalism.

Kert Davies with the Climate Investigations Center in Washington D.C. says the memos made public so far reveal that Exxon scientists had reached serious conclusions about the harm its oil products could do to impact climate change.