Electric utilities join Big Oil in engaging in climate dishonesty campaigns to benefit polluters
Big Oil isn’t the only industry using a nefarious playbook to keep profits up along with pollution, according to a new study in Environmental Research Letters. The study examines the ways that utility companies have shifted their rhetoric from aligning with scientific findings to pushing doubt and denial from 1990 to 2000 to then calling for delayed action and shifting the blame to other industries rather than dealing with their own roles in the climate crisis.
This includes electric companies like Entergy, Duke, and Dominion, as well as trade organizations like the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) and Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). The tactics mirror much of the activity seen by the likes of Exxon and Chevron, the American Petroleum Institute, and faux coalitions set up by the fossil fuel industry. In fact, the electric utility sector draws a parallel in its game plan to some of Exxon’s own misdeeds, the study authors found.