Opinion paper Special Issues

An old climate war

  • Received: 17 June 2022 Revised: 23 August 2022 Accepted: 23 August 2022 Published: 29 August 2022
  • During the 1990s a 'war' was fought over climate change between the author and some (not all) of his senior colleagues at the World Energy Council. There were two strands to his work: serious energy analysis and consideration of possible futures; and potential climate change. In the latter role he came up against stringent and often ill-informed criticism of his work and actions. Ill-informed because the critics did not appear to be aware of the serious and widely supported (within the WEC) published works of the WEC; and were frequently incorrect in what they claimed the author had said or written, or wrongly attributed to him actions by others outside the WEC. The record of relevant WEC publications, and the attacks made by those seeking to deny climate change or obfuscate debate on the related issues from the American Petroleum Institute, Global Climate Coalition, and US Climate Council, are related here. Everything here is based upon written records (unpublished as well as published) in the author's possession and his recollections.

    Citation: Michael Jefferson. An old climate war[J]. AIMS Energy, 2022, 10(5): 972-986. doi: 10.3934/energy.2022044

    Related Papers:

  • During the 1990s a 'war' was fought over climate change between the author and some (not all) of his senior colleagues at the World Energy Council. There were two strands to his work: serious energy analysis and consideration of possible futures; and potential climate change. In the latter role he came up against stringent and often ill-informed criticism of his work and actions. Ill-informed because the critics did not appear to be aware of the serious and widely supported (within the WEC) published works of the WEC; and were frequently incorrect in what they claimed the author had said or written, or wrongly attributed to him actions by others outside the WEC. The record of relevant WEC publications, and the attacks made by those seeking to deny climate change or obfuscate debate on the related issues from the American Petroleum Institute, Global Climate Coalition, and US Climate Council, are related here. Everything here is based upon written records (unpublished as well as published) in the author's possession and his recollections.



    加载中


    [1] Michael E (2021) The new climate war: The fight to take back our planet. Scribe, London, UK, page 230.
    [2] Supran G, Oreskes N (2021) Rhetoric and frame analysis of ExxonMobil's climate change communications. One Earth 4: 696–719. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2021.04.014 doi: 10.1016/j.oneear.2021.04.014
    [3] WEC Commission (1993) Energy for tomorrow's world—the realities, the real options and the agenda for achievement. St. Martin's Press, London UK, and New York, USA.
    [4] WEC Commission (1994) Energy for tomorrow's world: Global emissions cases. World Energy Council, London, UK.
    [5] Houghton JT (1992) Climate change 1992: The supplementary report to the IPCC scientific assessment. 1992, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
    [6] Houghton JT (1994) Global warming: The complete briefing. first edition, 1994, Lion Publishing, Oxford, England. World Energy Council and IPCC scenarios, 154–155.
    [7] Bolin B (2007) A history of the science and politics of climate change: The role of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge University Press, 92–93.
    [8] Nakicenovic N (1995) Global energy perspectives to 2050 and beyond. World Energy Council/IIASA.
    [9] Nakicenovic N (1998) Global energy perspectives. Cambridge University Press.
    [10] Darnell J, Michael J (1994) New renewable energy resources: A guide to the future. London, UK.
    [11] Wright R, Hiroki S, Frank T (2013) From world power conference to world energy council: 90 years of energy cooperation. World Energy Council, London, UK, page 50.
    [12] WEC Working Group 4A (1994) Report No. 1: Post-Rio 92—Developments relating to climate change. WEC, London, page 5.
    [13] Jefferson M (1994) Executive summary in: WEC draft report No. 2: Post-Rio 92 developments relating to climate change. Unpublished work.
    [14] World Energy Council (1994) Fax Ref. K.1/11-WGA of 3 October 1994 to WGA control panel members, 1. Copy in the author's possession.
    [15] World Energy Council (1995) Statement to the first conference of the parties to the united nations framework convention on climate change. WEC, London, UK.
    [16] World Energy Council (1995) Post-Rio 92—Developments relating to climate change. Report No. 3, April 1995, WEC, London, page 5.
    [17] World Energy Council (1995) Potential climate change. Report No. 4. September 1995, WEC, London.
    [18] Jefferson M (2015) IPCC fifth assessment synthesis report: Climate change 2014. Longer report: Critical analysis. March 2015, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Book review. 92: 362–363.
    [19] World Energy Council (1996) Climate change 1995: The intergovernmental panel on climate change second assessment report reviewed. Report No. 5, March 1996, WEC, London.
    [20] Bryant DP (1996) Fax of 1 April, 1996, in the author's possession.
    [21] World Energy Council (1996) Climate change negotiations: COP-2 and Beyond. Report No. 6, September 1996, WEC, London, page 2.
    [22] World Energy Council (1997) Climate change negotiations: on track for Kyoto? Report No. 7, May 1997, WEC, London, from Executive Summary.
    [23] World Energy Council (1998) The Kyoto conference and protocol. Report No. 8, December1997/updated July 1998, WEC London.
    [24] Hollins GP (1998) Fax copied to Hon. John Fraser and Art Birchenough (Chairman, Energy Council of Canada), dated 11 February 1998, in the author's possession.
  • Reader Comments
  • © 2022 the Author(s), licensee AIMS Press. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)
通讯作者: 陈斌, bchen63@163.com
  • 1. 

    沈阳化工大学材料科学与工程学院 沈阳 110142

  1. 本站搜索
  2. 百度学术搜索
  3. 万方数据库搜索
  4. CNKI搜索

Metrics

Article views(1062) PDF downloads(119) Cited by(0)

Article outline

Other Articles By Authors

/

DownLoad:  Full-Size Img  PowerPoint
Return
Return

Catalog