Climate change deniers revealed as frauds

A lobby group that spent the 1990s denying climate change on behalf of fossil fuel related industries was told by its own scientists that human-caused climate change could not be denied, the New York Times has uncovered.

A memo leaked this week to the Times shows that scientists hired to advise the Global Climate Coalition (GCC) told the lobby group that climate change was an undeniable fact.

An internal report for the coalition, written by its scientific advisers in 1995, reads: “The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied.”

Environmental campaigner George Monbiot said the GCC had taken advantage of media neutrality by maliciously casting doubt on climate change science.

“They didn’t have to win the argument to succeed,” Monbiot said.

“Only to cause as much confusion as possible.”

A spokesperson for the GCC, which disbanded in 2002, said he was not aware of any gap between the private advice given by GCC scientists and the message of its public campaign.