 | |
| Motto | "Carbon Dioxide is Essential for Life" |
|---|---|
| Founder(s) | Roger Cohen, William Happer, Rodney W. Nichols |
| Established | 2015 |
| Focus | Environmental policy |
| Key people | Gregory Wrightstone, Executive Director |
| Location | , |
| Website | co2coalition |
The CO2 Coalition is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit advocacy organization in the United States founded in 2015. [1] Its climate change denialist claims [2] conflict with the scientific consensus on climate change.
The CO2 Coalition is a successor to the George C. Marshall Institute, a think tank focusing on defense and climate issues which closed in 2015. William O'Keefe, a chief executive officer of the Marshall Institute and former CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, continued as CEO of the CO2 Coalition. William Happer, an emeritus professor of physics known for disagreeing with the consensus on climate change, was another CO2 Coalition founder from the Marshall Institute. Happer said the association with climate contrarianism had negatively affected Marshall Institute funding, viz: "Many foundations that would normally have supported defense would not do it because of the Marshall name being associated with climate". The defense activities of the Marshall Institute were moved to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. [3] [4] [5]
In its first four years, the CO2 Coalition received over $1 million in contributions from foundations that support conservative causes and from energy industry officials. [4]
In 2023, John Clauser joined the board of the CO2 Coalition. [6] [7]
The CO2 Coalition was one of over 40 organizations to sign a letter dated May 8, 2017, to President Donald Trump thanking him for his campaign promise to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, [8] which Trump announced on June 1, 2017.
In 2021 the CO2 Coalition submitted a public comment opposing climate change disclosure rules by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The Coalition asserted "There is no 'climate crisis' and there is no evidence that there will be one," and further "Carbon dioxide, the gas purported to be the cause of catastrophic warming, is not toxic and does no harm." [9] Both assertions are at odds with the scientific consensus on climate change.
In 2022 the Coalition submitted a public comment on climate-related risks to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, concluding "Real science demonstrates there is no climate emergency and there are no climate-related financial or other risks caused by fossil fuels and CO2." [10] The comment criticized the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment reports and U.S. National Climate Assessments, the authoritative consensus summaries of climate science that inform public policy: [11] [12]
Frankly, the "science" cited to support of the CFTC inquiry and possible action is merely government opinion by the International Panel for Climate Change [ sic ] (IPCC) and the U.S. Global Climate Research Program [ sic ] (USGCRP), which is not science and cannot be used as the scientific basis for any CFTC or other government action." [13]
In 2023 a CO2 Coalition booth was ejected from the National Science Teaching Association annual convention. The Coalition distributed a children's comic book teaching about carbon dioxide as an essential part of life. Climate scientist Andrew Dessler said "By focusing 100 percent on this idea that plants need CO2, they’re intentionally misleading people by avoiding the real problems of CO2, which they didn’t talk about at all." [14] The Coalition also distributed a pamphlet challenging what it called "NSTA's embrace of the hypothesis of 'harmful man-made warming' despite its basis in flawed science and government opinions...." [14] [15] In the contract for appearing at the convention, the organization had agreed its materials would be consistent with the NSTA position on climate change. [14]
As of February 2023 [update] the CO2 Coalition had published twelve white papers, six 'climate issues in-depth', eight science policy briefs, coalition member testimonies, and coalition member publications. [16] The group continues to speak publicly and issue press releases on issues relating to energy production, climate change, and advocating for fossil fuels. [17]
The Global Climate Coalition (GCC) (1989–2001) was an international lobbyist group of businesses that opposed action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and engaged in climate change denial, publicly challenging the science behind global warming. The GCC was the largest industry group active in climate policy and the most prominent industry advocate in international climate negotiations. The GCC was involved in opposition to the Kyoto Protocol, and played a role in blocking ratification by the United States. The coalition knew it could not deny the scientific consensus, but sought to sow doubt over the scientific consensus on climate change and create manufactured controversy.
The Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Tempe, Arizona. It is seen as a front group for the fossil fuel industry, and as promoting climate change denial. The Center produces a weekly online newsletter called CO2Science.
The George C. Marshall Institute (GMI) was a nonprofit conservative think tank in the United States. It was established in 1984 with a focus on science and public policy issues and had an initial focus in defense policy. Starting in the late 1980s, the institute advocated for views in line with environmental skepticism, most notably climate change denial. The think tank received extensive financial support from the fossil fuel industry.
The Cooler Heads Coalition is a politically conservative "informal and ad-hoc group" in the United States, financed and operated by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. The group, which rejects the scientific consensus on climate change, made efforts to stop the government from addressing climate change.
Myron Ebell is an American climate change denier who served as the Director of Global Warming and International Environmental Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), an American libertarian advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. He was also chairman of the Cooler Heads Coalition, a politically conservative group formed in 1997 focused on "dispelling the myths of global warming by exposing flawed economic, scientific, and risk analysis". In September 2016, Ebell was appointed by then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to lead his transition team for the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
David Russell Legates is a former professor of geography at the University of Delaware. He is the former Director of the Center for Climatic Research at the same university and a former Delaware state climatologist. In September 2020, the Trump administration appointed him as deputy assistant secretary of commerce for observation and prediction at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Friends of Science(FoS) is a non-profit advocacy organization based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The organization rejects the established scientific consensus that humans are largely responsible for the currently observed global warming. Rather, they propose that "the Sun is the main direct and indirect driver of climate change," not human activity. They argued against the Kyoto Protocol. The society was founded in 2002 and launched its website in October of that year. They are largely funded by the fossil fuel industry.
The Great Global Warming Swindle is a 2007 British polemical documentary film directed by Martin Durkin. The film denies the scientific consensus about the reality and causes of climate change, justifying this by suggesting that climatology is influenced by funding and political factors. The program was formally criticised by Ofcom, the UK broadcasting regulatory agency, which ruled the film failed to uphold due impartiality and upheld complaints of misrepresentation made by David King, who appeared in the film.
Climate change denial is a form of science denial characterized by rejecting, refusing to acknowledge, disputing, or fighting the scientific consensus on climate change. Those promoting denial commonly use rhetorical tactics to give the appearance of a scientific controversy where there is none. Climate change denial includes unreasonable doubts about the extent to which climate change is caused by humans, its effects on nature and human society, and the potential of adaptation to global warming by human actions. To a lesser extent, climate change denial can also be implicit when people accept the science but fail to reconcile it with their belief or action. Several studies have analyzed these positions as forms of denialism, pseudoscience, or propaganda.
Tom Victor Segalstad is a Norwegian geologist. He has taught geology and geophysics at the University of Oslo, Norway, and at Pennsylvania State University, United States.
Willard Anthony Watts is an American blogger who runs Watts Up With That?, a climate change denial blog that opposes the scientific consensus on climate change. A former television meteorologist and current radio meteorologist, he is also founder of the Surface Stations project, a volunteer initiative to document the condition of U.S. weather stations. The Heartland Institute helped fund some of Watts' projects, including publishing a report on the Surface Stations project, and invited him to be a paid speaker at its International Conference on Climate Change from 2008 to 2014.
The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition was a anthropogenic climate change denial organisation in New Zealand, formed in 2006 with aim of "refuting what it believes were unfounded claims about anthropogenic global warming". The Coalition came to prominence in 2010 when it challenged the methodology and accuracy of NIWA's historical temperature records in court. The Coalition lost the case, could not afford to pay costs awarded against it and was forced into liquidation. There is an unrelated website called the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition which is an American blog also written by climate change deniers. The American website links to a different URL to the original URL associated with the New Zealand website which no longer exists.
The International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC) is a conference series organized and sponsored by The Heartland Institute which aims to bring together those who "dispute that the science is settled on the causes, consequences, and policy implications of climate change." The first conference took place in 2008.
William Happer is an American physicist who has specialized in the study of atomic physics, optics and spectroscopy. He is the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics, emeritus, at Princeton University, and a long-term member of the JASON advisory group, where he pioneered the development of adaptive optics. From 1991 to 1993, Happer served as director of the Department of Energy's Office of Science as part of the George H.W. Bush administration. He was dismissed from the Department of Energy in 1993 by the Clinton Administration after disagreements on the ozone hole.
Watts Up With That? (WUWT) is a blog promoting climate change denial that was created by Anthony Watts in 2006.
Judith A. Curry is an American climatologist and former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research interests include hurricanes, remote sensing, atmospheric modeling, polar climates, air-sea interactions, climate models, and the use of unmanned aerial vehicles for atmospheric research. She was a member of the National Research Council's Climate Research Committee, published over a hundred scientific papers, and co-edited several major works. Curry retired from academia in 2017 at age 63, coinciding with her public climate change skepticism.
Indur M. Goklany is a science policy advisor in the United States Department of the Interior (DOI). Trained as an electrical engineer, he has often promoted views at odds with the scientific consensus on climate change, falsely asserting that there is a lack of agreement among scientists and arguing that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide has various beneficial effects.
From the 1980s to mid 2000s, ExxonMobil was a leader in climate change denial, opposing regulations to curtail global warming. For example, ExxonMobil was a significant influence in preventing ratification of the Kyoto Protocol by the United States. ExxonMobil funded organizations critical of the Kyoto Protocol and seeking to undermine public opinion about the scientific consensus that global warming is caused by the burning of fossil fuels. Of the major oil corporations, ExxonMobil has been the most active in the debate surrounding climate change. According to a 2007 analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists, the company used many of the same strategies, tactics, organizations, and personnel the tobacco industry used in its denials of the link between lung cancer and smoking.
The Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C (SR15) was published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on 8 October 2018. The report, approved in Incheon, South Korea, includes over 6,000 scientific references, and was prepared by 91 authors from 40 countries. In December 2015, the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference called for the report. The report was delivered at the United Nations' 48th session of the IPCC to "deliver the authoritative, scientific guide for governments" to deal with climate change. Its key finding is that meeting a 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) target is possible but would require "deep emissions reductions" and "rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society". Furthermore, the report finds that "limiting global warming to 1.5 °C compared with 2 °C would reduce challenging impacts on ecosystems, human health and well-being" and that a 2 °C temperature increase would exacerbate extreme weather, rising sea levels and diminishing Arctic sea ice, coral bleaching, and loss of ecosystems, among other impacts.
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