Rhetoric and frame analysis of ExxonMobil's climate change communications

Supran, Geoffrey; Орескес, Наоми

doi:10.1016/j.oneear.2021.04.014

Cited by 173 publications

(78 citation statements)

References 110 publications

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“…This includes reports that all four majors continue to lobby governments to hamper or weaken carbon pricing policies [ 112 – 114 ], to secure favorable fiscal support, and to weaken environmental regulations [ 3 , 29 , 115 , 116 ]. Also in the goal of obstructing the progress of decarbonization, they continue to redirect the responsibility for reducing GHG emissions to consumers [ 25 , 117 ] while diffusing misleading advertisements that fossil fuels (especially gas) are green [ 30 , 118 , 119 ] and exaggerating the scale of clean energy investments [ 119 ].…”

Section: Conclusion and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Multiple studies document how oil majors have strategically spread misinformation and aggressively obstructed progress toward climate action. ExxonMobil is a flagrant example, having strategically denied climate change and propagated disinformation to mislead the public for over 20 years [24][25][26]. Multiple majors have tried to shift the responsibility for climate change onto consumers (BP's promotion of reducing individual carbon footprints is one example) [25,27,28].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…ExxonMobil is a flagrant example, having strategically denied climate change and propagated disinformation to mislead the public for over 20 years [24][25][26]. Multiple majors have tried to shift the responsibility for climate change onto consumers (BP's promotion of reducing individual carbon footprints is one example) [25,27,28]. The biggest American and European majors have also spent millions lobbying to delay or weaken climate policy [3,15,29].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The clean energy claims of BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell: A mismatch between discourse, actions and investments

Trencher

Asuka

2022

PLoS ONE

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The energy products of oil and gas majors have contributed significantly to global greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and planetary warming over the past century. Decarbonizing the global economy by mid-century to avoid dangerous climate change thus cannot occur without a profound transformation of their fossil fuel-based business models. Recently, several majors are increasingly discussing clean energy and climate change, pledging decarbonization strategies, and investing in alternative energies. Some even claim to be transforming into clean energy companies. Given a history of obstructive climate actions and “greenwashing”, there is a need to objectively evaluate current and historical decarbonization efforts and investment behavior. This study focuses on two American (Chevron, ExxonMobil) and two European majors (BP, Shell). Using data collected over 2009–2020, we comparatively examine the extent of decarbonization and clean energy transition activity from three perspectives: (1) keyword use in annual reports (discourse); (2) business strategies (pledges and actions); and (3) production, expenditures and earnings for fossil fuels along with investments in clean energy (investments). We found a strong increase in discourse related to “climate”, “low-carbon” and “transition”, especially by BP and Shell. Similarly, we observed increasing tendencies toward strategies related to decarbonization and clean energy. But these are dominated by pledges rather than concrete actions. Moreover, the financial analysis reveals a continuing business model dependence on fossil fuels along with insignificant and opaque spending on clean energy. We thus conclude that the transition to clean energy business models is not occurring, since the magnitude of investments and actions does not match discourse. Until actions and investment behavior are brought into alignment with discourse, accusations of greenwashing appear well-founded.

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Section: Conclusion and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The clean energy claims of BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell: A mismatch between discourse, actions and investments

Trencher

Asuka

2022

PLoS ONE

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“…It is therefore important to explore how multivocal inscription legitimizes the status quo or slows down action to address the challenge. In the case of fossil fuel companies, for instance, scholars have analyzed the utility of clever wordplay (e.g., see Lefsrud, Graves, & Phillips, 2017 on "ethical oil"), façades (Cho, Laine, Roberts, & Rodrigue, 2015), and communication strategies that deflect attention toward individual responsibilities (Supran & Oreskes, 2021). More generally, multivocal inscription cuts both ways; it can promote both activism and inactivism (Mann, 2021).…”

Section: Multivocal Inscriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Robust Action: Advancing a Distinctive Approach to Grand Challenges

Gehman¹,

Etzion²,

Ferraro³

2022

Research in the Sociology of Organizations

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Although management scholars have embraced grand challenges research, in many cases, grand challenges have been treated as merely a context for exploring extant theoretical perspectives. By comparison, our approach -robust action -provides a novel theoretical framework for tackling grand challenges. In this invited article, we revisit our 2015 model, clarifying and elaborating its key elements and taking stock of subsequent developments. We then identify three promising directions for future research: scaffolding, future imaginaries, and distributed actorhood. Ultimately, our core message is remarkably simple: robust action strategies -participatory architecture, multivocal inscription and distributed experimentation -jointly provide a means for tackling grand challenges that is well matched to their complexities, uncertainties, and evaluativities.

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“…Importantly, the construct of a social dilemma captures how individual decisions are constrained by the more structural and macro-forces in play. Understanding how these constraints are woven into societal institutions, policies and cultural expectations, both incidentally and purposefully [26,27], can highlight the need for change at multiple levels.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Escaping the Climate Trap: Participation in a Climate-Specific Social Dilemma Simulation Boosts Climate-Protective Motivation and Actions

Druen

Zawadzki

2021

Sustainability

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One way in which educators can help to address increasingly pressing environmental problems, including climate change, is to encourage individuals to change their behavior and to press for structural changes in society. The promotion of climate-protective behavior is challenging because the payoffs for various actions and inactions are structured such that they create social dilemmas. The conflict between short-term personal benefit and long-term collective gain in such dilemmas often leads to self-serving motives that can ultimately be self-defeating. We created a social dilemma simulation specific to climate change, called Climate Trap: Social Dilemma Simulation, to help students observe how they and others respond to these conflicts, and predicted that doing so would lead to climate-protective motivations and behaviors after the simulation. The simulation participants (N = 344) reported greater confidence in their knowledge and understanding of the social dilemma context of climate change, higher environmental concern and more self-determined motivation to act, and they engaged in more climate-protective behaviors compared to the students who did not complete the simulation. Moreover, the simulation participants reported greater pro-environmental engagement on all of the measures after the simulation compared to before they participated in the simulation. The results suggest that a climate-specific social dilemma simulation can create uniquely motivating experiences, and can have utility as a teaching tool, research instrument and intervention.

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Rhetoric and frame analysis of ExxonMobil's climate change communications

Cited by 173 publications

References 110 publications

The clean energy claims of BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell: A mismatch between discourse, actions and investments

The clean energy claims of BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell: A mismatch between discourse, actions and investments

Robust Action: Advancing a Distinctive Approach to Grand Challenges

Escaping the Climate Trap: Participation in a Climate-Specific Social Dilemma Simulation Boosts Climate-Protective Motivation and Actions

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