What made us doubt climate change?

Recent research has shown that oil companies knew about the
threat of climate change decades ago. Yet over forty years, it
has been revealed that they contributed millions of dollars to
think tanks and campaigns to spread doubt and misinformation
about climate change – its existence, the extent of the problem,
and its cause.


Across the US, these revelations have sparked a wave of lawsuits
against the fossil fuel industry, demanding accountability for
climate change – and now a US congressional committee has started
to investigate. Executives from the world’s biggest oil companies
and trade groups have been called to testify before US lawmakers
in October this year, in an inquiry modelled on the tobacco
hearings of the 1990s, which paved the way for far tougher
nicotine regulations.


This week, The Climate Question looks over the evidence behind
these allegations – and asks whether Big Oil might finally be
facing a reckoning for its role in the climate crisis.


Presenters: Neal Razzell and Phoebe Keane Producer: Zoe Gelber
Series Editor: Ros Jones Editor: Emma Rippon