The American electric utility industry’s role in promoting climate denial, doubt, and delay
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 15544795 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Emily Williams (0000-0002-7261-3071, University of California, Santa Barbara, corresponding author), Sydney A Bartone (University of California, Santa Barbara), Emma K Swanson (University of California, Santa Barbara), Leah Stokes (0000-0002-9919-8664, University of California, Santa Barbara) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 17 |
| Issue | 9 |
| Pages | 094026-094026 |
| Publication date | 2022-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Environmental Research Letters (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1748-9326 • E-ISSN: 1748-9326 |
| Publisher | IOP Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1088/1748-9326/ac8ab3 |
| OpenAlex | W4294163599 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 13 |
| References cited | 23 |
It is now well established that fossil fuel companies contributed to undermining climate science and action. In this paper, we examine the extent to which American electric utilities and affiliated organizations’ public messaging contributed to climate denial, doubt, and delay. We examined 188 documents on climate change authored by organizations in and affiliated with the utility industry from 1968 to 2019. Before 1980, electric utilities’ messaging was generally in-line with the scientific understanding of climate change. However, from 1990 to 2000, utility organizations founded and funded front groups that promoted climate doubt and denial. After 2000, these front groups were largely shut down, and utility organizations shifted to arguing for delayed action on climate change, by highlighting the responsibility of other sectors and promoting actions other than cleaning up the electricity system. Overall, our results suggest that electric utility industry organizations have promoted messaging designed to avoid taking action on reducing pollution over multiple decades. Notably, many of the utilities most engaged in communicating climate doubt and denial in the past currently have the slowest plans to decarbonize their electricity mix
Action (physics · Business · Climate change · Climate science · Denial · Economics · Electric utility · Electricity · Climate Change Communication and Perception · Engineering · Psychology · Risk Perception and Management · Social Acceptance of Renewable Energy
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| Unique citing works | 13 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 4,33 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2026 (4) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 13 |